Translation in Cascading Crises [1 ed.] 9781839825330

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Disaster Prevention and Management An International Journal Number 2

Translation in cascading crises

Disaster Prevention and Management

Volume 29 Number 2 2020

Guest Editors: Sharon O’Brien and Federico Marco Federici 129 Crisis translation: considering language needs in multilingual disaster settings Sharon O’Brien and Federico Marco Federici

144 The role of translators and interpreters in cascading crises and disasters: towards a framework for confronting the challenges

Translation in cascading crises

157 Trust, distrust and translation in a disaster Patrick Cadwell

187 Ophelia, Emma, and the beast from the east effortful engaging and the provision of sign language interpreting in emergencies Lorraine Leeson

200 Transnational crisis translation: social media and forced migration Jay Marlowe

214 Local capacity building after crisis: the role of languages and translation in the work of development NGOs in Kyrgyzstan

Volume 29 Number 2 2020

Dónal P. O’Mathúna and Matthew R. Hunt

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emeraldpublishing.com

ISBN 978-1-83982-532-3

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Disaster Prevention and Management An International Journal

David E. Alexander and Gianluca Pescaroli

175 Ethics and crisis translation: insights from the work of Paul Ricoeur

ISSN 0965-3562 Volume 29 Number 2 2020

Guest Editors: Sharon O’Brien and Federico Marco Federici

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0965-3562.htm

Crisis translation: considering language needs in multilingual disaster settings Sharon O’Brien School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland, and

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129 Received 27 November 2018 Revised 3 July 2019 Accepted 3 July 2019

Federico Marco Federici Centre for Translation Studies, University College London, London, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight the role that language translation can play in disaster prevention and management and to make the case for increased attention to language translation in crisis communication. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on literature relating to disaster management to suggest that translation is a perennial issue in crisis communication. Findings – Although communication with multicultural and multilinguistic communities is seen as being in urgent need of attention, the authors find that the role of translation in enabling this is underestimated, if not unrecognized. Originality/value – This paper raises awareness of the need for urgent attention to be given by scholars and practitioners to the role of translation in crisis communication. Keywords Crisis communication, Translation studies, Cross-cultural barriers, Emergency responses, Linguistic vulnerability Paper type Conceptual paper

Introduction Much as the world is interconnected and globalized in terms of communication, the breadth of social and economic impact of communication in multilingual, transborder as well as national crises remains understudied (Federici, 2016). Long-lasting crises can erupt within multicultural cities (e.g. the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London), a region (the 2017 earthquake in Mexico), a nation (the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake, or the 2010 Haiti earthquake) or across borders between multiple countries (the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami across 18 countries in the Indian Ocean). Triggered by natural hazards, or teleological motivations – human-driven disasters, including terrorism and conflict (Glade and Alexander, 2016) – happen within multilingual and multicultural societies (Cadwell, 2014; Cadwell and O’Brien, 2016; O’Brien and Cadwell, 2017). Increased people displacement and economic migrations across the world causes major concerns for migrants’ adaptability to disasters in their new contexts. Although displaced populations can be resilient because of their past experiences (Guadagno et al., 2017; Khan and McNamara, 2017; MICIC, 2016), at the same time they can be exposed to new vulnerabilities in their new environments with limited access to information (Puthoopparambil and Parente, 2018). Language plays a role in both cross-boundary and local settings. Local crises in multilingual societies equally have implications for temporary or long-term residents with limited proficiency in the local language – an example: translations into 18 languages were needed after the Grenfell Tower fire. Thus, from indigenous populations to (un)integrated The collaboration that led the authors to write this paper was initiated by the INTERACT Crisis Translation Network project. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 734211.

Disaster Prevention and Management Vol. 29 No. 2, 2020 pp. 129-143 © Emerald Publishing Limited 0965-3562 DOI 10.1108/DPM-11-2018-0373

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migrants, to tourists or business travellers, any crisis can cascade into multiple, diverse and interrelated temporal, cultural, linguistic and geographical dimensions (Pescaroli and Alexander, 2015). Consequently, language translation is required. Training for internationally coordinated responses to crises (Howe et al., 2013) and collecting data from disasters (Mulder et al., 2016) also happen in multilingual environments, where the lingua franca (the English language of international humanitarian institutions) is both a solution and part of the problem. Overreliance on everybody’s (degrees of ) competence in English delays engaging with the “perennial issue” of crisis communication among international responders (Crowley and Chan, 2011, p. 24) and with crisis-affected communities (New Zealand Government, 2013). In this paper, we make the case for increased attention to language translation in crisis communication. Translation is here intended as linguistic and cultural transfer from one language into another, be it through oral, signing, written or multimodal channels. We show how, in spite of some progress, the literature that deals with the multilingual nature of crisis situations is limited in fields where it should thrive, such as in crisis communication and in translation studies. Despite the central role attributed to efficient communication in disaster risk reduction (henceforth DRR), our current ability to plan and deliver multilingual information in crises is in fact hindered by the focus on language needs that is predominantly limited to considering, dealing or resolving language issues in the response phase. We propose a shift of focus towards considering language translation as part of disaster prevention and management. Embedded in debates on planning, preparedness, training and mitigation, language translation aligns with the recent call to consider communication of crucial and timely information in crisis management as a human right (Greenwood et al., 2017). Yet, as the cursory evidence on how the multilingual communication issues are studied so far shows this right goes currently unnoticed, or gets very limited attention, at best. What is crisis translation? Communication mediated by professional and ad hoc linguists (be they translators or interpreters) is a complex form of communication. Prior to explaining the proposed conceptualisation of crisis translation, it is necessary to scope what is meant by “translation” and “crisis”, as used in this paper. We propose a broad conceptualisation of crisis translation as a specific form of communication that overlaps with principles of risk communication (CDC, 2014; Reynolds and Seeger, 2014) as much as with principles of emergency planning and management (Alexander, 2002, 2016b). Over the last decades, the recognition that any disruptive event has cascading effects has become significant. As issues in multilingual communication exist before, during and after any emergency or disaster, an awareness of cascading effects over the long-term and beyond the geographical location of the event is a conditio sine qua non to consider definitions of crisis that account for the interconnectedness of the twenty-first century world. Pescaroli and Alexander’s (2015) definition of “cascading disasters”, which connects crisis as a threatening condition with disasters as triggering events of different magnitude and duration, shapes our definition of crisis. In particular, Pescaroli and Alexander (2015, p. 62) integrate and sharpen the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction terminology by emphasizing “that cascades are events that depend, to some extent, on their context, and thus their diffusion is associated with enduring vulnerabilities”. It is noteworthy, however, that the UN perceives language translation as a matter of “services”. For instance, the Disaster Assessment and Coordination Field Handbook (UNDAC, 2018) in the workflow of its On-Site Operations Coordination Centre for disaster management includes in one of its checklists for crisis communication “procurement of translation/interpretation services” (UNDAC, 2018, p. 17). This positive awareness of need clashes with the reality that such services may exist professionally in very limited scope, translators and interpreters are not

trained in the many language pairs that may be required, and local languages, dialects, minority languages and low/no literacy communities are less served than lingua franca or “international” languages. The lack of appropriate linguistic and cultural awareness in crisis communication may lead to catastrophic consequences, which could be avoidable and for this reason we position this lack within the “cascading disaster” paradigm. Problems of translation leading to inappropriate evacuations (e.g. Field, 2017) or cultural presumptions leading to further infection in displaced and local populations in the 2014 Ebola outbreak (e.g. Bastide, 2018) show that inadequate planning for language translation provision leads to vulnerability. The UN defines as vulnerabilities “the conditions determined by physical, social, economic and environmental factors or processes which increase the susceptibility of an individual, a community, assets or systems to the impacts of hazards”[1]. Vulnerabilities also depend on cultural perceptions of risk and whether cultural backgrounds align with the international (often Anglophone) concepts of preparedness and risk reduction (see discussions in Blaikie et al., 2004; Krüger et al., 2015). Lack of integration, lack of participation, lack of access to information represent vulnerabilities for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. Translation would mitigate some of these pre-existing vulnerabilities, but as Grin (2017, p. 156) puts it “[t]ranslation sometimes evokes the image of a Cinderella confined to humble domestic chores while her elder sisters, that is, communication strategies like ‘lingua franca’ and second/foreign language learning, enjoy all the attention and visibility”. The consequences of these are highlighted in the recent IFRC (2018) World Disasters Report: Speakers of minority languages who are not fluent in the official national language(s) are at a structural disadvantage in many countries. […] However linguistically diverse the affected population, humanitarian responses are usually coordinated in international lingua francas and delivered in a narrow range of national languages. (p. 103)

As a result, language translation rarely, if ever, features among plans to increase resilience but its absence increases the cascading effects of crises. Pescaroli and Alexander’s (2015) definition of “cascading disasters” (pp. 64-65) underpins a notion of “crisis” that persuades us that research into translation and its effects on communication in crisis management is much needed. Poor or culturally inappropriate communication undermines trust in responders and institutions. Failure to address effective communication for CALD communities generates further social disruption, one of the cascading effects. This, in turn, risks affecting and endangering respondents who may deal with crisis-affected populations because their lack of understanding or their cultural mindset make them appear as non-collaborative. Thus, crisis translation considers language barriers in the context of multi-dimensional cascading effects that widen existing vulnerabilities or engender new ones by means of miscommunication. As mentioned earlier, “translation” here refers to all modes, oral, written, signed and multimodal that could be used for communication in preparation and response, as well as for recovery from a crisis. Hence, “translation” includes the oral task of “interpreting”. For those outside the academic and professional domain of translation, debates about the different skills required from translators and interpreters are largely unknown and “translation” is the term used generally to mean the transfer of meaning and cultural encodings from one language/cultural system to another regardless of the channel of communication (e.g. the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative heading “translation: the perennial hidden issue” concerns in fact a question of interpreting). Moreover, an individual may act as a translator of written content in one instance and an interpreter of oral content in another. This is especially the case in crisis situations. The term “translator” is usually reserved in academia and in the translation professions

