John Ødemark

• Ødemark, John (2026). Conceptual narratives of knowledge translation and epistemicide: between translation studies and the cultural history of science. I Buts, Jan; Harding, Sue-Ann & Sadler, Neil (Red.), Contesting Translation Studies in Honour of Mona Baker. Routledge. ISSN 9781032871424. s. 49–66. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This chapter explores the interplay of translation and epistemicide. Baker’s narrative approach to translation provides a descriptive meta-language. By employing Baker’s concepts, the chapter examines the tension between two conceptual narratives in the history of science: one that views science as a progressive journey toward modernity beginning with the scientific revolution; and another that perceives scientific modernity as a force that eradicates traditional and Indigenous knowledge systems. This tension is fundamental to the canonical formulations of epistemicide. The chapter relates the literature on epistemicide to the turn towards go-betweens, translation, and hybridity in the cultural history of science, and examines how Indigenous health knowledge was inscribed in a WHO report dealing with how cultural contexts influence the knowledge translation process. The chapter contends that the conceptual narratives underpinning the historiography of science also influence medical knowledge translation (KT), and the construal of the relation between Indigenous medical systems and biomedicine. To understand KT in the asymmetrical power contexts where this relationship operates, it is claimed, concepts of knowledge exchange and epistemicide that transcend clear-cut binaries between cultures, time periods, and systems of knowledge are needed.

• Ødemark, John (2025). Media and Intermediality: Intersemiotic Translation and the Construction of Cultures in the Early Modern Global World. I D’hulst, Lieven (Red.), A Cultural History of Translation. Bloomsbury Academic. ISSN 9781350171800. s. 165–189. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2025). Coda: Anthropos and humanitas – Untranslating cultural history for the Anthropocene. I Bjærke, Marit Ruge; Brenna, Brita; Ekström, Anders & Ødemark, John (Red.), Cultural History and the Anthropocene: Old turns, new encounters. Bloomsbury Academic. ISSN 9781350532632. s. 321–336. doi: 10.5040/9781350532632.0007. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This chapter investigates different styles of cultural history in relation to the challenge of the Anthropocene. It examines the call for a species history of humanity in the context of the struggle between the normative style of classical cultural history and the New Cultural History, a style of inquiry focusing upon local meaning production and opposing earlier normative stories about human development. With the notion of the Anthropocene, grands récits have returned with a vengeance. Based on this historical inquiry of cultural history, and an un-translation of the notion that the Anthropos is an equivalent to humanity, this chapter reflects on the possibilities of articulating actor-orientated forms of cultural history with cultural histories more attuned to macro-historical developments.

• Ødemark, John (2025). Demonologi og sanseteori i tidlig moderne antropologi | Tidsskrift for kulturforskning. Tidsskrift for kulturforskning. ISSN 1502-7473. 24(2), s. 7–27. doi: https:/ojs.novus.no/index.php/TFK/article/view/2485/2474. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Inspired by the work of Arne Bugge Amundsen, this article explores the ruptures and con-tinuities in the knowledge history of forms of cultural inquiry, like Anthropology andFolklore. The article deploys the Franciscan knowledge project in New Spain – particularlyfocusing on the works of Motolinía, Mendieta, and Olmos – as a case study. The year 1533marks the beginning of a systematic collection of ‘antiquities’ (antiguallas) in New Spain.The material gathered from these inquiries, initiated in 1533, remains among the mostimportant textual sources for Nahua culture. Can a theologically oriented protoanthro-pology with a strong demonological component also generate knowledge about culture?What was the conceptualization of culture held by the Franciscan chroniclers, who continueto be a primary source for pre-Columbian culture in Mexico? Furthermore, can the exam-ination of such materials and cases shed new light on recent criticisms of the notion of cul-ture, particularly within the context of the ontological turn in anthropology?

• Baker, Mona & Ødemark, John (2024). Epistémologies traductionnelles et narratives. Encounters in Translation. doi: 10.35562/encounters-in-translation.264. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2024). Between Vico and the Virgin Images and genres of history in Lorenzo Boturini's Idea de una nueva historia general de América septentrional. I Johnsen, Emil Nicklas & Stovner, Ina Louise S. (Red.), Early Modern Genres of History. Routledge. ISSN 9781032364421. doi: 10.4324/9781003331971. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In 1746, the Milanese traveller Lorenzo Boturini published Idea de una nueva historia general de América septentrional. Boturini based this upon Mesoamerican manuscripts collected in New Spain. The authorities, however, confiscated his museo because he had entered the territory without permission, and had collected funds for the coronation of the Virgin of Guadalupe. In addition to the part Boturini played in the history of Mesoamerican collecting, he played a remarkable role in the history of the reception of G. Vico's Scienza nuova. This chapter challenges the model of influence often applied to explain (away) Boturini's historiographical work—even by decolonial and revisionist historians like Mignolo and Cañizares-Esguerra. It examines the relation between Vico's historical “paradigm” (Cañizares) and Boturini's praise of Mesoamerican script and historiography (Mignolo). Does the “influence” from Vico explain this praise of the history of the “other”, as both humanists and decolonial scholars like Mignolo appear to assume? Did they simply share a historiographical paradigm? Or did other genres of historiography and knowledge practices—like the collecting practices of antiquarianism and the attempt to document the apparitions of Guadalupe for Rome—also impact Boturini's history and the recognition of Mesoamerican images and sources this was premised on?

• Baker, Mona & Ødemark, John (2024). Translational and narrative epistemologies. Rencontres en Traduction. doi: 10.35562/encounters-in-translation.132. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This maiden issue of Encounters in translation is the first of two special issues on translational and narrative epistemologies. Contributors to both special issues were invited to reflect on the growing use of translation and narrative in a range of scholarly domains as tropes and lenses through which scholars in a variety of disciplines have attempted to reflect on their respective objects of enquiry, and on the interrelations between different kinds of knowledge. We attempt to situate the contributions to both issues within the broader context of the interdisciplinary study of narrative and translation. The broader discussion of these two key concepts is complemented by a brief account of the use of translation in two domains: Science and Technology Studies (focusing on Actor Network Theory) and medicine (focusing on the concept of Knowledge Translation).

• Ødemark, John (2024). Indigenous Eschatology and Global Sustainability Translating a Juruna Tale from Xingu, The Sociology of Translation and the Politics of Sustainability Explorations Across Cultures and Natures. Routledge. ISSN 9781032257914. s. 190–221. doi: 10.4324/9781003285038. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The point of departure in this chapter is a ‘totem pole’ constructed to oppose the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in 2012. The artefact was explained with a reference to a Juruna tale. The chapter traces the tale to a printed collection of myths from the Xingu. Further, it (i) analyzes how material and textual aspects and traces of a national discourse furnish conditions for new ‘worldings’, and (ii) identifies a lack of concern with such historical traces of cultural contact and translations in recent trends in cultural theory associated with Amazonian perspectivism, the ontological turn. Despite the holistic framing and the obvious absence of a concern with the translations and histories behind perspectivism, B. Latour views this as a ‘bomb’ undermining the cleavage he associates with the modern demarcation of the relation between nature and culture (2009: 2).

