This document invites participation in a research project exploring multilingual practices at borders. The project has two overarching aims: 1) researching interpreting and translation in challenging contexts, and 2) evaluating appropriate research methods and developing theoretical approaches. An international team will conduct comparative case studies on translation/interpretation at different types of borders. The project includes two hubs utilizing complementary academic and creative research methods across five case studies examining topics like translating trauma, law, borders, and language education. Participants are invited to submit reflections on their experience with multilingual research to join an online researcher network.
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Researching multilingually at the borders of language, the body, law and the state
1. Researching Multilingually at the Borders
of Language, the Body, Law and the State
An invitation for participation
Mariam Attia
2. Researching Multilingually
Two overarching aims:
1) to research interpreting, translation and multilingual
practices in challenging contexts, and,
2) while doing so, to evaluate appropriate research methods
(traditional and arts based) and develop theoretical
approaches for this type of academic exploration.
An international team of researchers with different disciplinary
backgrounds, research experiences and language skills will
conduct international comparative research on translation and
interpretation at different kinds of border in order to develop
theory, ethical research practices and research methodologies
in relation to multilingual research.
3. Research Context
Concepts of borders and security/insecurity raise important
practical and ethical questions as to how research might be
conducted.
Focus on Methods: Part of the innovative nature of the
project lies not in using new methods per se, but rather
(i) in comparing across discipline-specific methods,
(ii) interrogating arts and humanities methods where the
body and body politic are under threat,
(iii) in developing theoretical and methodological insights
as a result.
There are some pockets of work in disciplines but no
overarching framework across multiple disciplines.
4. Five Case Studies
1) Global Mental Health: Translating Sexual and Gender
Based Trauma (Scotland/Sierra Leone)
2) Law: Translating vulnerability and silence in the legal
process (UK/Netherlands)
3) State: Working and Researching Multilingually at State
and EU borders (Bulgaria/Romania)
4) Borders: Multilingual Ecologies in American Southwest
borderlands
5) Language Education: Arabic as a Foreign Language for
International Learners (Gaza)
5. Two Hubs
Multimodal Complementary Methods
Processes
(reflexive, ethical)
Researchers
(Teams, two hubs, five case study sites, three PhDs)
CATC hub
Performance, artistic
creative methods
RMTC hub
Academic, investigative,
comparative methods
7. Outputs
.. which create impact and communicate beyond the
theme for a new generation of researchers and
stakeholders who have tools, theories and methods for
researching multilingually across wide range of
disciplines.
8. Invitation for Participation
Building on former AHRC project Researching Multilingually
-> Networking project (Dec 2011 – Nov 2012)
Seminars
Online researcher network
-> collaborations, Special Issue, funding.. etc
13. Two Prompts
1) What is your experience of doing research in more
than one language?
2) What is your experience of becoming aware of the
complexities in this area?
14. Invitation for Participation
300 – 500 words – Same text can be offered in
different languages
Personal photo (JPEG)
mail@mariamattia.com
Modifying or updating profiles is possible (actually
encouraged)
Looking forward to receiving your reflections!
Refugee as referent is where the issues are manifest most acutely and urgently for policy and ngo contexts we have consulted.
Excellent work in Applied and sociolinguistics or in literary study of conflict which touches on languages but not as a overarching framework across multiple disciplines.
Translation: literal, metaphorical, symbolic, political/economic
Introduction: Our large grants project is made of five case study sites, all of which will generate material/examples the the RMTC and CATC hubs can draw on to research multilingually and translate cultures.
This case is but one example of the multiple case studies we will collect, but our translation of the case/experience is an amalgam of analysis and performance (as the example will illustrate).
Scenario:
A single mother war victim from Cote d’Ivoire with two disabled daughters seek asylum in Scotland.
She speaks her native Nzema and Fante (also spoken in Ghana) and French but needed to process the trauma in English and with the music of home.
She believes her children are a curse, at church, she is told by her African ‘pastor’ that the curse is from family members in Cote d’Ivoire
In Glasgow, She faces multiple problems regarding her spoken and written English, her children’s education, housing, work, child care, marriage and her own ambitions to became a designer.
How do we Research such a case and document, analyse and compare
How will the the emotional impact of this lady’s trauma be translated?
How did we collect the research data (the story)?