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(Gouadec, 2007) for those who are “qualified” to act through training and/or experience. However, in a crisis situation, a “translator” might be any person who can mediate between two or more language and culture systems, without specific training or qualifications (Federici and Cadwell, 2018; O’Brien and Cadwell, 2017). A translator might even be a young refugee (see Marlowe and Bogen, 2015; Melandri et al., 2014). This loose definition of a translator is not a comfortable one for those who work in the translation professions or in the related academic discipline. Nonetheless, when people are faced with a crisis, the luxury of a trained professional is often just that – an unattainable luxury. We recognize that translation is carried out by many different people in crisis situations; that it is sometimes oral, sometimes written and sometimes highly multimodal; that the translator is sometimes a trained professional and sometimes not, sometimes an adult, sometimes a child, that translators do not just transfer linguistic information, but also act, very importantly, as cultural mediators. Take this state of affairs and add to it the lack of trained translators and interpreters who are available to work in a crisis, the lack of funding for communication, never mind translation, the urgency that is associated with core phases of crises (response and recovery), and the potential power of volunteers, it is necessary to adopt a broad definition of “translation” and “translator”. Growing recognition of the need We do not wish to give the impression that translation is entirely overlooked in commentaries or policies on crisis communication. At the Sendai implementation conference in 2016, translation and interpreting were discussed in the context of capacity building for disaster risk reduction (Aitsi-Selmi et al., 2016). The Global Disaster Alert Coordination System[2] guidelines for international exchange in disasters mentions translators once, but they are listed in the company of the following information exchange responsibilities of the affected country: transport, fuel/lubricants, translators, warehouses, maps, etc. The Sphere Project (2018, p. 71), under commitment 6 on information sharing in humanitarian response, includes two explicit communicative obligations: “Communicate clearly and avoid jargon and colloquialisms, especially when other participants do not speak the same language. Provide interpreters and translators if needed”. Cadwell (2015) and Cadwell and O’Brien (2016) investigate the use and potential of translation technology in crisis situations. Somewhat surprisingly, it was found that industry-standard and commercial translation tools such as translation memory, terminology databases and machine translation (i.e. MT – fully automatic translation) played an insignificant role for foreign nationals affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake. Since then, the potential of translation technology to assist in crisis situations has been growing (see O’Brien, 2019 – for a discussion). Having crisis terminology online is of course useful, but accessibility in times of crisis for all the potential actors has not been critically appraised and ways of building and sharing translation databases, for example, by and for volunteers goes largely unassessed, as does the utility of such databases for the training of MT engines. Initial strides for inclusion of translation technologies in response to crisis come from the NGO Translators without Borders (TWB). It has played a leading role in having translation recognized and implemented as part of humanitarian aid in the past number of years, including pioneering work to train crisis translators (O’Brien, 2016). Their Words of Relief project aims to translate crisis messages into 15 world languages, build a spider network of diaspora who can translate and create a crowd-sourced application that connects aid workers and data aggregators in an emergency. In addition, TWB partnered with Microsoft to push forward crucial work in MT (Crisis MT, see Lewis, 2010; Lewis et al., 2011) and their operations office in Kenya stimulated a first study on comprehension of translated information about Ebola among Kenyans.

Yet, translation is mostly ignored In spite of these seedling developments, translation as a facilitator of crisis information is mostly overlooked. In 2018, the “Multi-Hazard Early Warning System: A Checklist” (WMO, 2018) shows how awareness about cultural and linguistic differences remains very limited. Even though the checklist responds to the purpose of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 20-15-2030 (UNISDR, 2015) so as to attain “the substantial reduction of disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods and health and in the economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets of persons, businesses, communities, and countries”, the checklist remarkably excludes language obstacles to effective communication. Linguistic diversity is the status quo in most countries world-wide. However, “language” is often conflated with the concept of “culture” and the implicit assumption seems to be that if cultural diversity is noted, translation will somehow happen; many international documents, including influential documents such as this checklist, are redacted in one of the seven official languages of the UN, whilst 7,111 languages are currently in actual use (Eberhard et al., 2019)[3]. Yet languages such as Hindi, the fourth largest for native speakers and third largest for overall number, are not included among the official languages. It is tempting to argue that considerations about linguistic diversity recede before prestige and power of lingua francas. Moreover, translation costs money, which may not abound in crisis response. It also requires forward planning. For example, establishing a database of approved translators and interpreters for specific language pairs, knowing their expertise, their availability, etc. As a result of these and possibly other factors, the fact that linguistic diversity comes with translation needs in cross-boundary crises remains underestimated. It is unclear who has ownership of provision for effective communication in a language that is understood by the recipients of crisis information. The document dedicated to earlywarning signals does not suggest that a specific responder (person or institution) should deal with the logistical difficulties of accommodating language differences when communicating risks with the purpose of mitigating its impact. CALD communities and their needs are listed; they are included in checks for assessment of “exposure, vulnerabilities, capacities, and risks” (p. 10) where the checklist includes a box for “legislation and cultural norms assessed to identify gaps that may increase vulnerability”. Though cultural diversity is listed, it does not follow automatically that language needs are either included or taken care of, as mentioned above. The focus, rather, seems to be on cultural and behavioural norms, but not on language access. Further, in the extensive body of literature on crisis or disaster management, with its intrinsic terminological debates on what disaster management entails (Fischer, 2008; Haddow et al., 2011; Thomas et al., 2013; Wall and Chery, 2011; Waugh, 2007), or in the charter of humanitarian response of The Sphere Project (2011; as seen some more commitment appears in the 2018 edition), the common denominator appears to be that multilingual communication issues are considered sporadically, and only recently have they acquired limited visibility. In some of this literature, the strategic importance of communication, or information as aid, is highlighted (Fischer, 2008; Isiolo, 2012; Santos-Hernández and Hearn Morrow, 2013; Seeger, 2006; WHO, 2012). In international and European protocols or roadmaps on crisis or emergency management, recommendations on clear communication with crisis-affected communities form a core element yet they do not mention translation (DG-ECHO, 2013; EC, 2014, 2017). A recent institutional commitment from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has one formal commitment about access to information – to address migration crises: Therefore, we need to maintain continuous communication with communities, using languages, formats, and media that are contextually appropriate and accessible for all groups in a community, including children and persons with disabilities. (UNHCR, 2018, p. 8)

It is, at best however, a general statement of principle.

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The EU’s General Guidelines for Operational Priorities on Humanitarian Aid signalled the importance of communicating transparently about disasters (EC, 2014) and recently introduced an economic argument in favour of risk reduction and prevention that applies to considering translation as a tool to better inform and educate for prevention: “We know that investment in prevention saves lives and livelihoods; it needs therefore efficient targeting to disaster risks” (EC, 2017, Section 2). These goals sit alongside the rights-based notion that whatever the status of one’s spoken language (Mowbray, 2017), information in a crisis is a fundamental human right (Greenwood et al., 2017; O’Brien et al., 2018). Some of these commentators have provided evidence of negative consequences when crisis communication does not work, especially when communication is in a second or third language for the crisis-affected communities, or in a language they do not understand at all. The pivotal work, previously mentioned, Disaster Relief 2.0, published by Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (Crowley and Chan, 2011), using the Haiti Earthquake example, argues for increased cooperation and dialogue between humanitarian agencies and the technical and linguistic volunteers spread around the globe who help process the communication generated by the disaster-affected communities. It also called for deeper interactions in future disasters between those responding to and those experiencing a disaster; eight years on and this issue is still relevant as it remains unaddressed (Cook et al., 2016). Moser-Mercer et al. (2014, p. 141) confirm this point: “Surprisingly, language needs of large-scale humanitarian actions and deployments are rarely voiced, often downplayed and at best indirectly stated”. To provide additional concrete examples, Haddow et al. (2011) in their Introduction to Emergency Management list five critical assumptions for a successful crisis communications strategy: customer focus; leadership commitment; the inclusion of communications and planning in operations; situational awareness; and media partnership. The audience and customers of crisis information are listed as the general public, victims, the business community, media, elected officials, community officials and volunteer groups (i.e. a diverse group). It cannot be assumed that all these people share equal competencies in the same language, so translation is a necessity. Yet, nowhere is translation mentioned in this volume. The DG-ECHO (2013) Disaster Risk Reduction Policy Document discusses the importance of inclusive information and communication and mentions in particular that information should be “accessible for all” (p. 41). This document also mentions strengthening resilience through timely exchange of information. However, making information accessible by either simplifying it for those with limited proficiency in a lingua franca, or translating it is only mentioned very briefly (“briefing of colleagues and translation in practice”). In his discussion on lessons learned from previous disasters, Fischer (2008, p. 217) notes that: […] instructions for obtaining medical assistance and subsistence supplies as well as instructions for an evacuation or a quarantine are more likely to be responded to if they are frequently repeated, articulated clearly and with specificity. All too often emergency personnel assume that because the information was disseminated, the intended recipients have received it, understood it, and responded to it in the desired fashion. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This statement reminds us that communicating one way is insufficient, but the author fails to note that, for communication to be effective, it does not only have to meet the requirements listed above, but should be delivered in a language that is comprehended by those who need that communication. Retention, understanding and desire for information in specific modes or formats by affected populations are excluded from this equation, with the risk of one-directional forms of communication ( for an illustration, see O’Brien and Cadwell, 2017). In his 2006 article on best practices in crisis communication, Seeger lists ten best practices on crisis communication generated from research literature. Due to space constraints, we do not list them all here, but emphasize practice number (8), given its