• Resløkken, Åmund Norum & Ødemark, John (2024). Narrating Non-Human Agency The ‘ANT Account’ and the Literary Prehistory of the Actant, The Sociology of Translation and the Politics of Sustainability Explorations Across Cultures and Natures. Routledge. ISSN 9781032257914. s. 65–86. doi: 10.4324/9781003285038. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This chapter examines the construction of agency in the Sociology of Translation. The chapter examines how a place for non-human agency was forged by a turn to semiotics, narratology, and literary poetics. It is argued that the symmetric notion of agency is dependent on a specific genre, which we call the ‘ANT account’, a narrative genre devised to capture the agency of non-human actors—the trademark of the Sociology of Translation. To account for the formation of a specific notion of agency operating within the Sociology of Translation, a close reading of one of the seminal texts within the genre, Michel Callon's Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and Fishermen of St. Brieuc Bay (1986) is performed. Moreover, the chapter examines the intertextual links behind Callon's development of a generalized symmetry of ‘actors’, and the specific construal of agency it works with—as well as Latour's later reconfiguration of the actant.

• Ødemark, John & Askheim, Clemet (2024). Introduction From the Sociology of Translation to a Translational Environmental Humanities, The Sociology of Translation and the Politics of Sustainability Explorations Across Cultures and Natures. Routledge. ISSN 9781032257914. s. 2–15. doi: 10.4324/9781003285038. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This introductory chapter presents the key ideas behind the book. The book uses sustainability to explore the interfaces between translation studies, the cultural history of knowledge, and science and technology studies (STS). Our objective is to examine various material, cultural, and epistemic translation practices, where sustainability serves as a boundary object between natural and cultural inquiry. By turning to the intellectual traditions that influenced but were left behind by STS and actor-network theory (ANT), we aim to challenge and expand the Sociology of Translation developed in ANT. Concepts such as ‘inscription’ (Derrida), ‘actant’, ‘narrative’ (Greimas), and ‘world/worlding’ (Heidegger, Spivak) were reemployed—translated—in the canonical STS texts. What networks of meaning were left behind in this reemployment? Our combination of a cultural and knowledge historical perspective on the construction of the Sociology of Translation and practical experiments across the registers of nature and culture is novel. There have been brilliant individual attempts to realign the Sociology of Translation with narratives and modes of enunciation, but none has related the Sociology of Translation to the networks and traditions which enabled it but to which it erased its relations and debts.

• Engebretsen, Eivind; Haagensen, Trine Krigsvoll & Ødemark, John (2024). Symmetry, Inscriptions, and the Epistemological Residue of Writing A Deconstructive Reading of Laboratory Life, The Sociology of Translation and the Politics of Sustainability Explorations Across Cultures and Natures. Routledge. ISSN 9781032257914. s. 19–32. doi: 10.4324/9781003285038. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This chapter starts with an analysis of Latour and Woolgar's deconstruction of the distinction implicit in social studies of science between ‘the social’ and ‘the technical’. The next section focuses on one of the methodological and narrative tools used by Latour and Woolgar to deconstruct the opposition between the social and the technical, namely the introduction of the anthropologist observer as part of the narrative. The chapter demonstrates that this attempt deconstructs itself by creating an epistemological residue, that is, an invisible omniscient narrator that observes both the scientists and the observer, a gaze that resists any act of reification. By reifying the observer, Latour and Woolgar fail to account for the epistemological residue in the interval between the observer (which is part of the narrative) and the narrator observing the observer. Finally, the chapter shows that Latour and Woolgar operate with two conflicting notions of inscription that partly undermine their own argument of the social as part of the technical.

• Ødemark, John; Hove, Vetle; Haagensen, Trine Krigsvoll & Sandset, Tony Joakim Ananiassen (2024). “Infections without properties” Trust and cultural difference in the Norwegian public debate about minorities and COVID-19 before the vaccination, Vaccine hesitancy in the Nordic countries. Trust and distrust during the COVID-19 pandemic.. Routledge. ISSN 9781032305998. s. 222–242. doi: 10.4324/9781003305859-16. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  his chapter examines how concepts of “culture” were used and were related to “trust” in the public debate about COVID-19 and ethnic minorities in Norway. This is explored through an examination of the news coverage of COVID-19 and minority groups, and how these were presented in a selected sample of mainstream newspapers from the first lockdown in March 2020 to the beginning of the public vaccination program in December 2020. The point of departure is an observation of what the authors (influenced by the strong program in the sociology of science) call an asymmetrical use of “culture” in the debate; i.e., “culture” is what “others” (like ethnic minorities) have. Members of the majority were mostly held individually responsible for complying with rules for social distancing. A further observation, is that both the right wing and the liberal position implicitly concurred in the asymmetrical talk about culture, although the assessment of the role of culture in the spread of the disease varied widely. The aim is both analytical and theoretical; the chapter examines the use of “culture” in the Norwegian public debate but also rethinks the conceptual aspect of relating “culture” to COVID-19 and epidemiology.

• Askheim, Clemet; Engebretsen, Eivind & Ødemark, John (2023). CARE AS INTERTEXTUALITY—FROM HUMAN CONDITION TO HOLISTIC DEVICE. Theory Now: Journal of Literature, Critique and Thought. ISSN 2605-2822. 6(1), s. 34–58. doi: 10.30827/tn.v6i1.26280. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Since the Roman mythographer Hyginus composed the fable of Cura in the second century AD, it has been cited and reemployed in literary and philosophical texts by authors like Augustin, Herder, Goethe, Heidegger, Blumenberg and Kristeva. These authors all use the tale about the ambiguous figure of Cura (Care) to reflect upon the fundamentals of the human condition. Later, aspects of these philosophies have been translated into the medical humanities, but often in an ontologically “purified” form, stripping Cura of her ontological ambiguity and more troubling traits such as sorrow, anxiety or dependency. This purification turns care into something easily digestible, fit to “sweeten the pill” of curative medical interventions that can be painful and accompanied by suffering. The ontological, epistemological, and cultural dualisms marking modern medicine are reproduced instead of being problematized, while care is reduced to a soft, psychological, or cultural supplement to “hard” biomedical therapies. How can we restore the original ambiguity and richness of the concept of “care”, making it capable of troubling the current system of medical categories?  To address this question, we will use Kristeva’s notion of intertextuality to explore the inscription and reductionist use of Cura in philosophy and the medical humanities.

• Grøgaard, Anna Pauline; Györegy, Zsolt & Ødemark, John (2023). Translation and history: a textbook. Translator. ISSN 1355-6509. doi: 10.1080/13556509.2023.2238567. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2023). Knowledge Translation as Cultural and Epistemic Translation; Comment on “Sustaining Knowledge Translation Practices: A Critical Interpretative Synthesis”. International Journal of Health Policy and Management. doi: 10.34172/IJHPM.2023.7873. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This commentary examines the claim made by Borst et al that knowledge translation (KT) should look to Science and Technology Studies (STS), the sociology of translation, and constructionist views on knowledge, and begin to think of the sustainability of a certain practice as construction work in continuous progress, and not as states to be reached once and for all. While endorsing this claim, the present commentary also argues that what it calls the “epistemic reframing” behind the new construal of KT in Borst must be supplemented with approaches that goes beyond the sociology of translation. The commentary claims that this epistemic shift hinges upon a shift in the narrative framing of KT, and that we need to consider the broader narrative and historical ideology of knowledge dissemination behind KT, and that a failure to do so, leaves us with KT seen as a linear transmission of “true” knowledge to peoples and places lacking such knowledge.