Documenting/translation: in a poem/song, a short story,
Jane’s slide
Multimodal complementary methods
This case study illustrates that not all the data emergent from the five case study sites can be collected and disseminated/represented using traditional methods. We (i.e., the two hubs) will interrogate the emergent data (cases) from different perspectives, drawing on multimodel, complementary methods.
There are different levels/processes of translation. Some experiences, e.g., emotional, cannot be translated into words, so different modes/media are important.
CATC hub researchers will use performance, artistic, creative methods. Experiencing the research (data) by living the experience with the participants, as this case has illustrated, is important here.
RMTC hub researchers will draw on academic investigative methods, e.g., narrative/discourse/thematic analysis, observations of ppts and researchers, interviews and focus groups.
Processes
Research methods from RMTC hub and translation/performance methods from CATC hub will feed into the “Researching Multilingually” framework – using iterative, reflexive, ethical processes.
Researchers
All these methods and processes are linked to the research going on in the case study sites, and to the work of the 3 PhD students. The processes are iterative ones – of ongoing analyses and ongoing performances throughout the life cycle of the project.
Just as the academic researchers (led by the RMTC hub) will produce academic/praxis-oriented outputs, so will the CATC hub synthesise the various ongoing performances into one culminating play text/performance the encapsulates the translation of the “Researching Multilingually” experience.
These methodological processes are linked to the disciplines embedded in the case studies (e.g., anthropology, applied linguistics, education, ELT, health, law, languages, psychology, sociology)
T
This is a complex project, of necessity, to enable true comparison. This slide – some will be diagram people - , included in the proposal, allows us to clarify the project relationships, syntheses and processes and we leave it here to allow for discussion and welcome your questions.
Jane’s slide
Multimodal complementary methods
This case study illustrates that not all the data emergent from the five case study sites can be collected and disseminated/represented using traditional methods. We (i.e., the two hubs) will interrogate the emergent data (cases) from different perspectives, drawing on multimodel, complementary methods.
There are different levels/processes of translation. Some experiences, e.g., emotional, cannot be translated into words, so different modes/media are important.
CATC hub researchers will use performance, artistic, creative methods. Experiencing the research (data) by living the experience with the participants, as this case has illustrated, is important here.
RMTC hub researchers will draw on academic investigative methods, e.g., narrative/discourse/thematic analysis, observations of ppts and researchers, interviews and focus groups.
Processes
Research methods from RMTC hub and translation/performance methods from CATC hub will feed into the “Researching Multilingually” framework – using iterative, reflexive, ethical processes.
Researchers
All these methods and processes are linked to the research going on in the case study sites, and to the work of the 3 PhD students. The processes are iterative ones – of ongoing analyses and ongoing performances throughout the life cycle of the project.
Just as the academic researchers (led by the RMTC hub) will produce academic/praxis-oriented outputs, so will the CATC hub synthesise the various ongoing performances into one culminating play text/performance the encapsulates the translation of the “Researching Multilingually” experience.
These methodological processes are linked to the disciplines embedded in the case studies (e.g., anthropology, applied linguistics, education, ELT, health, law, languages, psychology, sociology)
T
Jane’s slide
Multimodal complementary methods
This case study illustrates that not all the data emergent from the five case study sites can be collected and disseminated/represented using traditional methods. We (i.e., the two hubs) will interrogate the emergent data (cases) from different perspectives, drawing on multimodel, complementary methods.
There are different levels/processes of translation. Some experiences, e.g., emotional, cannot be translated into words, so different modes/media are important.
CATC hub researchers will use performance, artistic, creative methods. Experiencing the research (data) by living the experience with the participants, as this case has illustrated, is important here.
RMTC hub researchers will draw on academic investigative methods, e.g., narrative/discourse/thematic analysis, observations of ppts and researchers, interviews and focus groups.
Processes
Research methods from RMTC hub and translation/performance methods from CATC hub will feed into the “Researching Multilingually” framework – using iterative, reflexive, ethical processes.
Researchers
All these methods and processes are linked to the research going on in the case study sites, and to the work of the 3 PhD students. The processes are iterative ones – of ongoing analyses and ongoing performances throughout the life cycle of the project.
Just as the academic researchers (led by the RMTC hub) will produce academic/praxis-oriented outputs, so will the CATC hub synthesise the various ongoing performances into one culminating play text/performance the encapsulates the translation of the “Researching Multilingually” experience.