significance for ethical crisis communication: communicate with compassion, concern and empathy. None of the “best practices”, not even (8), recognize the role of multilingual communication through translation. Access to compassionate speakers of one’s language represented a powerful resource for refugees caught in the aftermath of the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in New Zealand (Christchurch and Canterbury), but it was acknowledged that improvements in communicating with CALD communities was required (New Zealand Government, 2013). As a final example, even Santos-Hernández and Hearn Morrow (2013) who focus on language and literacy as factors in successful crisis communication, acknowledge the importance of readability using typical measures such as SMOG and Flesch-Kincaid, but fail to mention translation or interpreting. In summary, there are ample examples of a considerable lacuna for the role and need for translation in academic, governmental and non-governmental discourse on crisis communication. Crisis translation and emergency planning We intend to demonstrate that in the context of DRR and crisis management alike, additional focus on the language barrier would greatly contribute to community-led initiatives to mitigate risks (Gaillard, 2010; Mercer et al., 2012; Shaw, 2012; Tabatabaei et al., 2013). Language translation is a significant problem in the response phase of disasters, as deploying language specialists in combinations that are difficult to predict in advance is an expensive and logistically challenging task; as we mentioned previously, interpreters and translators for the needed language combinations may not be available, fully trained, or even exist. It is likely to remain an impossible task to complete if the focus remains only on the response phase. In order to deploy interpreters or provide information in languages that reach the affected communities, translators and interpreters must be available. Professional translators are rare in many language combinations, so bilingual staff of NGOs double up as translators and interpreters. This role is frequently imposed on such staff, on top of their existing workload, and without training or support. Also, translators and interpreters may even be affected themselves by whatever crisis is ongoing. Embedding translation into communication strategies within emergency planning is part of the solution, like any other element that can be considered and included in emergency plans as part of the “the process of preparing systematically for future contingencies, including major incidents and disasters” (Alexander, 2016b, p. 2). This could involve pretranslated, pre-subtitled, pre-audio described materials in the languages understood by the local communities to be part of early actions. To achieve this, language translation needs to be part of pre-crisis emergency plans that will include the development of resources to enable affected-communities to interact with disaster managers and humanitarian organization. The “so-called ‘disaster cycle’ refers to the phases of resilience building, preparation, emergency response, recovery, and reconstruction” (Alexander, 2016b, p. 23). Our contention is that translation can play an important role towards preparedness. Including translation as a component in emergency planning would have multiple benefits. With increased access to timely and accurate information in a language that can be (better) understood, lives and well-being can be protected. Moreover, the considerable economic costs of dealing with crises could be reduced. The EU H2020 Work Programme noted that the environmental and socio-economic impact of disasters and crime and terrorism on the population amounts to average annual losses of roughly 25 per cent of the global GDP and 5 per cent of the Union’s GDP, respectively. According to the UNISDR, the 2013 central European floods alone resulted in losses of $18bn. In the foreword to the World Atlas of Natural Disaster Risk (Shi and Kasperson, 2015), the then UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Mrs Margareta Wahlström, stated that economic losses as a result of disasters continue to rise. It is

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estimated that in the past three years, losses due to disasters have exceeded $100bn. In 2005, the UK Department for International Development put forward a policy briefing document arguing that investment in risk reduction is more cost-effective than just response actions when crises occur (White et al., 2005). To shift from managing disaster to the proactive prevention of risk, with possible reductions in the cost of disasters, multilingual communication needs to take its proper place in the list that normally includes supplies, medicine, infrastructure and technology. Steps can be taken to incorporate translation into emergency planning. A logical starting point is to ensure that it is a concrete and explicit part of emergency response policy. The lack of reference to translation in policy or guideline documents is unsurprising, given that there is not even agreement in policy documents on what core terms such as vulnerability, capacity and resilience mean. Gaillard (2010) discusses how these core terms in DRR are often interpreted differently, depending on whether the policy makers are active in the domain of climate change, development or DRR. He believes that huge efforts are required to close the gap between these domains as well as between practitioners and scientists. Given conceptual differences at that level, it is not hard to understand that translation hardly figures in policies relating to disasters and crises. Expert terminology and the lack of preparedness in sourcing specialist translators can be a deadly combination. An example of language needs from the local community is given by Field (2017, p. 340) through her discussions with local groups. The failure to evacuate appropriate regions before the landfall of Typhon Yolanda in the Philippines partially rests on a lack of appropriate translation based on local cultural needs: “while the two are scientifically different phenomena, it was acknowledged that had the threat of the storm surge been likened to that of a tsunami ( for a coastal population hit by a wave, the impact would be similar), the coastal regions would have seen higher evacuation rates, particularly due to familiarity with the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the more recent 2011 tsunami in Japan”. There is an urgency to identify best practices and to provide new insights for, or indeed create, recommendations for crisis translation policy for national, European, and international agencies that regularly work across borders and across languages, with a view to reversing inequalities across language communities and promoting fairness of access to information. This approach will be especially important in the context of new migration patterns and policy requirements for Europe. Crisis communication literature emphasizes the difficulties when trying to communicate with those who are the most vulnerable, e.g. the elderly, disabled, children or those with low literacy levels. Dealing adequately with these challenges must be within the scope of crisis translation into the future, when, in many societies with migrant populations, first generation migrants will represent large communities in the care homes and their linguistic skills may not meet their communicative needs. There is some evidence that high level, national policies (e.g. FEMA, 2016; NHS England, 2015; Cabinet Office, 2012) provide for language provision for limited-proficiency speakers, but more empirical data on the ways in which translation is understood in these policies is required (O’Brien et al., 2018), not to mention how policies are implemented. Contending that crisis translation must be considered in relation to cascading disasters, we opt for an activist approach. Viewing the definition from the point of view of emergency planning, research into crisis translation needs to explore the roles of language in all the phases of a disaster, including during the “normal” phase in which resilience is built up. Alexander (2016a, p. 14), discussing emergency planning, reminds the reader that “[a] crisis is a sudden, intrusive interruption of normal conditions with potentially adverse consequences. ‘Normality’ is defined here as the average of conditions over a protracted period in which things function acceptably”. If CALD communities are being supported by intercultural mediators (Belpiede, 1999; Casadei and Franceschetti, 2009), interpreters or community

translators (Taibi, 2011; Taibi and Ozolins, 2016) to access information in normal conditions, surely this confirms that such needs will persist, in fact be exacerbated, in crisis situations. We suggest inverting the research priorities, so that by building up data, resources and technology, these can be better deployed in the response and recovery phases. Just as other specialist skills receive training to operate in emergencies, linguists ought to receive training to provide support in crises and to create valuable expertise in handling language needs by being embedded in crisis management practices. Translation, interpreting, cultural mediation and relationships between different language communities that enhance effective communication in crisis connecting linguistic sub-groups to the broader society need to be considered as part of the preventive measures that prepare residents for emergency response (Federici, 2016). A good example is the initiative described by Clerveaux et al. (2010) where a Disaster Awareness Game (DAG) is developed to help increase hazard awareness among school children in the Caribbean Community and Common Market area. This multicultural area demands a multilinguistic approach to risk communication. Clerveaux et al. (2010) argue that children are an appropriate target for the DAG because it is an investment in future disaster preparedness, but also because children of immigrant families are a conduit of information between school and home. They show awareness of the need for accessibility of the game, mentioning simple language and the potential for translation. Nevertheless, the game itself, as represented in the paper, is in English, which still falls short of truly serving multilinguistic needs. Another good example is discussed in the study of Shackleton (2018); New Zealand Red Cross worked with members of CALD offering them translation training in order to contribute to a project to increase awareness of emergencies affecting the Wellington region. In this project, under-resourced language combinations saw CALD members develop a basic understanding of translation and linguistic resources to describe natural hazards in the local area through languages other than New Zealand’s main languages (English and Te Reo Maori). These are good illustrations of how translation can be embedded in practices of risk reduction; the CALD members involved in the project would not be professional interpreters in case of a response, but they could contribute to circulating information in translations (written texts, texts written to be read, radio or TV broadcasts) to allow CALD communities to attain information in a language they understand and in a format accessible to them. The example has limitations, however, as it does not entail a feedback loop seeking to find out from the CALD communities what information they would like to have and which formats are most appropriate. Written, oral and multimodal communication channels are used at different stages of a crisis, with different audiences. Only early phases of crises automatically call for oral interpreting; preparedness activities and reconstruction phases after a crisis are more likely to call for translation, if there is an awareness of language needs. These are broad differentiations: empirical data to identify how municipal, regional or national-level policies connect CALD needs with emergency planning is required. The data need to have a cross-border as well as a local dimension to make sense of the needs of CALD communities; often the data on ethnographic and linguistic background may be collected for other reasons (census, electoral rolls) and these data could help identify existing needs and create the premises (databases, leaflets, technological resources) to develop language support for the time when it is needed. Data accuracy, assessment of real language competences, distance between rural and urban needs and budget are among the obvious obstacles to developing crisis translation resources. However, this complexity can no longer be a sufficient justification for a reactive mode to deal with the language barrier, because cross-referencing such data with other well-known data sets on hazards capes, risks and models derived from statistical data can be done as part of disaster prevention measures. Interpolating these existing data would create more valuable resources than what can be put together in the middle of a response.