• Wahl, Astrid Klopstad; Andersen, Marit Helen; Ødemark, John; Reisæter, Anna Varberg; Urstad, Kristin Hjorthaug & Engebretsen, Eivind (2022). The importance of shared meaning-making for sustainable knowledge translation and health literacy. Journal of Evaluation In Clinical Practice. ISSN 1356-1294. 28(5). doi: 10.1111/jep.13690. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The aim of the present paper is to describe and discuss how recent theories about translation, bridging medical and humanistic understandings of knowledge translation, in the medical humanities can bring about a new understanding of health literacy in the context of patient education. We argue that knowledge translation must be understood as active engagement with contextual meaning, considering the understandings, interpretation, and expertise of both patient and health care provider (deconstruction of the distinction between biomedical and cultural knowledge). To illustrate our points, we will describe the case of Jim, a kidney transplant recipient who received standard patient education but lost the graft (the new kidney). If we apply Kristeva's view to this context, graft function is not merely biology but a complex biocultural fact. In this perspective, graft function is seen as a phenomenon that embraces translation between health as a biomedical phenomenon and healing as lived experience, and that opens for shared meaning-making processes between the patient and the health care provider. In Jim's case, this means that we need to rethink the approach to patient education in a way that encourages the patient's idiosyncratic way of thinking and experiencing, and to transform health information into a means for sustaining Jim's singular life – not biological life “in general.” The patient education programme did not take into consideration the singularities of Jim's biographical temporality, with its changes in everyday life, priorities, attitudes, and values. Hence, we claim that health literacy should involve a simultaneous interrogation of the patients and the health professional's constructions of knowledge.

• Ødemark, John & Engebretsen, Eivind (2022). Challenging medical knowledge translation: convergence and divergence of translation across epistemic and cultural boundaries. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 9(71). doi: 10.1057/s41599-022-01088-6. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In this article, and the topical collection accompanying it, we aim to challenge socalled knowledge translation (hereinafter KT) in medicine and healthcare. The abbreviation ‘KT’ refers to a variety of scientific practices and research activities, bound together by the common goal of ‘bridging the gap’ between science in laboratories and clinical application, and, more generally, putting research-based knowledge into policy and practical care. Our objective, then, is to challenge KT by working through and with the convergence and divergences between different translational epistemologies. As KT has had a massive impact on practical healthcare, global health, and knowledge policy, as well as governance relating to sustainability, a critical examination of KT is of huge academic and societal significance. The point of departure for the contributors to this collection is the observation that KT is based upon a reductive understanding of translation and knowledge transmission. Standard models of KT take translation and knowledge transmission as a phenomenon for granted, and accordingly downplay the complexity of translation as an entangled material, textual and cultural process, which inevitably affects the ‘original scientific message’. By contrasting KT with historical, cultural, and epistemic differences from its scientific ‘prehistory’, and by analysing it with reference to broader humanistic and material views of translation, we aim to develop concepts of medical translation that can cope with contemporary epistemic and cultural differences.

• Resløkken, Åmund Norum; Henrichsen, Gina Fraas & Ødemark, John (2022). "Once Upon a Time" Fairytales and the Translation of Mindfulness in Whereever you go, There You Are. Ethnologia Scandinavica. A Journal for Nordic Ethnology. ISSN 0348-9698. 52, s. 132–144. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Andersen, Marit Helen; Urstad, Kristin Hjorthaug; Larsen, Marie Hamilton; Henrichsen, Gina Fraas; Engebretsen, Eivind & Ødemark, John [Vis alle 10 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2021). Intervening on health literacy by knowledge translation processes in kidney transplantation: A feasibility study. Journal of Renal Care. ISSN 1755-6678. s. 1–9. doi: 10.1111/jorc.12379. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Background Patients awaiting kidney transplantation need to be prepared ahead of the upcoming transplantation by developing targeted pre- and post-transplant knowledge. On this background, we designed a new health literacy intervention, including a film and a counselling session, based on motivational interviewing for dialysis patients provided by dialysis nurses. Aim To explore patients' and nurses' experiences of the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention, focusing on the patient as a prepared knowledge actor. Design An explorative qualitative study. Participants and Methods Data included in-depth interviews with nine patients and three nurses who participated in the intervention. The interviews were audiotaped and analysed following Kvale and Brinkmann's method for thematic data analysis. Findings Three main themes were identified: a different kind of health intervention stimulating new insight; a challenging kind of health conversation and changed relationships and increased security. Conclusions Both the patients and the nurses had an overall positive attitude toward the intervention, providing a kind of dialogue to prepare dialysis patients going through kidney transplantation. The nurses found the MI methodology to be challenging. When introducing a comprehensive communication method like MI, potential training and supervision needs for the nurses must be addressed.

• Ødemark, John (2021). Origin myths from the cultural historical archive of the Anthropocene: Vico, Burnet and the time of the deluge. I Kverndokk, Kyrre; Bjærke, Marit Ruge & Eriksen, Anne (Red.), Climate Change Temporalities. Explorations in Vernacular, Popular and Scientific Discourse. Routledge. ISSN 9780367479602. s. 158–176. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2021). The Oicotype and the Cultural Stuff of Identity. Cultural and Disciplinary Borders in Ethnologica Scandinavica (ca. 1973-2017). Ethnologia Scandinavica. A Journal for Nordic Ethnology. ISSN 0348-9698. 51, s. 7–19. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John; Henrichsen, Gina Fraas & Engebretsen, Eivind (2021). Knowledge Translation. I Sebnem, Susan & Spišiaková, Eva (Red.), The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Health. Routledge. ISSN 9781138335349. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Haldar, Marit; Ødemark, John & Engebretsen, Eivind (2020). Helseprioriteringer i endring. Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift (NNT). ISSN 0800-336X. 37(3). doi: 10.18261/issn.1504-3053-2020-03-04. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Andersen, Marit Helen; Urstad, Kristin Hjorthaug; Larsen, Marie Hamilton; Engebretsen, Eivind; Ødemark, John & Eriksen, Anne [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2020). Processes of knowing in the translation of a health communication intervention for dialysis patients awaiting kidney transplantation. Patient Education and Counseling. ISSN 0738-3991. 104(3), s. 1–7. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2020.09.009. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Objective To strengthen patients’ health literacy and their role as active knowledge actors, we developed a health communication intervention including a film-viewing and counselling session for patients awaiting kidney transplantation. We aimed to explore processes of knowing in the translation of the intervention. Methods We applied an ethnographic research approach, observing nine intervention sessions with patients and dialysis nurses. Afterwards, the patients and the nurses were interviewed in-depth. Data were analysed using Engebretsen’s modified version of Lonergans’ four-step model of knowing. Results The following knowing processes were identified: i) Knowing as meaning-making; ii) Knowing as acquiring confidence; and iii) Accessing professionals’ and peer experts’ knowledge. Divergent considerations were taken by the different knowledge actors, which had a direct influence on the knowing processes and knowledge translation. Conclusions The findings support active interactions between patients and healthcare providers in processes of knowing. These include self-conscious approaches and critical questioning in both parties. Practice implications For transplant professionals, this study demonstrates knowing processes in a real-life context. It also spotlights professional skills and attitudes regarding the importance of self-conscious questioning and a critical interrogating position (for both patients and providers).

• Laugerud, Henning & Ødemark, John (2020). ‘Superstition’ in the Reformation Polemics of England and Denmark-Norway - and the Emergence of Folklore and Popular Religion. I Laugerud, Henning; Ryan, Salvador & Kelly, James (Red.), Northern European Reformations. Transnational Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan. ISSN 9783030544577. s. 347–375. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Engebretsen, Eivind; Henrichsen, Gina Fraas & Ødemark, John (2020). Towards a translational medical humanities: introducing the cultural crossings of care. Medical Humanities. ISSN 1468-215X. doi: 10.1136/medhum-2019-011751. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  n this introductory essay, we will present a translational medical humanities approach where the humanities are not only an auxiliary to medical science and practice, but also an interdisciplinary space where both medicine and the humanities mutually challenge and inform each other. First, we explore how medicine’s attempt to tackle the nature–culture divide is emblematically expressed in the concept and practice of knowledge translation (hereinafter KT). Second, we compare and contrast KT as an epistemic ideology and a socio-medical practice, with concepts and practices of translation developed in the human sciences. In particular, we emphasise Derrida’s understanding of translation as inherent in all meaning making, as a fundamentally textual process and as a process necessarily creating difference rather than semantic equivalence. Finally, we analyse a case from clinical medicine showing how a more refined notion of translation can enlighten the interaction between biomedical and cultural factors. Such a translational medical humanities approach also requires a rethinking of the concept of evidence in medicine.

