Agustina Marianacci
“Community interpreters hold a powerful position within any interpreted event due to their linguistic and multicultural knowledge (Mason & Ren, 2013). However, interpreters’ power is often unacknowledged as a result of non-engagement and invisibility ideals in professional interpreting, as well as cultural and linguistic hegemonies which hide systemic injustices (Coyne & Hill, 2016). Unlike restrictive conduit views of the interpreting role, the ally model of interpreting recognises interpreters’ power and contextualises decision-making within historic oppression and inequality (Baker-Shenk, 1991). This enables interpreters to act in ways that promote social justice, empower interpreting service users, and offer equality of access (Witter-Merithew, 1999). However, the ally model has mostly been studied from within the field of signed languages, in relation to the deaf community (Baker-Shenk, 1986; Hsieh et al., 2013). Additionally, interpreting guidelines have remained mostly in the hands of the practitioners (Rudvin, 2007), as there is limited research from the service users’ point of view (Edwards et al., 2005).
This presentation will focus on a research project on allyship and social justice in spoken-language interpreting from a service-user perspective. The research was conducted with the Latin American community in Aotearoa New Zealand, employing a horizontal methodology developed by Latin American and European transdisciplinary researchers (Kaltmeier & Corona Berkin, 2012). The findings highlighted users’ appreciation for interpreters’ humane qualities, even over linguistic proficiency. Professional practice was seen to require empathy, flexibility, self-reflection, and a middle ground that avoids over-intrusions and unnecessarily rigid behaviour. This approach to practice was seen to promote an understanding of situated needs and challenges and, consequently, to enable a consideration for social justice and critical perspectives. While the findings suggest that there is room for the incorporation of the ally model in spoken-language interpreting, they also reinforce the need to complement discussions about role models with the development of professional responsibility and a focus on the consequences of interpreters’ actions, similar to other caring and practice professions (Dean & Pollard, 2018; Drugan & Tipton, 2017).
Keywords: allyship, social justice, interpreting service users, community interpreting, interpreter power