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The role of translation in recovery, reconstruction and preparation phases (intended as learning from activities just completed during the response phase) has not been studied much either. This point begins to be appreciated also in the crisis communication literature: In other words, to date, transnational corporations, political institutions, disaster relief organizations, and other actors involved in cross-cultural crises and communication have almost no evidence-based and well-established guidelines they can use to organize or coordinate international crisis communication or to develop culture-sensitive crisis communication strategies or messages (instruction, adjusting information, etc.). (Schwarz et al., 2016, p. 6)

Taking the most cynical of arguments, even if all the preparations are never going to be needed, the benefits of involving CALD communities in preparedness strategies would at the very least lead to more inclusive societies. Conclusions Crisis translation should be viewed from the point of view of reducing vulnerabilities and providing efficient communication that would reduce costs if/when a crisis erupts. Feeble yet slowly growing is the voice of cost-effectiveness of investing in preparedness, as in the Communication of the European Commission of 23 November 2017: A fully integrated approach to prevention, preparedness, and response to disasters in the Union and its Member States is urgently needed. We know that investment in prevention saves lives and livelihoods; it needs therefore efficient targeting to disaster risks. (EC, 2017)

Evidence of failings in crisis communication is plentiful and usually categorized under “issues of communication”; reasons for avoiding these failings are compelling (Greenwood et al., 2017), translation is considered as a “perennial hidden issue” (Crowley and Chan, 2011, p. 24; IFRC, 2018, p. 103), yet its inclusion in emergency planning (and studies thereof ) remain minimal and alternatives of plain or clear language are still offered as adequate solutions, but are blind to the needs of those who have very limited or no competence in the “language” in question in the first instance (see Strayhorn et al., 2012, for example), who cannot read, see or hear. In this context, we highlight the rationale for demanding evidence-based investigations into the impact of the language barrier on communication in crisis situations. We need to understand authentic training needs to support linguists (intended here as anybody with some knowledge of more than one language) who may need, want or be co-opted to operate as translators in rare-language combinations when they are not professionally trained. We need to identify beforehand the needs of local populations in relation to existing capabilities to deal with multilingual contexts and to identify ways of developing additional capabilities. We need to seek a better use for the skills, technologies and existing data on translation to be used in planned and sophisticated ways rather than as afterthoughts at the moment of dire need. Crisis Translation, as we propose in this paper, is a catalyst research area to develop a holistic, multidisciplinary and comprehensive understanding of the role of communication in multilingual crisis situations, so as to better address the necessity for accommodating language needs in crisis situations, thus lessening the impact of the language barrier in cascading crises.

Notes 1. See UNISDR, www.unisdr.org/we/inform/terminology (accessed 21 November 2018). 2. See www.gdacs.org (accessed 21 November 2018). 3. Source: www.ethnologue.com/guides/how-many-languages (accessed 26 June 2019).

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Corresponding author Sharon O’Brien can be contacted at: [email protected]

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The role of translators and interpreters in cascading crises and disasters

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Towards a framework for confronting the challenges

Received 9 December 2018 Revised 2 May 2019 9 July 2019 Accepted 9 July 2019

David E. Alexander and Gianluca Pescaroli Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London, London, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain the significance of cascading crises for translators and interpreters, and how their work may be affected by such events. It provides a theoretical basis for analysis and field practice. Design/methodology/approach – The authors define cascades and explain how they influence the development of preparedness, mitigation and response. The authors identify key drivers of cascading crises and discuss how they challenge conventional approaches to emergency management. The authors discuss ways in which use of language could be a key factor in crisis escalation. The authors define priorities and operational challenges of cascading crises for translators and interpreters. In terms of methodology, this paper develops a conceptual framework that can be used for future enquiry and case history analysis. Findings – The authors provide a qualitative description and synthesis of the key instructions to be used in the field. The authors offer a short list of key questions that can be referred to by linguists and scholars. The authors identify situations in which translation and interpretation are important ingredients in the success of emergency preparedness and response efforts. These include multilingual populations, migrant crises, international humanitarian deployment and emergency communication during infrastructure failures. Research limitations/implications – This work has academic value for the process of understanding cascades and practical relevance in terms of how to deal with them. Practical implications – Translators and interpreters need to understand cascading crises in order to be prepared for the challenges that such events will present. Social implications – Society has become more complex and interconnected, with non-linear cascading escalation of secondary emergencies. Emergency planners and responders need to address this in new ways. Effective communication and information strategies are essential to the mitigation of cascading disaster risk. Originality/value – The study of cascading crises from a socio-economic point of view is relatively new, but it is important because society is increasingly dependent on networks that can propagate failure of information supply. Keywords Information, Communication, Disasters, Interpretation, Translation, Cascading crises Paper type Conceptual paper

Disaster Prevention and Management Vol. 29 No. 2, 2020 pp. 144-156 © Emerald Publishing Limited 0965-3562 DOI 10.1108/DPM-12-2018-0382

Introduction On 27 March 1977, two fully-laden Boeing 747 aircraft collided on the runway at Tenerife North Airport. In this, the deadliest accident in civil aviation history, 583 people were killed and only 61 survived (Weick, 1990). At Milan’s Linate Airport on 8 October 2001, a light aircraft strayed onto the active runway and was struck by a departing flight. All 114 people on board the aircraft died, as did 4 people on the ground (Catino, 2010). Both of these disasters were caused by verbal misunderstandings. At Tenerife, the captain of KLM flight 4805 wrongly believed that he had clearance for take-off. At Milan, the pilot of the light aircraft mistook his position and communicated it wrongly to the control tower. In each case, there were issues with safety mechanisms: at Tenerife, lax procedures for the use of the active runway; at Milan, absence of ground radar. Nevertheless, these two disasters graphically illustrate the essential role of language in risk and safety.

In the so-called information age, much effort has been devoted to the physical mechanisms of communication but, remarkably, much less attention has been given to the use of language and issues of comprehension in crisis situations. In a world in which more than 5,000 languages are spoken, there is an obvious need to ensure that emergency messages are understood so that they can be acted upon (Netten and van Someren, 2011). This is particularly true with regard to the high complexity of networked organisations and societal functions that are the backbone of the global interconnected systems. It is not only necessary to consider the physical functions needed to maintain and develop operational capacity, but in order to facilitate adaptation and recovery processes the resilience of the system as a whole must be taken into account (Linkov et al., 2014). The information, cognitive and social domains are essential components of this process, including the practical matters of learning, sharing knowledge, finding the locus of meaning and making sense of information. This will help people to take action in response to stimuli from early warning sensors and other sources (Linkov et al., 2013). Despite a prevailing lack of concern for language and translation in emergency planning, they are an essential part of the core of the human determinants of impact and remedy (Alexander, 2000). The ideas held by people and groups evolve in their developing social and environmental contexts. Evolution embraces the construction of the self, the socialisation of knowledge in the family, and the ways in which people make sense of information (Bateson, 1972). Social models and contexts are dynamic over time. They incorporate individual and collective forms of symbolism that people endow with meaning. Thus, linguistic and functional representations are key means of understanding events (Alexander, 2005). Cannon (2008) noted that the social construction of disasters takes different forms. These are associated with power relations, but they also stem from psychological phenomena that motivate the beliefs and behaviours of groups. Here, language is a crucial means of understanding the perspectives of the members of social groups. This paper explores the potential or actual role of translation in cascading disasters and crises. First, we describe the nature of cascades. Second, we highlight the role of culture, language and interpretation as cross-cutting elements in the escalation of crises. Third, we suggest how translation can act as a possible driver of cascades. Finally, we provide a summary and checklist that could be used by researchers and practitioners to resolve problems associated with the use of language in disasters. Cascading disasters In the modern, networked world, most disasters will to a greater or lesser extent be cascading crises (Helbing, 2013). In high-risk technological systems, a certain degree of multiple and non-linear failure must be anticipated because of their great complexity, the tight coupling of their components, and intricacy of the chain of causes and effects. Strong interdependencies in technological systems imply that disturbances may spread rapidly between the elements that cause cascading impacts. They may scale up to the point at which they are unstoppable (Perrow, 1999). Cascades have several distinguishing elements. A cascading disaster or crisis is an event in which an initial physical trigger sets off a series of linked consequences, perhaps through a network. Rather than simple linear progress, a “top event” arises from a series of connected errors or failures that, through a variety of possible paths, creates the conditions for a greater malfunction with more devastating consequences (Pescaroli and Alexander, 2015). During the propagation of the cascading impact, interactions among different forms of vulnerability can give rise to escalation points, in which consequences are amplified, conceivably to the point at which the escalation has a more profound impact than the original trigger event. Figure 1 shows that cascades are the manifestations of vulnerabilities accumulated at different scales (Pescaroli and Alexander, 2016). In the top part,

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Environmental triggers (if any)

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Socio-Technological systems (macro level: e.g. globalization, technologies, development)

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Figure 1. Vulnerability paths of cascading disasters, scale interactions and escalations in time and space

Socio-Technological systems (local/regional level: e.g. culture, institutions, policies)

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Source: Pescaroli and Alexander (2016, p. 183; reprinted with permission)

environmental triggers are associated with compounding and interacting risks, such as concurrent extreme climatic events (e.g. storms and floods). Below are the different levels of socio-technological systems, from globalisation to local culture, with the incorporation of information and communication. The base of the diagram is distinguished by two elements: (1) Critical infrastructure involves “the physical structures, facilities, networks and other assets which provide services that are essential to the social and economic functioning of a community or society” (UN General Assembly, 2016, p. 12). (2) Complex adaptive systems (CAS) are intricate, interconnected phenomena, such as social networks, that interact dynamically and evolve in mutual ways (Lansing, 2003). In all processes, information flow and communication must be maintained across the interconnected systems. Some elements of CAS are associated with linguistics, such as understanding how people learn, employ and teach languages (Cameron and Larsen-Freeman, 2007). Intergovernmental crisis management can be framed in terms of CAS (Comfort, 2007). The increasing sophistication of modern life has induced an ever stronger dependency upon critical infrastructure. This has naturally generated a corresponding need to understand complex systems better. Different methods are used in this, including linear and networked multi-hazard risk assessment (Clark-Ginsberg et al., 2018). Cascading disasters are often propagated through inefficiencies and failures, which have knock-on effects in terms of risks to human safety, interruptions to normal routines, and challenges in emergency management. The more interconnections there are, the more rapidly and substantially cascading risk builds up. This emphasises the need to understand vulnerability, which is the central element of the root causes of disaster. It shows how dangerous it is to assess and manage impacts on the basis of weak background knowledge (Pescaroli and Alexander, 2018). Vulnerability is defined here as “those conditions determined by physical, social, economic and environmental factors or processes which increase the susceptibility of an individual, a community, assets or systems to the impacts of hazards” (UN General Assembly, 2016, p. 24).