• Ødemark, John (2019). Touchstones for Sustainable Development: Indigenous Peoples and the Anthropology of Sustainability in Our Common Future. Culture Unbound. Journal of Current Cultural Research. 11(3-4), s. 369–393. doi: 10.3384/cu.2000.1525.191217b. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The Anthropocene is regularly invoked as an occasion for the rethinking of the Anthropos, for instance through a reexamination of human origin stories. This article examines one such anthropological origin story; the construction of an exemplary and sustainable humanity based upon notions of “indigenous cultures” in Our Common Future in the context of D. Chakrabarty’s call for a history of the human that merges the biological and cultural archives of humanity. The UN report, Our Common Future, first formulated “sustainable development” as a global policy. Through a close reading of the report, the article demonstrates that a combined ecological and anthropological exemplarity is associated with “indigenous and tribal peoples”, who are also construed as living examples of sustainable living for the global society, and links to humanity’s past. Furthermore, the article aims to show that particular conceptions of “culture” and “ecological” wholes enables a translation between different scales, between local and “bounded” indigenous cultures and earth as the bounded habitat of humanity. The fusion of the concepts of “development” and “sustainability” in Our Common Future lies behind present UN concerns with sustainable development goals in current international policy. Hence, an inquiry into the anthropological and cultural historical assumptions of the report is vital. Questions of natural and cultural time have come to dominate discussions of the Anthropocene. The article also reconnects the global scale with a very literal struggle over space inside the Brazilian nation state, through reading the comment on the report from Ailton Krenak. Applying what we could call a language of survival, Krenak relates the global eco-political scale of OCF with a very concrete struggle over territory inside the political space of the Brazilian nation state.

• Ødemark, John (2019). Global idehistorie. Arr - Idéhistorisk tidsskrift. ISSN 0802-7005. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kristeva, Julia; Moro, Marie Rose; Ødemark, John & Engebretsen, Eivind (2019). The cultural crossings of care: A call for translational medical humanities. I Bleakley, Alan (Red.), Routledge Handbook of the Medical Humanities. Routledge. ISSN 9781351241779. doi: 10.4324/9781351241779. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2018). Andres undergang og vår egen: Om oversettelsen av en eskatologisk fortelling fra Amazonas. I Bjerregaard, Peter & Kverndokk, Kyrre (Red.), Kollaps. På randen av fremtiden.. Dreyer Forlag A/S. ISSN 9788282654234. s. 135–148. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John & Engebretsen, Eivind (2018). Expansions. I Gambier, Yves & D'Hulst, Lieven (Red.), A History of Modern Translation Knowledge. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 9789027200990. s. 85–90. doi: 10.1075/btl.142.09ode. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  “Translation” has emerged in the previous decades as a key word in disciplines such as history, anthropology and science and technology studies (STS). Moreover, from around 2000 it has become institutionalized in medicine, leading to the development of so-called knowledge translation (KT). While the turn to translation in the humanities could be seen as an index of contemporary epistemological predicaments and the almost obligatory requirement to cross disciplinary and cultural boundaries in a ‘global age’, medical translation is of a different nature. KT denotes a scientific and purportedly non-cultural practice that defines cultural difference as a “barrier” to the transmission of medical science. In contrast, STS have celebrated the productivity of translation as the condition of possibility for science and society. In the following we will map some salient traits of the current expansions of translation beyond the linguistic. This chapter has been accepted and published in A History of Modern Translation Knowledge. © 2018 John Benjamins Publishing Company

• Engebretsen, Eivind; Sandset, Tony Joakim & Ødemark, John (2017). Expanding the knowledge translation metaphor. Health Research Policy and Systems. doi: 10.1186/s12961-017-0184-x. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Background Knowledge translation (KT) is a buzzword in modern medical science. However, there has been little theoretical reflection on translation as a process of meaning production in KT. In this paper, we argue that KT will benefit from the incorporation of a more theoretical notion of translation as an entangled material, textual and cultural process. Discussion We discuss and challenge fundamental assumptions in KT, drawing on theories of translation from the human sciences. We show that the current construal of KT as separate from and secondary to the original scientific message is close to the now deeply compromised literary view of translation as the simple act of copying the original. Inspired by recent theories of translation, we claim that KT can be more adequately understood in terms of a ‘double supplement’ – on the one hand, KT offers new approaches to the communication of scientific knowledge to different groups in the healthcare system with the aim of supplementing a lack of knowledge among clinicians (and patients). On the other, it demonstrates that a textual and cultural supplement, namely a concern with target audiences (clinicians and patients), is inevitable in the creation of an ‘autonomous’ science. Hence, the division between science and its translation is unproductive and impossible to maintain. We discuss some possible implications of our suggested shift in concept by drawing on pharmaceutical interventions for the prevention of HIV as a case. We argue that such interventions are based on a supplementary and paradoxical relation to the target audiences, both presupposing and denying their existence. Summary More sophisticated theories of translation can lay the foundation for an expanded model of KT that incorporates a more adequate and reflective description of the interdependency of scientific, cultural, textual and material practices.

• Ødemark, John (2017). Djevelbesettelsen i Køge og ånden fra Thisted: bokhistorie, kulturelle skript og virkelighetsforståelse. I Ødemark, John & Lavold, Bente (Red.), Reformasjonstidens religiøse bokkultur cirka 1400-1700: tekst, visualitet og materialitet. Novus Forlag. ISSN 9788279653479. s. 71–109. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2017). What is Cultural Translation? Translator. ISSN 1355-6509. doi: 10.1080/13556509.2018.1411033. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kristeva, Julia; Moro, Marie Rose; Ødemark, John & Engebretsen, Eivind (2017). Cultural crossings of care: An appeal to the medical humanities. Medical Humanities. ISSN 1468-215X. 44(1), s. 55–58. doi: 10.1136/medhum-2017-011263. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Modern medicine is confronted with cultural crossings in various forms. In facing these challenges, it is not enough to simply increase our insight into the cultural dimensions of health and well-being. We must, more radically, question the conventional distinction between the ‘objectivity of science’ and the ‘subjectivity of culture’. This obligation creates an urgent call for the medical humanities but also for a fundamental rethinking of their grounding assumptions. Julia Kristeva (JK) has problematised the biomedical concept of health through her reading of the anthropogony of Cura (Care), who according to the Roman myth created man out of a piece of clay. JK uses this fable as an allegory for the cultural distinction between health construed as a ‘definitive state’, which belongs to biological life (bios), and healing as a durative ‘process with twists and turns in time’ that characterises human living (zoe). A consequence of this demarcation is that biomedicine is in constant need of ‘repairing’ and bridging the gap between bios and zoe, nature and culture. Even in radical versions, the medical humanities are mostly reduced to such an instrument of repairment, seeing them as what we refer to as a soft, ‘subjective’ and cultural supplement to a stable body of ‘objective’, biomedical and scientific knowledge. In this article, we present a prolegomenon to a more radical programme for the medical humanities, which calls the conventional distinctions between the humanities and the natural sciences into question, acknowledges the pathological and healing powers of culture, and sees the body as a complex biocultural fact. A key element in such a project is the rethinking of the concept of ‘evidence’ in healthcare.

