“coming clean” about researching multilingually – learning from different disciplines
TRANSCRIPT
Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, the Body, Law and the State
“Coming clean” about research multilingually – learning from different discipline
RMTC Hub
Durham Symposium October 2014
Outline
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
1. Orientation
2. Our puzzles
3. Mapping a range of disciplines in relation to RM
4. Honing in on one study – Robert Boder
5. Guidance for newcomers to the territory – research methods textbooks
6. Researching Multilingually in languages other than English
7. Concluding thoughts
Orientation
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Searching for ‘traces’ of RM
Revisiting works to clarify how RM negotiated
Noticing metaphors / writers’ orientations towards RM
Researching multilingually and researching multilingualism
Reviewing research methods and methodologies texts
Puzzles
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Which disciplines? Why not engineering or biology?
Historical perspectives or contemporary ones? How far back?
Research papers or books?
Search terms?
Accessing relevant sources beyond English language texts?
Mapping disciplines and research processes
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
1) A concern for validity in studies with RM
Nursing and business studies
Squires (2009) – need for criteria for evaluating research validity and transparency, (10 offered, see hand out)
Croot et al (2011) Critique of Squires – emergent nature of interactions in RM studies
Chidlow et al (2014) – critique of translation practices within business studies research
Globalisation – impacts on academic practices (1)
• http://reggiochildrenfoundation.org/?page_id=54
• Dangers of ‘one way linguistic traffic’ from English
• Concept of social pedagogy and the pedagogue little known in UK but very familiar concepts in other European contexts
• Social pedagogy conflated with ‘education’ or ‘teaching’ thus missing the holistic approach to young children’s early experience
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Peter Moss (2010)“English as a problem language”
Early childhood studies
Lack of problematisation in translation of terms and concepts
Children learn in
‘un atelier’ with ‘un atelierista’
La piazza
"Spazi comuni nella scuola per l'infanzia" by Vincenzo Mainardi - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spazi_comuni_nella_scuola_per_l%27infanzia.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Spazi_comuni_nella_scuola_per_l%27infanzia.jpg
Globalisation – impacts on academic practices (2)
Robinson-Pant (2011)• Reflecting on the experiences of international students in UK higher education,
doctoral students of education• Challenges and tensions of gaining an award in one country / cultural context
based on fieldwork gathered in another • need for “decolonisation” of research methodologies• Students need to be supported not to “unlearn” their understanding of ethics /
research processes associated with specific contexts
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
RM and ethics (1)
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Perry (2011) ethics from the perspective of research governance
Review of practices of Institutional Review Boards
Diversity of practices between institutions regarding research with refugees
‘imposition’ of ethical assumptions and practices – anonymity as a desirable feature of research practice
Assumption that lack of English language skills puts a research participant in a category of being “vulnerable”
RM and ethics (2)
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
When I go into a horrendous camp situation as a white researcher, the people are so desperate for any form of assistance they would agree to anything just on the off chance that I might be able to able to assist. It makes asking for permission to interview them or take photographs a farce… What does ‘informed consent’ mean in an isolated refugee camp with security problems and no proper interpreters?[Personal communication, Linda Bartolomei, 2004] p.234
Significance of context in defining ethics and ethical practice
Pittaway, E., Bartolomei, L., Hugman, R. (2010) ‘Stop stealing our stories’: The ethics of research with vulnerable groups in Journal of Human Rights Practice 2/2, 229-251
Researcher reflexivity – power dynamics
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Tahir Abbas, Gill Crozier
educational sociologists - studies of Asian young people’s experiences of education in England and Black parents’ experiences of their children’s education
Concerns with power imbalances between researchers and participants and research relationships
Abbas – a “same-ethnicity” researcher
Crozier – background sharing to develop rapport
Both researchers – participants had a choice of language with which to engage in research encounters
RM research processes – working with data
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Abreu 2011
Study of young people and ‘work’ – babysitting, paper rounds, language brokering
Educational psychology
Attention given to ways of working with data – language choices offered, uses of source language texts and translations in data analysis and presentation
Language choice offered to participants but not dwelt upon
Theorising RM processes
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Wolf
Globalisation demands new approaches to conceptualizing translation and interpretation
Sociological, intercultural theories may help
Bourdieu - Habitus
Bernstein - Classification and framing
Bhabha – third space
Interpreters’ roles
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Research team relationships
Temple – social care
Sanderson – nursing
Kamler & Threadgold – intercultural communication
Interpreters’ roles and contributions need researchers’ attention
recognition of interpreters as participants in research interactions not merely service providers – implications for briefing, collaboration, costs
Honing in on one study – The work of Robert Boder
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Honing in on one study – The work of Robert Boder
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Guidance for newcomers: Research methods textbooks
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Our approach:
Key word searches
Targetted research methods texts
‘Mainstream’ research methods texts rather than specialised texts (e.g. linguistic ethnography texts)
Guidance for newcomers: Research methods textbooks
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Themes: Influences of global publishing industryWhich authors are published?In which languages?