In order to plan for and anticipate emergencies, there is a pressing need to develop scenarios for cascading failures and complex events. For example, using a scenario-building process that involves local stakeholders, the cascading effects of hydrological droughts have been explored in the social, economic and environmental domains, including, for example, the effects of groundwater depletion and salinization of aquifers (Parisi et al., 2018). The managers and engineers who run critical infrastructure and their academic counterparts have long studied such conditions in terms of how to prevent or limit the propagation of failure. The disruption of critical infrastructure could propagate cascading effects across different scales. This should stimulate us to map and make local assessments of both vulnerability and resilience (Serre and Heinzlef, 2018). Hence, in the conclusions to this paper, we pose some questions about language that we have developed as suggestions for an agenda to extend, improve and clarify our understanding of cascading phenomena. However, much more needs to be done to study the social and economic consequences of cascading failures. Escalation also deserves more attention in the organisational dimensions of management (Pescaroli and Alexander, 2018). Such is the complexity of modern society that all disasters of any significant size are likely to have cascading consequences. The practice of emergency management often assumes a simple cause-and-effect relationship between an extreme event and its consequences. Instead, there will be a chain of potential outcomes with factors that directly compromise safety, systems, assets and activities. This can allow further consequences to proliferate in society. For example, prolonged, widearea power failure is one of the most serious risks in the field of cascading disasters. Electrical power drives almost all mass communication. It is also vital to all other sectors of critical infrastructure, from water and sewerage (electrically pumped) to food supply (refrigeration) and banking (electronic transactions). The possible consequences of power failure include traffic chaos and a surge in accidents, food toxicity and gastric illnesses, entrapment (in elevators and tunnels), inability to make essential purchases via electronic transactions, and dependency upon diesel generators that may fail through overloading or shortage of fuel. Without the benefit of an electricity supply, mass communication in any language with any person or group is rendered very difficult. The practical and psychosocial effects of a prolonged blackout would be experienced at the local scale by individuals, households and communities. Like other changes in the availability of resources there would inevitably be changes in behaviour, and perhaps these would be radical (Miller and Pescaroli, 2018). Translation, culture and interpretation Communication is the primary means of stimulating action in disaster and crisis management. Timely and effective conveyance of information between stakeholders is essential to mitigation, preparedness and response (Lindell et al., 2007). The increased diversity that characterises global society has strong implications for this process. In fact, there is a pressing need to increase access to information by people from diverse cultures who use different languages (O’Brien et al., 2018). Linguistic challenges include issues of translation and interpretation. They also involve cultural drivers that must be understood in order to reduce vulnerability to disaster risk (Kelman, 2018). For example, given that language and vocabulary are constructs that are continuously developed, adjusted and interpreted, definitions and instruction are interpreted through cultural lenses. In situations of conflict, language is the main vehicle of communication and mediation. This highlights the need for trained interpreters who understand organisational structures and particular cultures (Moser-Mercer et al., 2014; Salama-Carr, 2018). The need for linguistic mediation has developed strongly in recent decades, but in the scholarly literature the study of translation and interpretation for emergencies is only now beginning to receive significant attention (Federici, 2016; Cadwell and O’Brien, 2016). Nevertheless, it is possible to find examples of the most critical challenges that arise in complex crises.

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Despite the dearth of research, the relevance of translation to disaster studies has been recognised for a long time. For example, in Cameroon in 1986, the Lake Nyos volcanic gas disaster, which killed approximately 1,700 people, highlighted how important it is to make risk assessments by taking into account local culture and knowledge. In reporting the event it emerged that local languages used the same word for smell and taste. They also used a word which translates into English as “red” for all colours except black and white. Communication between risk managers (plus disaster researchers) and the local population took place in Pidgin English, which initially failed to uncover such details, yet they were vital to the identification of a lethal hazard (Freeth, 1993). Moreover, on a practical level, it is clear that if first responders do not share the same language or culture as the affected population, they are liable to miss out on indigenous knowledge and experience (Bolton and Weiss, 2001). Problems that could arise in complex situations include the existence of words that are not directly translatable, incompatibility of concepts, and existence of social barriers. This is particularly true when giving training and assistance to local populations in, for instance, psychosocial support. Experience after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Sri Lanka showed that translation is an essential means of conveying ideas and concepts. In this disaster, at the local level translators required context-specific training, ideally with the aid of complementary tools such as role-playing and simulation (Miller, 2006). The importance of translation is particularly clear in the health sector. O’Brien and Cadwell (2017) analysed health-related crisis communication in urban Kenya and highlighted the importance of translating information from English into Kiswahili. Similarly, in the USA, it has been demonstrated that limited language proficiency is directly associated with increased vulnerability, highlighting the need for both communication and a relational strategy in order to service the full range of the population (Kreisberg et al., 2016). During patient assessment and the communication of diagnoses, translation can involve technical challenges (Solet et al., 2005). As research is evolving, local authorities are now more aware of the importance of translation in crisis situations. For example, after the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010–2011 in New Zealand, Christchurch City Council learned that resources and information need to be translated in ways that target specific communities, both in terms of content (including cultural and religious elements) and the practical aspects of where to distribute material in order to convey it to the right users. If information needs constantly to be renewed, the translated version should be amended along with the original source. Homepages and websites need to be updated and endowed with fully searchable keywords in all relevant languages. Finally, when key information is distributed to individuals, translated print material is preferable to monolingual telephone or online services (Christchurch City Council, 2012). Approaches to disaster response at the national level still tend to be fragmented. They seldom formally address the question of how best to translate and disseminate information (O’Brien et al., 2018). This presents multiple challenges. It highlights the need to produce dynamic policies and guidelines. In this context, some key principles have been suggested as a common baseline for progress. For instance, protocols and services should be available. They should be accessible on multiple platforms and in different languages. Messages should be culturally acceptable to their audiences. Services and platforms should be adaptable to multiple and complex scenarios (O’Brien et al., 2018). This last principle may be particularly important in addressing the escalation of cascading crises, as explained in the next section. Drivers of cascading disasters: translation as a mediator of vulnerability through information flows The root causes of disasters reside in the negative characteristics of society, such as poverty, lack of equity, marginalisation and corruption (Alexander, 2000). They also lie in

political decisions that direct resources to matters other than disaster risk reduction. According to the “pressure and release” model of Wisner et al. (2004), the root causes combine with dynamic pressures, such as rapid urbanisation and crippling debt, to act upon unsafe conditions, which include vulnerability, to produce disasters when they are triggered by hazard impacts. In cascades, the specific vulnerabilities and pressures that need to be identified are those that could lead to the rapid escalation of a crisis by generating secondary emergencies. These will have physical, socio-economic and information-related dimensions, including the ways in which information and disinformation influence decision making (Helbing, 2013). In the absence of adequate planning and preparedness for disaster, cascading events are likely to concentrate their effects in three parallel ways, as follows (Pescaroli and Alexander, 2016, 2018): (1) The weakest members of society (those who are least able to defend themselves) are at greatest risk, as they suffer disproportionately from the amplification of vulnerability. By and large, the most robust societies are those that are most cohesive, least divisive, most equal, most participatory, most democratic and least troubled by conflict and corruption (Pescaroli and Alexander, 2016). In such societies, language is not used as an instrument of separatism, protest and conflict. (2) When assets are forced out of service by disaster impact and concomitant lack of preparedness, information flows and mitigation capacities are reduced (Kachali et al., 2018). For example, an increasing number of requests for intervention by the emergency services could be limited by critical infrastructure losses, such as electricity blackouts, which will affect both communication among crisis managers and communication with the population (Hempel et al., 2018). (3) Physical interaction between elements of the built environment determines physical losses that affect vital services (Pescaroli and Alexander, 2015; Serre and Heinzlef, 2018). At first reading, it seems unlikely that physical interactions between assets could be influenced by translation issues. However, by influencing vulnerability and information flows, the latter could have a critical impact on the resolution or amplification of emergency situations. Although hazards can be the triggers of disasters, root causes are generally found in the human domain, in which elements such local culture and environment interact and mutually reinforce each other (Hewitt, 1983). Vulnerability is a social construct. It is associated with political, cultural and historical processes, and it implies that individuals and groups of people have different degrees of access to power, resources and expertise (Wisner et al., 2004). One way to reduce vulnerability is to stimulate those capacities that are used to cope with crises and disasters. Many of these are traditional or indigenous coping mechanisms (Wisner et al., 2012). Before they are officially promoted, they need to be evaluated in terms of their efficacy. For localities at risk, the pattern of vulnerability reflects a mixture of historical factors and present-day realities. It reflects the propensity of people, businesses and assets to suffer harm and the degree to which people are able to mobilise resources to buffer impacts and recover from them. Diversity in community groups increases the complexity of communication. It requires a communication strategy that takes account of the beliefs, needs and goals of particular social groups (Paton and Johnston, 2001). In this context, translation can convey precise messages that address the needs of marginalised individuals or communities, such as ethnic minorities or non-native elderly people (Alexander, 2000). Thus, translation and interpretation are essential means of ensuring that appropriate risk communication takes place with such communities. A population that lacks proficiency in the dominant language is particularly vulnerable if it fails to

