About
About Translingual Voices
Translingual Voices is a collaborative academic and public-engagement project connecting students, educators, and researchers from Gaza and Nijmegen through the shared creative practice of translingual poetry.
Project Background
The project brings together the Centre for Language Studies at Radboud University, Nijmegen, and the English Department at Al-Aqsa University, Gaza. Working across these two contexts, the project explores how poetry that moves between languages can build connections between people, communities, and institutions separated by geography and circumstance.
Project Purpose
Translingual Voices aims to create a space where language mixing is not a problem to be solved but a creative resource to be explored. The project invites participants to use all the languages they carry — Arabic, Dutch, English, and others — to produce poetry that reflects their experiences, perspectives, and voices. The resulting works are shared publicly through this platform.
A Collaboration Between Two Universities
Radboud University in Nijmegen and Al-Aqsa University in Gaza are the two academic institutions at the heart of this project. The Centre for Language Studies at Radboud University brings expertise in multilingualism, language contact, and intercultural communication. The English Department at Al-Aqsa University brings expertise in language education and literary practice. Together, they have developed a shared methodology for collaborative translingual poetry.
How the Project Works
Connect
Participants and academic collaborators from Gaza and Nijmegen come together through facilitated sessions.
Exchange
Languages, ideas, and experiences are shared through guided workshops that encourage multilingual expression.
Create
Translingual poems are co-created, drawing on the full range of languages each participant carries.
Publish
Selected works are curated and presented through this platform, with careful attention to attribution and privacy.
Areas of Impact
Academic
The project is grounded in research on multilingualism, language contact, and intercultural communication. It contributes to the academic understanding of how creative language practice relates to identity, migration, and knowledge production.
Intercultural
The project creates a public space where perspectives connected to Gaza become accessible through language and creative practice, without requiring participants to disclose sensitive personal narratives.
Applied
The project strengthens the connection between academic research, language education, cultural engagement, and institutional collaboration across two universities and two cities.
Who This Project Is For
Translingual Voices addresses researchers, university students, educators, NGOs, policymakers, and anyone working in or interested in multilingualism, migration, intercultural communication, linguistics, modern languages, and public engagement. The poems themselves welcome any reader curious about language, identity, and creative expression.
Ethics, Privacy, and Attribution
Participant privacy is a core commitment of this project. Attribution may vary — some creative work is presented anonymously, some under pseudonyms, some as group work, and some with named attribution where the participant has explicitly consented. No personal narrative is made public without participant approval. Publication follows project review and consent procedures established by the academic team.