Category Archives: Refugees

by monzo

Linguistic (in)justice, global migration and social work

Dr. Kristina Gustafsson, Associate professor and senior lecturer in Social Work, Linnaeus University, Sweden

A social worker and a recently arrived young mother from Syria meet at a social services office in Sweden. An interpreter is there to facilitate communication. The school principal had reported concerns about the
wellbeing of the mother’s daughter to the social services. This situation had become rather frequent in Sweden when, in February 2022, social events evidenced a collapse in confidence between social child
care and protection services and families with migration experiences. Parents shared their desperation in public demonstrations about their children being targets for forced legal restraints, international organizations directed threats towards Swedish social services, spreading disinformation about how these
authorities kidnapped migrant children and sold them as slaves to pedophiles. How do we look at these events? My presentation will use a linguistic justice framework to discuss the intersections among (1) social work as multilingual work; (2) the monolingual national framework and legacy of the Nordic
countries, and (3) the increase of multilingual clients in social work due to global migration. Power asymmetries within social work will be revealed and exclusion and oppression as well as inclusion and emancipatory practices will be highlighted. An emphasis will be placed on the need for linguistic
awareness and for developing multilingual competences at all levels of social work, including education, policies, practices, and research.

by monzo

Providing information to refugees through digital technologies: opportunities and challenges 

July De Wilde

Digital technologies in general, and mobile phones in particular, have become essential tools for accessing information and resources during transit journeys and processes of refugee (re)settlement. Parallelly, organisations working with refugees in host societies increasingly use digital tools to provide effective and efficient information.

The wider study of this presentation evaluates the use and effectiveness of fedasilinfo.be. The website, managed by the Belgian reception authorities, aims to provide seekers of international protection (IP) and service providers involved in their reception, with relevant and reliable information on 8 central themes in 14 different languages. For the evaluation of the website, we used a mixed-methods approach and collected three different datasets: (1) an online survey amongst 174 collaborators, (2) interviews with 31 refugees and (3) screen capture recordings (N=26) users while searching for information about their asylum procedure.

This presentation focuses on the varying challenges that exist for persons who do not have (full) access to the provided information and are therefore potentially more vulnerable. Members of small(er) language groups are excluded from the information because their language is not available, others are being erroneously assimilated to speakers of regional variants and therefore lack information. For some languages, only written text is available, while other seekers of IP can access information through both text and audio. Likewise, low levels of digital literacy hinder the abilities of some seekers of IP to manage the provided information efficiently.

Our discussion shows that the development of a multilingual website, praiseworthy as the initiative may be, also urges a range of questions about (i) digital literacy practices, (ii) the different values ascribed to language (variants), (iii) the practical challenges that are involved in providing information in ways that aim for rationality of decision, fairness, or equality and (iv) language rights.

Keywords: digital communication, refugees, access, multilingual website.

by monzo

Translating Refugees. Empirical Findings and Theoretical Considerations

Dilek Dizdar & Tomasz Rozmyslowicz

The paper presents results from a new research project on the role of translation and interpreting in the context of forced migration. In this project, field research is conducted in a German reception facility for refugees. The research interest focuses on an often neglected but central aspect of forced migration: the role of translation and interpretation in the communications between refugees and  authorities. Contrary to the widespread view in everyday life and also in academia, these mediation processes are not neutral and harmless acts of transferring meaning. Rather, they are complex and consequential practices of constructing and processing difference that require in-depth investigation.

The presentation will show how translating and interpreting do not simply cross existing language boundaries, but first and foremost draw them, sorting people by language and assigning them to language communities (Sakai 2018; Dizdar 2021). Under what institutional conditions do such assignments take place? And what consequences do they entail? What does it mean, for example, when refugees from Africa are classified as «French-speaking» and therefore have to speak the language of a former colonial power? What does it mean to be subsumed under a category like «Arabic» when it encompasses a multitude of different and not necessarily mutually intelligible ways of speaking (Dizdar 2021)?

By answering such questions, the presentation aims to reconsider the relation between language and translating/interpreting practices on a theortical level.

Dizdar, Dilek (2021): «Translation als Katalysator von Humandifferenzierung», in: Dizdar, Dilek/Hirschauer, Stefan/Paulmann, Johannes/Schabacher, Gabriele (Hg.) (2021): Humandifferenzierung. Disziplinäre Perspektiven und empirische Sondierungen. Weilerswist: Velbrück, 135-159.

Sakai, Naoki (2018): „The modern regime of translation and its politics”, in: D’hulst, L./Gambier, Y. (Hg.): A History of Modern Translation Knowledge: Sources, concepts, effects. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins (Benjamins Translation Library 146), 61-74.

Keywords: refugees, translation/interpreting, language, field research, asylum centre.