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understand directives and warnings (Shiu-Thornton et al., 2007; Vihalemm et al., 2012). Lindell et al. (2007) suggested that there are cases in which the fragmentation of local communities is so great that it requires the translation of emergency information into all the languages that are spoken in the affected area. In addition, elderly people may have physical or mental limitations that restrict their ability to absorb information. Indeed, vulnerabilities are easily reflected in people’s state of health (Thomas et al., 2013), but not so easily in their ability to express their needs to others. Unless it is presented to people in a manner that they can readily absorb, the ability to communicate safety measures, evacuation protocols or other matters of public security is likely to vary with the cognitive capacity of the people who receive the information. For information to flow, constant communication must be maintained between the various parts of CAS. This may also stimulate capacity to adapt and be resilient (Lansing, 2003; Cameron and Larsen-Freeman, 2007; Linkov et al., 2013). Paradoxically, in modern society, information and communication are important root causes of instability, as decisions are derived from flows that are increasingly complex, ambiguous and uncertain (Helbing, 2013). Information flows control aspects of all phases of the “disaster cycle”: prevention, mitigation, emergency response, recovery and reconstruction. First, at the operational level, developing adequate communication and information sharing is an essential means of maintaining the capacity to organise response, deliver relief and train responders (Lindell et al., 2007). Second, by influencing positively the behaviour of groups and families who depend on local resources, effective information supply fosters resilience in individuals and communities (Miller and Pescaroli, 2018). Recognition of emerging risks and use the flux of information to take action are essential and dynamic means of understanding and managing crises (Comfort, 2007). They influence all catastrophe-related activities, including strategic policy making and diplomacy (Kelman, 2016). Preparedness for cascading effects triggered by critical infrastructure failures requires the development of scenarios in which different stakeholders understand their roles and share information outside their particular spheres of action (Kachali et al., 2018). Limiting the exchange of information, or conversely suffering information overload, can negatively affect crisis managers, who may then be unable to identify the path of an escalation process (Hempel et al., 2018). Here, translation is an essential means of developing timely and coordinated actions in cross-border crises, both between different agencies (e.g. international deployment in affected areas) and between agencies and citizens (e.g. delivery of international relief in these places). The failure to maintain a functioning information supply could cause operational failure and escalation to a secondary emergency, in which, due to shortage of emergency resources, collaboration would be needed even more. These drivers are particularly evident in some phenomena associated with the network of interdependencies that is the global interconnected system. Here, by addressing vulnerabilities and maintaining an effective flow of information, translators and interpreters can be seen as agents of mitigation. One field that requires translators and interpreters with increasing urgency is human mobility. Migration can be voluntary, induced or forced. It can be temporary, semi-permanent or permanent, although the long-term outcome is often not known in advance. It can lead to permanent residency abroad, the acquisition of a new nationality, or to statelessness. Human mobility is thus an extremely complex phenomenon that is intimately bound up with such contentious issues as welfare, entitlement, sovereignty and identity (IoM, 2018). The largest migrations are the desperate result of proxy wars fought between the dominant powers in third-country locations such as Syria and Yemen. Conflicts of this kind can be very long drawn out, as shown by the 27-year civil war in Angola and half a century of low-level asymmetric warfare in Colombia. Given the tendency of migrants to establish themselves where there are economic and social opportunities, modern cities thus become polyglot agglomerations. For example, in

London, England, 300 languages are spoken daily. In the London Borough of Lambeth, 142 mother tongues have been identified among the resident population (Demie and Strand, 2006). One consequence of this is that the flow of remittances to countries such as Haiti, the Philippines and Nepal intensifies when there are disasters. Working in Los Angeles County, USA, Lindell et al. (2007) observed that about 100 major languages or dialects were in daily use in the urban areas, which resulted in increased diversity of culture and languages associated with particular communities such as the Hispanic ones. Nepal et al. (2012) found that linguistically isolated populations in the USA need information that is culturally and linguistically appropriate. It must reflect the context of their knowledge and awareness. Because awareness of such needs is inadequate among emergency planners and managers, word of mouth is the preferred source of information for these populations, and it tends to be inadequate. The problem is somewhat mitigated by bilingualism and language brokering from family members and peer groups. Those in the community who are fluent in English tend to be leaders. However, linguistic isolation remains a problem that is not being tackled adequately in terms of a fair sharing of emergency preparedness. The presence of populations that have limited access to the messages of emergency response increases the barriers to effective first response, for example, by increasing health disparities (Shiu-Thornton et al., 2007). Migrants may have limited reading skills, which highlights the need for simple and accessible translation in line with their cultural and religious backgrounds (Herrick and Morrison, 2010). A relationship of involvement and trust with the vulnerable and marginalised communities becomes an essential asset to the planning process (Herrick and Morrison, 2010; Christchurch City Council, 2012). Another example refers to the failure of international networks and the need for crisis managers to deal with vulnerabilities that suddenly emerge. In April 2010, ash emissions from the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull led to six and a half days in which civil aviation was grounded at 70 per cent of Europe’s airports. The resulting cost to the airlines was $1.7bn. If the “ground-stop” had continued much longer, faced with unsustainable losses, many of Europe’s airlines would have been threatened with becoming unviable as commercial undertakings (Alexander, 2013). The chain of disruption had complex negative effects upon business travel, the movement of perishable goods and a variety of cultural enterprises (Pescaroli and Alexander, 2015). In this case, translation acquired an important role in the cross-coordination of governmental agencies. It becomes an essential means of assisting vulnerable categories such as stranded tourists and providing them with the information they need in order to plan alternative actions. Translation also saved lives among indigenous people when threatened with the eruption of Nevado del Huila in Mexico (García and Mendez-Fajury, 2018, p. 342). Moreover, translation crosses the boundary between the public and private sectors. It is also essential for companies that have to find a new strategy to deliver products and services during a wide-area emergency ( Jensen, 2011, p. 69; Martin, 2011, p. 91). One of the greatest demonstrations that we live in a networked society lies in the fact that portable computing by tablet, telephone and laptop computer has brought social media and instantaneous communication to the mass of the population. As used in disasters, social media have a positive and a negative side (Vultee et al., 2014). They can help crowd-source information and resources. They can disseminate warnings and safety information. They provide citizen journalism and instant awareness, and they can bring people together in solidarity. Yet they have a dark side. In any particular crisis situation, the spread of rumour, defamation, false information and unchecked speculation could conceivably outweigh the benefits of instant mass communication. This is a duality that was first recognised decades ago: Close inspection of technological development reveals that technology leads a double life, one which conforms to the intentions of designers and interests of power and another which contradicts them – proceeding behind the backs of their architects to yield unintended consequences and unanticipated possibilities. (Noble, 1984, p. 325, quoted by Quarantelli, 1997, p. 96)

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In managing emergencies, precision and clarity of language are essential if misunderstandings are to be avoided, and that is as true in translation as it is in mono-linguistic situations. The precarious and dynamic nature of disasters means that uncertainty is inevitable, but it should not be compounded by ambiguous orders and unclear instructions. In planning for resilience, it is necessary to work out the level of dependency on services that might fail, assets that might stop functioning and goods that might become unobtainable. For the most part, losses will be a direct function of the duration of the “down time”, taking account of any actions designed to mitigate, prevent or offset the losses during the crisis phase. Although not all losses are preventable, failure to anticipate the need for action and plan accordingly greatly increases the chance of high magnitude losses. Communication is a vital means of reducing down time. Conclusions Our globalised society’s networks and their interdependencies rely heavily on communication and languages. In a complex adaptive socio-technical system, disruptions can easily escalate to become cascading crises. During attempts to remedy such situations, translation can constitute a serious bottleneck. Indeed, if misunderstandings result and they have serious consequences, it contributes to the escalation of secondary emergencies. Lack of adequate translation may amplify the impact of crises on marginalised communities, non-native speakers and international tourists. For example, a primary trigger, such as flooding, could become more lethal by causing contamination due to the disruption of sewer systems or chemical facilities. This may be limited in its extent, but it could require the adoption of safety measures or access to specialised services. In an area with a concentration of marginalised people, such as an urban area full of recent immigrants, lack of adequate translation and cultural mediation could result in failing adequately to explain the characteristics of the risk, its seriousness and the measures required, with possible long-lasting effects upon population health (Hernandez et al., 2015). Disruption of information flows could hamper the delivery of effective emergency services. For example, translation could be critical to the management of cross-border crises, where differences in the local operational culture and language could cause early warnings or logistics to fail. This could be particularly important for areas that are not used to international cooperation, and those in which civil protection lacks adequate collaboration (Coppola, 2015). As explained in previous sections, due to the complexity of phenomena such as migration or infrastructure operation, the drivers of cascading failures can recombine. Figure 2 syntheses this process and visualises the possible role of translation, including cultural mediation, in addressing cascading drivers and the escalation of secondary crises (the yellow boxes).

Trigger event

Figure 2. Cascading drivers that mediate translation, and possible escalations of secondary emergencies (yellow boxes)

Vulnerability

Information flow

Translation

The following short list of key questions about the practice of translation in cascading events is derived from the work of Herrick and Morrison (2010), to which we have applied the four principles suggested by O’Brien et al. (2018). Most of the questions should be addressed during the planning phase. In order to derive a list that is suitable for action at the local level, the questions should be addressed in scenarios created with the assistance of local authorities:

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What key information should be available and accessible for the most common disaster risks in the area of action (e.g. through local risk registers)?

153

•

What is the principal terminology that needs to be used in information and messages (e.g. for warnings) and how can it be expressed neutrally, economically and clearly?

•

How is the local context of language unique and how can it be used to improve the quality of explanations?

•

In defining messages, are the categories of vulnerable citizens considered, such as the elderly and people with disabilities?

•

Given the nature of the target population, what are the key dissemination tools that need to be considered? Are they equally effective in both natural hazard impacts and technological failures such as electricity blackouts?

•

How good are local emergency services at communicating with communities that are less proficient in local languages and is there a risk that the information flow will be compromised?