• Ødemark, John (2017). Interkulturell og global idehistorie. I Aasgaard, Reidar; Krefting, Ellen Marie & Schaanning, Espen (Red.), Grep om fortiden: Perspektiver og metoder i idéhistorie. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISSN 9788202565282. s. 185–206. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2017). Inscribing Possession – Køge Huskors and Other Tales of Demonic Possession across Genres and Cultural Fields in Denmark-Norway (1647-1716). Ethnologia Scandinavica. A Journal for Nordic Ethnology. ISSN 0348-9698. 47. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2017). Preaching with Pictures, Transforming Memories Catechisms and Images as Contact Zones in Sixteenth Century New Spain. Studies in Christian Mission. ISSN 0924-9389. s. 331–368. doi: 10.1163/9789004353060_012. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2017). Timing Indigenous Culture and Religion: Tales of Conversation and Ecological Salvation from the Amazon. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. ISSN 1874-6691. doi: 10.1163/9789004346710_009. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2016). Globale kulturoversettelser, ontologiske vendinger og mytiske metoder – refleksjoner rundt Den globale samtalen og kulturoversettelsens muligheter. DIN - Tidsskrift for religion og kultur. ISSN 1501-9934. s. 7–47. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Jeg diskuterer kulturoversettelsens historiske og teoretiske forutsetninger med utgangspunkt i antropologen Tor Larsens arbeid. Særlig legger jeg vekt på hans idé om historiseringen av forskjell og hvordan denne «strategien» fortsatt preger det offentlige ordskifte. Temporale metaforer som «den arabiske våren» hekter for eksempel politiske hendelser på en naturlig tidsrekkefølge som implisitt setter det liberale demokrati som en naturgitt norm som samfunn både bør og vil strekke seg etter. Jeg fokuserer også på den historiske fremstillingen av hvordan kultur gravis blir gjort til en vitenskapelig gjenstand i en førdisiplinær kolonihistorisk sammenheng. Jeg hevder at en slik vinkling utfordrer ahistoriske trekk i nyere kulturteoretiske trender, som den ontologiske vendingen, perspektivisme og ANT, og at disse skriver seg inn i en modernistisk tradisjon for tradisjonsbekjempelse.

• Ødemark, John (2016). Andres natur i vår kultur Om å oversette og overse kulturvitenskaplig kunnskapshistorie i kulturteori og økopolitiske allianser i Xingú. Tidsskrift for kulturforskning. ISSN 1502-7473. s. 67–82. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The point of departure is a «totem pole» constructed to oppose the Belo Monte dam in 2012. The artefact was presented as a quotation from an indigenous Juruna tale.The article traces the tale to a printed collection of myths from the Xingú, ending in an eschatological register: «The day our people die out entirely, the sky will collapse». Further, it (i) analyzes how material and textual aspects and traces of folkloric and national discourse furnish conditions for global «green fantasies», and (ii) identifies a lack of concern with such historical traces of cultural contact and translations in recent trends in cultural theory associated with «perspectivism» and the «ontological turn».

• Ødemark, John (2015). Avatar in the Amazon - narratives of cultural conversion and environmental salvation between cultural theory and popular culture. Culture Unbound. Journal of Current Cultural Research. 7(3), s. 455–478. doi: 10.3384/cu.2000.1525.1572455. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John & Resløkken, Åmund Norum (2015). I korndemonens bilde – antropologisk erkjennelse, materialitet og temporalitet i utstillingen av «gammel folketro» på Norsk folkemuseum (1938). Tidsskrift for kulturforskning. ISSN 1502-7473. 14(2), s. 62–86. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2014). Jørgen Moe og folkeeventyrets krysskulturelle fundament. I Esborg, Line & Johannsen, Dirk (Red.), "En vild endevending av al virkelighet" - Norsk Folkeminnesamling i hundre år. Novus Forlag. ISSN 9788270997725. s. 69–82. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2014). Cultural difference and development in the mirror of witchcraft : the cultural policy of display at Steilneset Memorial. Nordisk kulturpolitisk tidsskrift (NKT). ISSN 1403-3216. s. 187–209. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2012). Gud, djevelen og detaljens kulturelle sammenheng - om Lorenzo Pignoria, tidlig moderne mytografi og den sammenliknende religionsvitenskapens forhistorie. DIN - Tidsskrift for religion og kultur. ISSN 1501-9934. s. 32–74. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2012). Narrating Magic, Re-visioning Historiography - On Stephen A. Mitchell’s Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages. Arv. Nordic Yearbook of Folklore. ISSN 0066-8176. s. 139–152. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2011). Genealogies and Analogies of 'Culture' in the History of Cultural Translation - on Boturini's Translation of Tlaloc and Vico in Idea of a New General History of Northern America. Bulletin of Latin American Research. ISSN 0261-3050. 30, s. 38–55. doi: 10.1111/j.1470-9856.2010.00482.x. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2011). ”Gigantenes kult” – Vico, White og de historiske fakta bak den første fiksjon. Fortid. ISSN 1504-1913. 8(2), s. 42–49. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2011). Ammestuend tale. "Overtro" og "fabel" i Pontoppidans "Feiekost" og folkloristikkens forhistorie. Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning. Serie B, Skrifter. ISSN 0332-6217. s. 11–51. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2010). ”Nonne omnia puluis et favella sunt – om likpreken, døds- og erindringskultur i Danmark-Norge (1536-1736”. I Amundsen, Arne Bugge & Laugerud, Henning (Red.), Religiøs tro og praksis i den dansk-norske helstat fra reformasjonen til opplysningstid ca. 1500-1814. Unipub forlag. ISSN 9788299833905. s. 145–169. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2010). Timing memories, spacing time : the art of memory and the denial of coevalness in Vico's Scienza Nuova. Arv. Nordic Yearbook of Folklore. ISSN 0066-8176. 66, s. 89–115. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2008). "Convivir con la cultura de aquellos naturales - frelse, fiksjon og misjonæretnografi fra Mexico i kulturforståelsens historie. DIN - Tidsskrift for religion og kultur. ISSN 1501-9934. s. 3–31. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2007). "De ville". Tidsskrift for kulturforskning. ISSN 1502-7473. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2007). Skrift, tale og simulering av andres sansning om kulturoversettelsens teori og praksis i den sansekulturelle vendingen. Tidsskrift for kulturforskning. ISSN 1502-7473. 6(4), s. 25–46. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2005). Roma - begrepsrom og minneplasser (redaktør). Tidsskrift for kulturforskning. ISSN 1502-7473. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2005). Roma minnes Egypts visdom - Athanasius Kircher og obelisken på Pizza della Minerva. Tidsskrift for kulturforskning. ISSN 1502-7473. s. 87–113. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Hodne, Bjarne & Ødemark, John (2005). Kulturarvens grenser. Kulturarv som samlende og splittende fenomen. I Hodne, Bjarne; Aronsson, Peter; Frykman, Birgitta Skarin & Ødemark, John (Red.), Kulturarvens gränser. Komparative perspektiv. Arkipelag. ISSN 9789185838691. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John Terje (2004). Making the Paintings of the Ancestors SpeakThe Father of Anthropology and the Translation of Mesoamerican Cultural Heritage in Miguel León-Portilla and Francisco Javier Clavijero. Arv. Nordic Yearbook of Folklore. ISSN 0066-8176. 60, s. 61–105. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John Terje (2003). Mellom kulturens bokstav og kulturens ånd - spansk misjonæretnografi fra Ny Spania og den kulturelle toleransens paradokser. Tidsskrift for kulturforskning. ISSN 1502-7473. 2(2), s. 5–26. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John Terje (2003). Between God and the Devil. Arv. Nordic Yearbook of Folklore. ISSN 0066-8176. s. 260–266. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John Terje (2000). Den nye kulturhistorien - mellom antropologisk og estetisk kultur. Norveg : tidsskrift for folkloristikk. ISSN 0029-3601. s. 23–58. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2000). Introduksjon til Hayden White: Historiens troper og fortellinger. Vagant. ISSN 0802-0736. s. 67–68. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (1999). Kulturpoetikk og estetisk kultur � Stepehen Greenblatt og David Lloyd. Vagant. ISSN 0802-0736. s. 80–81. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

