SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region - An American poet based in Sulaimani condemned what she called “horribly extractive” practices in Western publishing when it comes to Kurdish literary works and said local experts must be recognized as equal partners.
Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse, a poet and teacher at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS), said Western approaches to co-translation of literary works were like foreign companies coming to Kurdistan to extract oil or other resources.
“That is how established poets and translators have been extracting language and literature from Kurdistan,” she told Rudaw English on Thursday during the inaugural Kurdish Studies Forum organized by AUIS’s arts and culture center, Kashkul. The forum aims to foster dialogue, research, and cultural exchange on Kurdish history, literature, and the arts.
Levinson-LaBrosse said co-translation often sidelines local experts, despite their deep linguistic and cultural knowledge. “What Kashkul has worked to do is exactly invert that power structure,” she explained. “We are trying to say to people, when one of us rises, we all rise.”
Kashkul takes its name from the traditional bowl carried by Sufi dervishes to collect offerings while reciting poetry or leading religious gatherings. She explained that as dervishes traveled, “they would gather different notes,” which became books that “took on the metaphorical name of kashkul. Like the Sufi begging bowl, they served as a collection point for whatever knowledge the seeker could receive.”
“When we thought about our organization, what we wanted to say is that people are our kashkul,” she said.
Levinson-LaBrosse argued that Western publishing practices tend to favor individual credit and often ignore collaborative work. “They are not used to the idea that multiple people could be working together fairly, equitably to produce something that isn’t extractive but generational,” she said.
“It can all go to building my own reputation, without building yours at all,” she said. “That is what I mean by extractive.”
Kashkul promotes a model of shared credit. “Instead of treating local experts as essentially dictionaries with legs, let’s treat them as full people,” she said. “There is no shame in saying I didn’t do this on my own… It is actually a really celebratory practice.”
Describing the mission of Kashkul and AUIS, she said: “We are an educational institution, we are building the next generation. Let publication and co-translation be a way that we can build the next generation.”
“Anyone who does work should be credited for it,” she said.