This paper cannot provide an exhaustive review and this list of questions must therefore be considered preliminary. Further research is needed in order better to understand how cascading drivers can be mediated by translation. Quantitative and qualitative evidence on the subject need to be developed further. Moreover, our work is limited by the lack of literature, in particular on the role and function of language in complex crises and on how to apply knowledge about translation to different kinds of cascading crisis. We propose a first application of different concepts in a common framework, which needs to be developed further and tested. Hopefully, as awareness of the role of translation in disaster management increases, this research will expand and, during its application, more questions will be answered. References Alexander, D. (2000), Confronting Catastrophe, Oxford University Press, New York, NY. Alexander, D. (2005), “An interpretation of disaster in terms of changes in culture, society and international relations”, in Perry, R.W. and Quarantelli, E.L. (Eds), What is a Disaster?, Routledge, New York, NY, pp. 89-108. Alexander, D. (2013), “Volcanic ash in the atmosphere and risks for civil aviation: a study in European crisis management”, International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 9-19. Bateson, G. (1972), Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. Bolton, P.A. and Weiss, W.M. (2001), “Communicating across cultures: improving translation to improve complex emergency program effectiveness”, Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 252-256. Cadwell, P. and O’Brien, S. (2016), “Language, culture and translation in disaster ICT: an ecosystemic model of understanding”, Perspectives, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 557-575. Cameron, L. and Larsen-Freeman, D. (2007), “Complex systems and applied linguistics”, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 226-239.

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Serre, D. and Heinzlef, C. (2018), “Assessing and mapping urban resilience to floods with respect to cascading effects through critical infrastructure networks”, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Vol. 30B, pp. 235-243. Shiu-Thornton, S., Balabis, J., Senturia, K., Tamayo, A. and Oberle, M. (2007), “Disaster preparedness for limited English proficient communities: medical interpreters as cultural brokers and gatekeepers”, Public Health Reports, Vol. 122 No. 4, pp. 466-471. Solet, D.J., Norvell, J.M., Rutan, G.H. and Frankel, R.M. (2005), “Lost in translation: challenges and opportunities in physician to physician communication during patient hand-offs”, Academic Medicine, Vol. 80 No. 12, pp. 1094-1099. Thomas, D., Shannon Newell, M. and Kreisberg, D. (2013), “Health”, in Thomas, D., Phillips, B.D., Lovekamp, W.E. and Fothergill, A. (Eds), Social Vulnerability to Disasters, CRC Press, Baton Rouge, LA, pp. 235-264. UN General Assembly (2016), “Report of the open-ended intergovernmental expert working group on indicators and terminology relating to disaster risk reduction, A/71/644”, United Nations, Geneva, 41pp. Vihalemm, T., Kiisel, M. and Harro-Loit, H. (2012), “Citizens’ response patterns to warning messages”, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 13-25. Vultee, F., Ali, S.R., Stover, C.M. and Vultee, D.M. (2014), “Searching, sharing, acting: how audiences assess and respond to social media messages about hazards”, International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 297-316. Weick, K.E. (1990), “The vulnerable system: an analysis of the Tenerife air disaster”, Journal of Management, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 571-593. Wisner, B., Gaillard, J.-C. and Kelman, I. (2012), “Framing disaster: theories and stories seeking to understand hazards, vulnerability and risk”, in Wisner, B., Gaillard, J.-C. and Kelman, I. (Eds), Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction, Routledge, London, pp. 47-62. Wisner, B., Blaikie, P., Cannon, T. and Davis, I. (2004), At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters, 2nd ed., Routledge, New York, NY.

Corresponding author David E. Alexander can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Trust, distrust and translation in a disaster

Trust, distrust and translation in a disaster

Patrick Cadwell SALIS, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe, explain and provide context for relationships between translation, trust and distrust using accounts of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake given by foreign residents who experienced the disaster. Design/methodology/approach – This research provides a qualitative analysis of ethnographic interview data drawn from a broader study of communication in the 2011 disaster using the cases of 28 foreign residents of the disaster zone from 12 different countries of origin. Findings – The study confirms the general importance, the linguistic challenges and the context dependency of trust in disaster-related communication at the response phase. It found that translation was involved in some trust reasoning carried out by foreign residents and that translation was an ad hoc act undertaken by linguistically and culturally proficient acquaintances and friends. Research limitations/implications – The research examines a limited range of trust phenomena and research participants: only reason-based, social trust described by documented foreign residents of the 2011 disaster zone in Japan was considered. Furthermore, generalisations from the case study data should be approached with caution. Originality/value – This paper adds to the literature on trust and disaster response as opposed to trust and disaster preparedness, which has already been comprehensively studied. It responds to calls for more studies of the role of context in the understanding of trust and for greater attention to be paid in research to relationships between trust and other phenomena. Keywords Culture, Trust, Disaster response and recovery, Context, Distrust, Information need, One to one interviews, Translation studies Paper type Research paper

157 Received 28 November 2018 Revised 29 March 2019 18 June 2019 24 June 2019 Accepted 24 June 2019

1. Introduction This paper examines trust, distrust and translation in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster. It uses accounts of communication relating to vulnerability, risk and uncertainty gathered from foreign residents who were in the disaster zone in 2011 to describe, explain and provide context for relationships between translation and trust in their experiences of responding to the disaster. Preparedness and hazard awareness have been comprehensively studied in the literature on translation and disaster (see, e.g. Arlikatti et al., 2007a, b, 2014; Paton, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2013; Paton et al., 2005). Trust phenomena observed in response settings have also been examined, yet to a lesser degree (see, e.g. Henry et al., 2011; Hyvärinen and Vos, 2016; Steelman et al., 2015). This paper adds to the literature on trust and disaster response. Moreover, scholars have expressed a need for more studies of the role of context – in particular, high-stakes and safety-critical contexts – in our understanding of trust (Lyon et al., 2016; Paton, 2007) and for greater attention to be paid in research to relationships between trust and other phenomena (Searle et al., 2018). The research presented here offers a novel examination of This work was supported by Dublin City University and the National Development Plan under a Daniel O’Hare PhD Scholarship. Fieldwork for this research was also part-funded by DCU’s School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies and Centre for Translation and Textual Studies. The author would also like to thank Prof. Richard L. Priem and Prof. Dr Antoinette Weibel for advice given at a conference in 2016 to put context and participant voices at the centre of his study of trust, distrust and translation.

Disaster Prevention and Management Vol. 29 No. 2, 2020 pp. 157-174 © Emerald Publishing Limited 0965-3562 DOI 10.1108/DPM-11-2018-0374

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relationships between trust, distrust and translation and embeds the relationships observed in their social contexts. Three questions were posed in this research: RQ1. What accounts of trust and distrust were described by foreign residents as part of their communicative interactions in the 2011 disaster?

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RQ2. How were translational processes involved in these trust or distrust accounts, if at all? RQ3. If translation processes were involved, what are the implications for crisis translation? Before answers to these questions are presented, the objects of enquiry in this research will be clarified, a relevant context for the 2011 disaster will be provided and the way in which participant accounts were gathered and analysed will be described. 2. Defining and delimiting trust, distrust and translation Trust, distrust and translation are elusive concepts. The plethora of definitions of trust that exists has been noted (Arlikatti et al., 2007a) and the difficulty of formulating an allencompassing definition of translation has been asserted (Colina, 2016). For the purposes of this study, trust and distrust have been taken to be reason-based and context-dependent social phenomena (Castelfranchi and Falcone, 2010) pertaining to a willingness or unwillingness to be vulnerable to another (see Rousseau et al., 1998 for a widely-cited definition of trust and Sitkin and Bijlsma-Frankema, 2018 for an understanding of distrust). Trust in people and trust in institutions are also considered in this research. The idea that trust can be based on the “rules, roles and routines” that constitute institutions, as well as on individual relationships between people has been widely accepted in the literature (Möllering, 2006a, pp. 355-357). Comprehensive definitions of trust and distrust should, therefore, recognise both institutional and interpersonal dimensions (Khodyakov, 2007). Trust in an institution depends on perceptions of its reliable functioning and legitimacy (Möllering, 2006a). Trust in people depends on more symmetrical mutual interactions (Khodyakov, 2007). While institutional and interpersonal trust are understood differently, it is frequently observed that people are trusted or distrusted as performers or representatives of the rules, roles and routines of an institution (Möllering, 2006a). Similarly, institutional trust can also enable or be a barrier to the development of interpersonal trust (Khodyakov, 2007). It is also useful in this research to subdivide interpersonal trust into thick interpersonal trust, which is based on strong bonds of kinship, friendship, or similarity between people and thin interpersonal trust, which is based on weaker ties with members of out-groups on whose reputation one depends (Khodyakov, 2007). Translation, in this research, has been understood to be a form of communication across phases (House, 2018) in which a new text is constructed from an anterior text through the interpretation and application of interlingual and intercultural knowledge (Halverson, 2016). Translation mostly involves written texts (Colina, 2016). Nevertheless, a text can be understood to be a coherent stretch of written or spoken language (see, e.g. Carter and McCarthy, 2008) and this view of translation as something written or spoken is adopted here. Despite multiple perspectives being taken on trust, distrust and translation in the literature, there is wide agreement on the importance of these concepts to disaster settings, the challenge that language places on disaster-related communication and behaviours and the need to pay particular attention to sources of information in a disaster. Trust provides a vital way for social beings to deal with risk, uncertainty and complexity (Möllering, 2006b; Nooteboom, 2002; Sztompka, 1999). Trust built through sustained contact prior to a disaster’s onset is required for stakeholders to carry out their