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• Sandset, Tony Joakim Ananiassen & Ødemark, John (2026). Det postkoloniale og det planetære. Introduksjon til Chakrabartys historietenkning. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISBN 9788202879068. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Bjærke, Marit Ruge; Brenna, Brita; Ekström, Anders & Ødemark, John (2025). Cultural History and the Anthropocene: Old turns, new encounters. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781350532632. doi: 10.5040/9781350532632. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This open access collection is a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and contributions of cultural history to contemporary and cross-disciplinary discussions of the Anthropocene. Organised into three key sections, this volume is a concise and critical overview of interdisciplinary research on the cultural history of the Anthropocene. The first part introduces readers to the key conceptual and theoretical challenges of Anthropocene debates, before the second part analyses a variety of case studies, to highlight how ethnography and cultural history can make certain processes visible and historically tangible. Key case studies explored by the volume range from sustainability in poultry production, to 18th century mining, to natural history and the works of Peter Christen Asbjørnsen. Finally, the third section explores 5 critical approaches to Anthropocene discourse, and the challenges it may pose to alternative styles of cultural history. Overall, this volume offers a synthesis of conceptual, historical, and critical approaches, that when combined provide a detailed overview of the latest research surrounding the cultural history of the Anthropocene.

• Ødemark, John; Resløkken, Åmund Norum; Lillehagen, Ida & Engebretsen, Eivind (2024). The Sociology of Translation and the Politics of Sustainability, Explorations Across Cultures and Natures. Routledge. ISBN 9781003285038. 240 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John; Resløkken, Åmund Norum; Lillehagen, Ida & Engebretsen, Eivind (2024). The Sociology of Translation and the Politics of Sustainability Explorations Across Cultures and Natures. Routledge. ISBN 9781032257914. 240 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This book uses sustainability to explore the interfaces between translation studies, the cultural history of knowledge, and Science and Technology studies (STS). The volume examines various material, cultural and epistemic translation practices where sustainability serves as a boundary object between natural and cultural inquiry. By turning to the intellectual traditions that influenced but were left behind by STS and actor-network theory (ANT), we aim to challenge and expand the Sociology of Translation developed in ANT. Concepts such as ‘inscription’ (Derrida), ‘actant’, ‘narrative’ (Greimas), and ‘world/worlding’ (Heidegger, Spivak) were reemployed – translated – in the canonical STS-texts. What networks of meaning were left behind in this reemployment? The book showcases a combination of cultural and knowledge historical perspectives on the construction of the Sociology of Translation and practical experiments across the registers of nature and culture is novel. There have been brilliant individual attempts to realign the Sociology of Translation with narratives and modes of enunciation, but none has related the Sociology of Translation to the networks and traditions which enabled it but to which it erased its relations and debts.

• Engebretsen, Eivind; Umachandran, Priya; Ødemark, John & Greenhalgh, Trisha (2022). In what ways do cultural contexts influence the knowledge translation process for health decision-making and what are the implications for policy and practice? World Health Organization. Regional Office for Europe. ISBN 9789289058353. 61 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John & Lavold, Bente (2017). Reformasjonstidens religiøse bokkultur cirka 1400-1700: tekst, visualitet og materialitet. Novus Forlag. ISBN 9788279653479. 294 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2016). Framing Quetzalcoatl, Picturing Culture - Iconology and the image of the other in early modern mythography. I: Vaage, N. S. et al (eds.) Images of Knowledge The Epistemic Lives of Pictures and Visualisations. Peter Lang Publishing Group. ISBN 9783631666647. 30 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2016). Popol Vuh (E-bok). Bokklubben. ISBN 9788252587036. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2005). Kulturarvens grenser: komparativa perspektiv. Arkipelag. ISBN 9789185838691. 231 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John Terje (2003). Popol Vuh. Den norske bokklubben. ISBN 9788252551877. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

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• Ødemark, John & Baker, Mona (2025). Translational Epistemologies and Open Science. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Hosted by the Encounters in Translation Journal and the Bodies in Translation project, this event explores how translation, publishing practices, and epistemic values shape knowledge systems today.

• Bjærke, Marit Ruge; Brenna, Brita; Ekström, Anders & Ødemark, John (2025). Introduction: Writing cultural history in the Anthropocene. I Bjærke, Marit Ruge; Brenna, Brita; Ekström, Anders & Ødemark, John (Red.), Cultural History and the Anthropocene: Old turns, new encounters. Bloomsbury Academic. ISSN 9781350532632. s. 1–16. doi: 10.5040/9781350532632.0006. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This open access collection is a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and contributions of cultural history to contemporary and cross-disciplinary discussions of the Anthropocene. Organised into three key sections, this volume is a concise and critical overview of interdisciplinary research on the cultural history of the Anthropocene. The first part introduces readers to the key conceptual and theoretical challenges of Anthropocene debates, before the second part analyses a variety of case studies, to highlight how ethnography and cultural history can make certain processes visible and historically tangible. Key case studies explored by the volume range from sustainability in poultry production, to 18th century mining, to natural history and the works of Peter Christen Asbjørnsen. Finally, the third section explores 5 critical approaches to Anthropocene discourse, and the challenges it may pose to alternative styles of cultural history. Overall, this volume offers a synthesis of conceptual, historical, and critical approaches, that when combined provide a detailed overview of the latest research surrounding the cultural history of the Anthropocene.

• Bjærke, Marit Ruge; Brenna, Brita; Ekström, Anders & Ødemark, John (2025). Writing cultural history in the Anthropocene. I Bjærke, Marit Ruge; Brenna, Brita; Ekström, Anders & Ødemark, John (Red.), Cultural History and the Anthropocene: Old turns, new encounters. Bloomsbury Academic. ISSN 9781350532632. s. 1–16. doi: 10.5040/9781350532632.0006. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This open access collection is a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and contributions of cultural history to contemporary and cross-disciplinary discussions of the Anthropocene. Organised into three key sections, this volume is a concise and critical overview of interdisciplinary research on the cultural history of the Anthropocene. The first part introduces readers to the key conceptual and theoretical challenges of Anthropocene debates, before the second part analyses a variety of case studies, to highlight how ethnography and cultural history can make certain processes visible and historically tangible. Key case studies explored by the volume range from sustainability in poultry production, to 18th century mining, to natural history and the works of Peter Christen Asbjørnsen. Finally, the third section explores 5 critical approaches to Anthropocene discourse, and the challenges it may pose to alternative styles of cultural history. Overall, this volume offers a synthesis of conceptual, historical, and critical approaches, that when combined provide a detailed overview of the latest research surrounding the cultural history of the Anthropocene.