These methodological processes are linked to the disciplines embedded in the case studies (e.g., anthropology, applied linguistics, education, ELT, health, law, languages, psychology, sociology)
T
Jane’s slide
Multimodal complementary methods
This case study illustrates that not all the data emergent from the five case study sites can be collected and disseminated/represented using traditional methods. We (i.e., the two hubs) will interrogate the emergent data (cases) from different perspectives, drawing on multimodel, complementary methods.
There are different levels/processes of translation. Some experiences, e.g., emotional, cannot be translated into words, so different modes/media are important.
CATC hub researchers will use performance, artistic, creative methods. Experiencing the research (data) by living the experience with the participants, as this case has illustrated, is important here.
RMTC hub researchers will draw on academic investigative methods, e.g., narrative/discourse/thematic analysis, observations of ppts and researchers, interviews and focus groups.
Processes
Research methods from RMTC hub and translation/performance methods from CATC hub will feed into the “Researching Multilingually” framework – using iterative, reflexive, ethical processes.
Researchers
All these methods and processes are linked to the research going on in the case study sites, and to the work of the 3 PhD students. The processes are iterative ones – of ongoing analyses and ongoing performances throughout the life cycle of the project.
Just as the academic researchers (led by the RMTC hub) will produce academic/praxis-oriented outputs, so will the CATC hub synthesise the various ongoing performances into one culminating play text/performance the encapsulates the translation of the “Researching Multilingually” experience.
These methodological processes are linked to the disciplines embedded in the case studies (e.g., anthropology, applied linguistics, education, ELT, health, law, languages, psychology, sociology)
T
Jane’s slide
Multimodal complementary methods
This case study illustrates that not all the data emergent from the five case study sites can be collected and disseminated/represented using traditional methods. We (i.e., the two hubs) will interrogate the emergent data (cases) from different perspectives, drawing on multimodel, complementary methods.
There are different levels/processes of translation. Some experiences, e.g., emotional, cannot be translated into words, so different modes/media are important.
CATC hub researchers will use performance, artistic, creative methods. Experiencing the research (data) by living the experience with the participants, as this case has illustrated, is important here.
RMTC hub researchers will draw on academic investigative methods, e.g., narrative/discourse/thematic analysis, observations of ppts and researchers, interviews and focus groups.
Processes
Research methods from RMTC hub and translation/performance methods from CATC hub will feed into the “Researching Multilingually” framework – using iterative, reflexive, ethical processes.
Researchers
All these methods and processes are linked to the research going on in the case study sites, and to the work of the 3 PhD students. The processes are iterative ones – of ongoing analyses and ongoing performances throughout the life cycle of the project.
Just as the academic researchers (led by the RMTC hub) will produce academic/praxis-oriented outputs, so will the CATC hub synthesise the various ongoing performances into one culminating play text/performance the encapsulates the translation of the “Researching Multilingually” experience.
These methodological processes are linked to the disciplines embedded in the case studies (e.g., anthropology, applied linguistics, education, ELT, health, law, languages, psychology, sociology)
T
Jane’s slide
Multimodal complementary methods
This case study illustrates that not all the data emergent from the five case study sites can be collected and disseminated/represented using traditional methods. We (i.e., the two hubs) will interrogate the emergent data (cases) from different perspectives, drawing on multimodel, complementary methods.
There are different levels/processes of translation. Some experiences, e.g., emotional, cannot be translated into words, so different modes/media are important.
CATC hub researchers will use performance, artistic, creative methods. Experiencing the research (data) by living the experience with the participants, as this case has illustrated, is important here.
RMTC hub researchers will draw on academic investigative methods, e.g., narrative/discourse/thematic analysis, observations of ppts and researchers, interviews and focus groups.
Processes
Research methods from RMTC hub and translation/performance methods from CATC hub will feed into the “Researching Multilingually” framework – using iterative, reflexive, ethical processes.
Researchers
All these methods and processes are linked to the research going on in the case study sites, and to the work of the 3 PhD students. The processes are iterative ones – of ongoing analyses and ongoing performances throughout the life cycle of the project.
Just as the academic researchers (led by the RMTC hub) will produce academic/praxis-oriented outputs, so will the CATC hub synthesise the various ongoing performances into one culminating play text/performance the encapsulates the translation of the “Researching Multilingually” experience.
These methodological processes are linked to the disciplines embedded in the case studies (e.g., anthropology, applied linguistics, education, ELT, health, law, languages, psychology, sociology)
T