P.137. In relation to feminist work: “More international scholars are being published, but in English because of translation difficulties and marketing pressures (Meagan Morris, personal communication)”.
Edited by Denzin & Lincoln The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (4th edition – 2011) on
Guidance for newcomers: Research methods textbooks
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Themes: Researcher pressures from global publishingResearcher identity
Social psychological research in Asia can be characterized by tension between scholars living within a phenomenological layer of cultural constructions as a visible part of their everyday life, and producing English-language publications that are devoid of such meaningful content and dedicated toward the pragmatics of career advancement according to top-down standards imported from the “best” (read Western) universitiesp.222
Edited by Denzin & Lincoln The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (4th edition – 2011) on
Guidance for newcomers: Research methods textbooks
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Themes: RM as demanding or limitingRM financial costs
Furthermore, when research interviews are conducted in multiple languages, interviewing, as well as transcribing, coding and analysing the materials, is particularly demanding. Translation to one shared language is expensive, and may introduce new problems when some data is translated and other not, for instance. The presence of several languages in the materials may limit the choice of analytical strategies, particularly those focused on languagep. 99
Ivy Bourgeault, Robert Dingwall, Ray de Vries The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Methods in Health Research (2010)
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Themes:Specific methods – focus groupsRM and assumptionsRM as problematic
When conducting focus groups with members of ethnic minorities whose first language may not be that of the researchers, it is also easy to make unwarranted assumptions about ‘sameness’ based on shared language skills … Translation can be a potential minefield and it is important to enlist the help of bilingual moderators in carrying out back translation to ensure that offensive and insensitive vocabulary is avoided (Culley et al., 2007) p.339
Bourgeault et al
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Themes:Assumptions of contexts for RMIssues of control flagged up as a concern in studies with RM
“A lack of language skills can therefore upset the practice of observation in a foreign terrain”.
The role of interpreters. “Interpreters can transform questions – either consciously or unconsciously – reducing researchers’ control over their projects. Similar problems can arise in the process of transcription and translation”. P.629.
Bourgeault et al
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Themes:Where is RM situated?What is deemed to be core to the ‘business’ of interviewing and what is on the periphery?
“The need to conduct interviews in a foreign language raises numerous issues that are beyond the scope of the present chapter”. P,78
Gubrium and Holstein Handbook of interview research: context & method (2002)
Researching Multilingually – drawing on work produced in languages other than English
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Parallel conversations – Risager (2011) & Haberland (2013)
Risager – roles and responsibilities of interpreters in e.g. research into the experiences of newcomers to Denmark (2005-8)
Identity issues - impact of the worldview of the interpreter on the interaction, developing interest of researchers in the life stories of the interpreters
Personal communication from academics working in Greek and English, Mandarin and English reported ‘no’ sources in Greek and Mandarin guiding RM practice
In Portuguese, the issue is not discussed in undergraduate and masters’ methodology textbooks.
Researching Multilingually – drawing on work produced in languages other than English
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Haberland (2013) based in Denmark, writing in English, Danish and French
“the representation issue for multilingual interaction (which would include the use of several languages in the research process as distinct from the study of multilingual interaction itself)”
“how to represent multilingual interaction (e.g. research interviews) for an audience that is not multilingual with the same languages as are represented in your data.”
“the representation of multilingual interaction and to the use of non-Latin scripts in transcription. I think this is a relevant issue for multilingual research, although I have not really seen it treated anywhere else.”
Concluding thoughts
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
The project can contribute to ‘mainstream’ thinking on research methods and methodologies regarding RM
Findings and challenges from studies in a wide range of disciplines can feed into our research design, theorising, fieldwork, analyses and dissemination
Disciplinary norms and research paradigms seem to feed into ways of engaging with and representing RM
Learning from studies conducted and presented / written in a range of languages remains a task to pursue
Concluding thoughts
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) through the Translating Cultures Programme [grant reference AH/L006936/1]
Final thoughts:
Bashiruddin 2013
the process of translation and making meaning out of the stories is a complex and time consuming process… The researcher needs to negotiate meanings by involving the participants. Third, situating the stories in a social context requires in-depth knowledge and understanding by the researcher of the context in which the stories are situated. This can only be understood if the researcher is aware of the context and is constantly exploring it through the lens of the research participants.”
Our challenge in working with people who are vulnerable, in pain