• Ødemark, John (2025). Bridging Knowledge: Exploring Medical Translation through Translation Studies and the Cultural History of Science. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We often tend to view translation in purely discursive terms; that is, as the act of carrying over and rendering one language into another. However, in fields like anthropology and the history and philosophy of science, questions about the commensurability of knowledge across different disciplines, places, and times have long been associated with the term “translation” — thus underscoring the inter-epistemic and intercultural aspects of translation. Over the past two decades, moreover, translation has also emerged as a key term in the natural sciences, particularly in medicine, where knowledge translation (KT) refers to a set of research activities united by the common goal of bridging the gap between science in laboratories and clinical practice. More generally, it involves putting research-based knowledge into practice within frameworks for evidence-based policy (EBP). In this talk, I aim both to critique and make a positive contribution to KT by viewing it through lenses from translation studies and the cultural history of science. I maintain that the epistemological paradigm of KT has serious flaws, which also make it vulnerable to attacks from “populist relativism” and other “merchants of doubt.” The paradigm assumes that KT, as science, is a culturally neutral endeavour, whereas other epistemic cultures, including local and traditional knowledge, are considered “barriers” to integrating science into policy and practice. Moreover, the process of generating knowledge is construed as distinct from the translation process, where knowledge is “potted” as a finished product at the beginning of the translation process and then “implanted” in a new context. In contrast, I assume that science is not a universal enterprise to generate context-free facts to be translated intact to local contexts. Rather, both the production and the reception of science are characterized by diverse cultural and epistemic contexts, where both facts and values are regularly contested. Acknowledging this translational epistemology, I maintain, may actually increase the effectiveness of KT.

• Arnaldi, Marta & Ødemark, John (2024). Video Podcasts – Bodies in Translation. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This series of video podcasts highlights some of the key moments of the Translation and Medical Humanities conference which took place at the University of Oxford on 5-6 September 2023. This international conference explored, for the first time and in an interdisciplinary fashion, the interzone between translation studies and medical humanities; it invoked the role of the arts, humanities and social sciences as essential services for medicine and health care; and it reappraised the impact of biomedicine in our linguistic, cultural, and societal ecosystems. Organised by Dr Marta Arnaldi and Prof John Ødemark in collaboration with Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation. With the contribution of Medical Humanities, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), University of Oxford; Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford; the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo; and The Polyphony, Institute for Medical Humanities at Durham University. Funded by Bodies in Translation: Science, Knowledge and Sustainability in Cultural Translation, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo, and The Research Council of Norway.

• Ødemark, John (2024). KULTUR ER IKKE EN FØDSELSRETT. Salongen : Nettstedet for filosofi og idéhistorie. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2024). Epistemicide and Hybridity in Cross-Cultural Knowledge Translation. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Arnaldi, Marta & Ødemark, John (2023). Translation and Medical Humanities – international conference organised by Marta Arnaldi and John Ødemark, University of Oxford, 5-6 September 2023. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  A conference to explore the interzone between translation studies and medical humanities; to invoke the role of the arts, humanities and social sciences as essential services for medicine and health care; and to reappraise the impact of biomedicine in our linguistic, cultural, and societal ecosystems.

• Ødemark, John (2023). Concepts of Translation. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2023). Introduction: KT, incommunicability — and “culture”. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Laugerud, Henning & Ødemark, John (2019). SUPERSTITION IN THE REFORMATION POLEMICS OF ENGLAND AND DENMARK-NORWAY – AND THE EMERGENCE OF FOLKLORE AND POPULAR RELIGION. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2019). Kulturell eksemplaritet og temporalitet - om Amazonas og klimaendringer. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2019). The Humanities and the Environmental Crisis. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kverndokk, Kyrre; Ødemark, John & Bjærke, Marit Ruge (2019). Tidens natur. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Engebretsen, Eivind & Ødemark, John (2018). Closing lecture. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Engebretsen, Eivind & Ødemark, John (2018). Cultural crossings of care (opening lecture). Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2018). Om prosjektet 'Bodies in Translation'. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2018). Mellom Guds mor og kulturens far – visuelle paradigmer i tidlig moderne etnografi og kulturforståelsens genealogi. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John; Engebretsen, Eivind; Kristeva, Julia & Moro, Marie Rose (2018). Medisinen og menneskevitenskapene. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John & Engebretsen, Eivind (2017). Translating Translation - Expanding the Knowledge Translation Metaphor. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2017). “Mistranslating Bodies, Constructing Cultures – Translation between Cultural and Ontological Turns”. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2016). Å oversette meningen med livet – språk, kultur og medisin i oversettelsen av mindfulness. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2016). Andres natur i vår kultur. Om å oversette og overse kulturvitenskapelig kunnskapshistorie i kulturteori og økopolitiske allianser i Xingu. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2016). Mistranslating Bodies, Constructing Cultures. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2016). Traces of Folkloristics in Global Indigenism and Environmentalism. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John & Engebretsen, Eivind (2016). Extensions of Translation & Expanding the Knowledge Translation Metaphor. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2016). The Translation and Media Archaeology of an Indigenous Eschatology. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2016). “The day our people die out the sky will collapse” – Print Culture and Textual Demarcations in Brazilian Indigenism and Environmentalism. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John & Engebretsen, Eivind (2016). Expanding the Knowledge Translation Metaphor. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2015). Om kulturhistorie og den nye kulturhistorien. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2015). On trolldomsmonumentet i Vadø. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2015). Trolldomsprosesser og tidlig moderne demonologi. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2015). Antonio Cornejo Polar, Writing in the Air: Heterogeneity and the Persistence of Oral Tradition in Andean Literatures. Cultural History. ISSN 2045-290X. 4(1), s. 109–110. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2015). Erindringskultur og bilder i tidlig moderne antropologi. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2015). Å utstille trolldom - historie- og kulturforståelse i lys av trolldomsmonumentet i Vardø. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2015). Djevelbesettelsene i Køge og Thisted – bokhistorie og virkelighetsforståelse. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2015). Ikonoklasme, idolatri og erindring i møtet med Amerika. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2015). Om Oviedo og tidlig moderne kulturmøter. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2015). Avatar in the Amazon; Ethno-politics, Popular Culture and the Informants Voice. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2015). Andres guder, våre djevler – kultur- og historieforståelse i tidlig moderne mytografi. Bøygen: Organ for nordisk språk og litteratur. ISSN 0806-8623. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2015). Å oversette meningen med livet – språk, kultur og vitenskap i oversettelsen av mindfulness. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2015). Narrativ samtidighet og usamtidighet. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2014). Steilneset som kulturanalytisk trollspeil - kulturforskjell og kulturanalytiske fagtradisjoner. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2014). Cross-Cultural Refractions - On Idolatry and Iconography in the History of Ethnography. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2014). Kulturoversettelse og kunnskapstranslasjon i kultur- og medisinhistorie. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2014). Om Oral Tales from Anthropological Localities. Folklore and the Epistemology of Comparative Culture Ressearch. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2014). Amazonian Semiospheres - Translating Cultures, Saving Nature/s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2014). "Rydninger i jungelen" - visuell og verbal sporavhengighet i fremstillingen av natur og kultur i Amazonas. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2013). "Superstitio - Overtroens forvandlinger" som kulturanalytisk prosjekt. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2013). Converging apocalypsis - Indigenous Cultures in the Amazon, the Nature of Culture and the Destiny of Humanity. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2013). Kulturstudier - aktuelle utfordringer og perspektiver. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2013). Symbolical mobilization of “Indigenous” cultures and ritual practices in the Amazon – and the destiny of humanity. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The paper examines how the image of the Amazonian “rainforest Indian” is mobilized in environmental discourse, popular culture, anthropology and religious studies concerning the relation between nature, culture and global warming. In the structural studies of myth of Lévi-Strauss, Amazonian cultures furnished theory with traces of purity in a “fallen” world (a move that inversed the role Amerindians had in the early modern Calvinist ethnography of J. Léry which Lévi-Strauss brought with him into the “field”), and with localized examples of how humans build cosmologies upon a basic distinction between nature and culture. In some environmental discourse rainforest Indians are assigned the role of local forest keepers for global humanity. Here then it is the global human survival and future that is at issue, not the manner in which pan-human traits can be identified in “isolated” spaces. The paper explores a set of topoi and symbols that moves between the mentioned discourses; how popular culture mediates between these discourses and calibrate a set of religious and anthropological categories (the indigenous, shamanism), and in doing this create a political space where the global effectiveness of local, rainforest politics – still –appears to restrict Amerindians to local spaces and cultural figures/categories associated with them. Finally, this political and symbolic predicament is used in a reflection upon recent scholarly denunciations of categories (e.g. “shamanism”, the “indigenous”) in religious studies.

• Ødemark, John (2013). Early Modern Cultural Encounters - Perspectives and Approaches. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2013). Folkloristikken, folkeeventyret og den nye kulturhistorien - om ASK kulturhistorisk tidsskrift. Folkeminner. Medlemsblad for Norsk folkeminnelag. s. 57–59. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John & Sandset, Tony (2013). Fra informantens kulturhistorie. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2012). Om Benjamin Christensens film “Hëxan-Witchcraft through the Ages”. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2012). Om oversettelsen av guder og myter i tidlig moderne mytografi. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2012). Trolldomsmonumenter og trolldomsforskning ved historiens grenser. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2012). Translating Gods, Dividing Worlds – Lorenzo Pignoria and the Gods of the Indies. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2012). Superstion and Demonology in Early Modern Cultural Encounters – the Case of New Spain. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2012). Overgangen til demokrati i Brasil etter millitærstyret (1964-1985). Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2011). Om Benjamin Christensens film “Hëxan-Witchcraft through the Ages”. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2011). Om KULH 1492 – Bruk av Wiki på Kulturhistorie. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2011). "Magi, besettelse og demonologi i tidlig moderne tid". Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2011). Om «Superstitio» og trolldom. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2011). “Inkvisitoren som antropolog” – om demonologi, magi og tidlig moderne etnografi i Andrés de Olmos’ Tratado de hechicerías y sortilegios. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2011). Om KULH 1492 – Bruk av Wiki på Kulturhistorie. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2011). The Art of Memory in the History of Cultural Investigation - The Case of Diego Valadés’ Rhetorica Christiana (1579). Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2011). Translating Gods, Dividing Worlds – Lorenzo Pignoriaand the Mythical Worlds of the Indies. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2011). Guder som analytisk kategori i tidlig moderne mytografi. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2010). ”The reformation of death culture and its genres”. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2010). Eksempel og fortelling i Jørgen Moes innledning til Norske folkeeventyr. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2008). Om Pontoppidan og “fabelen”. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2008). Norsk folkeminnesamling - og dens forhistorie. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Eriksen, Anne & Ødemark, John (2008). Redaksjonelt. Tidsskrift for kulturforskning. ISSN 1502-7473. 7(4). Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2007). The common sense of hieroglyphs – aspects of the Europeanreception of Mesoamerican script. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2007). Skrift, tekst og tale i den ”sansekulturelle vendingen” – en oversettelseskritikk. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2007). Boturini, Vico and the fathers of “culture”. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2007). Fabler, estetikk og kulturens naturhistorie. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2006). Postkolonial kritikk av kulturbegrepet. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2006). Om oppdagelsen av Amerika - og av ”den sanne” Homer. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2004). Obelisken på Santa Maria sopra Minerva og assimileringen av ”andres” skrift. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2004). Om begrepet kulturarv. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2003). Clavijero og den meksikanske skriften. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2003). Sahagúns demonology and ethnography. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2003). Kultarvens grenser. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2003). Om Misjonæretnografi i Ny Spania. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John Terje (2003). Innledende essay. I Ødemark, John Terje (Red.), Popol Vuh. Den norske bokklubben. ISSN 9788252551877. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2002). Om oversettelsen av meksikanske ”malerier”. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2002). Om etnografisk allegori. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2002). Om Carlo Ginzburg. Vagant. ISSN 0802-0736. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2002). "Udi bierget forflyttet (uvidende hvorledes)" � "Fabelakter" fra den norske rettshistorien. Vagant. ISSN 0802-0736. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John (2001). "Michel de Certeau" - kulturteoretisk takt og populærkulturelle kunster i The Practice of Everyday Life. Folk. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ødemark, John & Engebretsen, Eivind (2023). Collection. Challenging medical knowledge translation – convergence and divergence of translation across epistemic and cultural boundaries. Springer Nature. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This Collection aims to develop contemporary knowledge translation (KT) in medicine by challenging it with current cultural and humanistic theories of translation. In the process of doing this, however, we will also challenge theories of translation within the humanities by juxtaposing them with the scientific practice of KT. Different notions of “translation” have become increasingly important in the contemporary natural and human sciences. The turn to translation can be traced across a number of human sciences, such as cultural studies, anthropology and science and technology studies (STS). Translation has lately also become institutionalized in the field of medicine, leading to the development of so-called knowledge translation and ‘translational research’. These concepts refer to a set of research activities bound together by the common goal of “bridging the gap” between science in laboratories and clinical application – and more generally, putting research-based knowledge into practice. While translation in the human sciences has emerged as a key theoretical concept, and could be seen as an index of current epistemological predicaments and the almost obligatory requirement to cross-disciplinary and cultural boundaries in a “global age”, its materialization in medical discourse is of an entirely different nature. KT denotes a scientific and purportedly non-cultural practice that defines social and cultural difference as a “barrier” to the transmission of the logos of medical science. The aim of KT is to bring “pure” scientific knowledge from “bench to bedside” by testing its validity in clinical practice – while at the same time keeping the scientific knowledge intact throughout the process of translation across various social fields and sectors of the healthcare system across the globe. However, KT implies little theoretical reflection over translation as a process of meaning production. — show all

• Ødemark, John (2010). Translating Tlaloc, Accommodating Vico. Lorenzo Boturini and the Semiotic Character of Cultural Otherness. A Study in the History and Theory of Cultural Translation. Universitetet i Oslo. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The topic is the translation of ethnographic knowledge and conceptual schemes from Mexican missionary ethnography to the emergent field of cultural investigation in the eighteenth century. To investigate this, an extended case history, that of Lorenzo Boturini, a Milanese who published a “New idea” of Mesoamerican history in Madrid in 1746, is analysed. Idea was the first attempt to apply Vico’s New Science [NS] – a work that now belongs to the canon of the human sciences – to a local “culture”. Vico has “traditionally” been seen as the “father” of the concept of culture, while salient voices in a post-structuralist tradition have regarded hims as the first exponent of a semiotic view of culture. Furthermore, “modern” cultural investigation has used the opposition between orality and writing to construct its objects: “oral tradition became the foundation of a poetics of Otherness, a means of identifying the premodern Others both within modern society (uneducated, rural, poor, female) and outside it (savage, primitive, “pre-literate”) (Bauman and Briggs 2003: 14). In the case of Boturini and Vico, hieroglyphs and images play a central role in forging the boundaries between the “self” and “other”. The dissertation (i) analyzes Boturini’s use of Vico’s work as a “translation instrument” in the attempt to write a history of a “cultural other” based upon fables and pictographic writing. How does Boturini use the NS to construct a textual “place” for Mesoamerican “culture”? (ii) focuses upon how semiotic forms like hieroglyphs mediate in the translation between cultures. Boturini’s “recognition” of Mesoamerican script has been praised: Was this an “effect” of Vico’s semiotic theory of culture, or did the two share a “semiotic culture” that has been “forgotten”? (iii) examines how the Spanish “target culture” received Boturini’s work. By tackling these issues, the issue of how “cultures” were translated before the term came into general use’ to interpret human difference and sameness is approached.

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