roles (Auf Der Heide, 1989; Stephenson, 2005). Trust is also central to crisis communication as a management tool when people must deal with complex hazards, both among affected people and between affected people and those tasked with response and recovery (Curnin et al., 2015; Drabek, 2003; Eadie and Su, 2018; Wray et al., 2006; Paton, 2008, 2013; Steelman et al., 2015). Clear, timely, accurate and reliable information is essential for the success of disaster-related communication (Coyle and Meier, 2009). Increasing cultural and linguistic diversity across the globe intensifies the complexity of the communicative situation and communicating appropriately is recognised as a complex process fraught with challenges that results in significant negative impacts if not addressed (Arlikatti et al., 2014; Henry et al., 2011; Nepal et al., 2012). Ground-breaking scholarship focusing on interpreting in crises (Bulut and Kurultay, 2001; Moser-Mercer et al., 2014; Tipton, 2011) and translation in crises (Federici, 2016; Federici and Cadwell, 2018; O’Brien et al., 2018) has begun to address some of these challenges. Nevertheless, many more questions remain to be answered. It is also worth noting that trust has been made a central concern for scholars working to define and delimit translation as a profession (see, e.g. Pym, 2012), to create ethical frameworks of practice for translators and interpreters (see, e.g. Mulayim and Lai, 2017) and has been found to motivate people’s decisions to use informal networks of family, friends and acquaintances as interpreters (Edwards et al., 2005). The trust and distrust in different sources of information prior to and in a disaster have been widely examined (Arlikatti et al., 2007a, b; Paton 2008, 2013; Paton et al., 2005; Steelman et al., 2015). It has been argued that the source of information plays a role independent of the content of the information itself (Paton, 2007, 2008, 2013) and that the higher the trust, the more intimate the relation between the source and the receiver of the information (Arlikatti et al., 2007a). Empirical findings on trusted sources of disaster-related information can be contradictory; surveys of disaster-affected populations sometimes present one source as being both trusted and distrusted by the same cohort of research participants in the same setting (see, e.g. Henry et al., 2011; Hyvärinen and Vos, 2016; Nepal et al., 2012; Steelman et al., 2015). Theories of trust emphasising its context dependency help to explain such findings; a source trusted under one set of contextual factors could be distrusted under another (Henry et al., 2011; Paton, 2007; Castelfranchi and Falcone, 2010). It is helpful, therefore, to embed trust and distrust in their contexts. To this end, the next section summarises details of the 2011 disaster in Japan that will be relevant to the accounts of trust, distrust and translation analysed later on. 3. Context of the 2011 disaster A long-running, complex and cascading Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster began in Japan on March 11, 2011. The officially-designated disaster zone to which the 1947 Disaster Relief Act was applied encompassed ten prefectures over much of the eastern half of Japan’s main island (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan, 2011). Approximately 670,000 foreign nationals from more than 190 different countries resided in this disaster zone (E-Stat, 2011). The numbers of foreign residents registered in Japan dropped dramatically during the disaster and 41,207 fewer foreign nationals were resident in Japan by the end of March 2011 than had been there at the start of the year (Ministry of Justice of Japan, 2012). Massive amounts of communication were generated during the events of 2011: press conferences and meetings were held; announcements and instructions were issued; news was broadcast over television, radio, the internet and in print; and affected people consumed this news, talked to each other about it and telephoned, mailed and used social media to connect with others affected and those in the outside world. Foreign residents were involved in this communication.

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It should be remembered that the context of this communication was Japan, a highly hazard-prone country that, nonetheless, possesses an elevated capacity to cope and a sophisticated legislative and policy framework to guide disaster prevention and management. Policy on disaster in Japan finds its legislative mandate in the 1961 Disaster Countermeasures Basic Act and is formulated through the Basic Disaster Management Plan (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, 2015). Stakeholders of the plan include national, prefectural, municipal and local governments, designated public institutions and corporations (such as the Bank of Japan, the national broadcasting corporation, NHK, or the Japanese Red Cross Society) and even residents and all stakeholders are responsible for formulating and implementing their own Disaster Management Operation Plans, Local Disaster Management Plans or Community Disaster Management Plans based on this policy (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, 2015). The first Basic Disaster Management Plan was formulated in 1963 and had been through some ten revisions based on lessons learned by the time the several-hundred-page document in force at the onset of the 2011 disaster was created (Disaster Management, Cabinet Office of Japan, 2017). Despite such a formalised, dynamic and well-resourced context, the scale and complexity of the devastation in 2011 managed to overwhelm some of these sophisticated legislative and policy structures, including in relation to communication with foreign nationals. Therefore, a case study was carried out to interrogate issues of language, culture and translation in the communicative context of this disaster. 4. Case study of the 2011 disaster Participant accounts analysed in this paper were drawn from this broader case study. The study used the cases of 28 foreign residents of the disaster zone who held diverse perspectives on the disaster: they came from 12 different countries of origin (Ireland, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Sudan, Tunisia, China, Bangladesh, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and varied in age, occupation, length of residence and Japanese proficiency. Individual, face to face ethnographic interviews lasting approximately 1 hour each were conducted by the researcher with participants during a two-month visit to the disaster zone in 2013. (Ethical approval for this research project was received from the Research Ethics Committee of Dublin City University under reference DCUREC/2013/146.) Ethnographic interviews create relatively free-form dialogues between the researcher and the participant (Blommaert and Jie, 2010; Josephiddes, 2012) and the audio of these dialogues was digitally recorded and later transcribed by the researcher. An outline sent to participants prior to meeting to indicate potential interview topics can be seen in the Appendix. While most topics in this outline were covered in each interview, spontaneously discussed issues and the free-form nature of the dialogue are not captured in the pre-interview outline. A full record of all the dialogue contained in each interview is available in anonymised and participant-checked transcriptions (see Cadwell, 2015). Interview transcripts were analysed along with relevant secondary data using a form of thematic analysis operationalised from Braun and Clarke (2006). One of the themes developed during the analysis of the interviews related to trust. Based on the operational definitions for trust, distrust and translation adopted for this study and explained above, these passages were then recoded to: isolate instances in which a foreign national was willing or unwilling to be vulnerable to another; categorise these accounts by vulnerability; specify the channels of communication involved; search for evidence of translational processes in these accounts of trust and distrust; and clarify the sources of information involved. Tables I and II summarise the results of this analysis of participant accounts of trust and distrust in the interview data. They will be used in the discussion that follows, along with direct quotes from the transcript data, to begin to answer the research questions posed at the start of the paper. The tables are presented here to support qualitative claims

Vulnerability to Participant another

Communication Translational Source of original channel processes text

Source of translated text

08

Face to face

Present

Face to face

Present

Face to face

Present

Face to face

Present

E-mail

Present

Japanese building receptionist Japanese coworker Japanese coworkers Japanese coworkers Japanese friend

Face to face

Present

Emergency radio Face to face

Present

19 28 08 21 24 03 15 13

Emergency procedure decision Emergency procedure decision Emergency procedure decision Emergency procedure decision Radiation danger decision Evacuation/return decision Evacuation/return decision Evacuation/return decision

Present

Evacuation/return Telephone call decision Emergency Face to face procedure decision

Present

20

Radiation danger decision

Present

20

Evacuation/return Twitter decision

Present

27

Radiation danger decision Radiation danger decision Radiation danger decision Emergency procedure decision Evacuation/return decision Evacuation/return decision Radiation danger decision Evacuation/return decision Evacuation/return decision Emergency procedure decision Evacuation/return decision

TV news

Present

News wires

Present

News website

Absent

News website

Absent

E-mail

16

27 28 23 08 26 08 28 23 01 10 05

Internet and face to face

Present

Residents’ association Train station announcer School principal Building management Japanese broadcaster Emergency responders Japanese language broadcasts and news Municipal authorities

Trust, distrust and translation in a disaster

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Japanese hotel staff Japanese local Embassy staff Japanese university professor Railway operators Japanese-speaking foreign national Evacuation centre Japanese-speaking staff foreign national friends Japanese Japanese-speaking government and foreign national power plant operator friends Japanese Japanese-speaking government and foreign nationals power plant operator Japanese Journalists broadcaster Japanese news Journalists and agencies translators BBC News Website n/a

Absent

BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera Embassy

n/a n/a

E-mail

Absent

Embassy

n/a

Letter

Absent

Embassy

n/a

E-mail

Absent

n/a

Telephone call

Absent

Family and friends overseas Home university

Face to face

Absent

Face to face

Absent

Evacuation/return Face to face decision

Absent

n/a

Japanese building n/a receptionist Japanese customers n/a employed at nuclear plant Japanese employer n/a

(continued )

Table I. Summary of accounts of trust in interview data

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Vulnerability to Participant another

Communication Translational Source of original channel processes text

Source of translated text

09

E-mail

Absent

n/a

News programmes News website

Absent Absent

News website

Absent

Face to face

Absent

Telephone call

Absent

04

162

27 27 06 09

Table I.

Japanese inlaws and friends Japanese language broadcasts and news Journalists at New York Times New York Times Foreign national friends Foreign national employer

n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a

Vulnerability to Participant another

Communication Translational Source of original channel processes text

Source of translated text

02

Face to face

Present

Telephone call

Present

Social media

Absent

Japanese government Municipal authorities Chinese social media sites

Japanese girlfriend of participant Japanese-speaking foreign nationals n/a

TV news

Absent

n/a

TV news

Absent

Newspapers

Absent

TV news

Absent

TV, radio, website E-mail

Absent

Japanese news media Japanese news media Japanese news media Japanese and overseas news media Overseas news media Other foreign national in Japan

22 17 12 04 27 07 03 Table II. Summary of accounts of distrust in interview data

Radiation danger decision Evacuation/return decision Radiation danger decision Radiation danger decision Evacuation/return decision (Outlier) Request to run business

25

Evacuation/ return decision Evacuation/ return decision Emergency procedure decision Radiation danger decision Evacuation/ return decision Radiation danger decision Radiation danger decision Evacuation/ return decision Emergency procedure decision

Present

n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a

made about the breadth and depth of patterns elaborated through analysis of the interview data and are not an attempt to claim quantitative or statistical significance from the data. 5. Accounts of trust and distrust related by foreign residents Findings from the process of analysis described can be related to the three significant themes identified earlier in the literature on disaster and trust: the general importance of trust to disaster-related communication, the challenges that language brings and the need to examine sources of information carefully.

5.1 Importance of trust Trust was a significant phenomenon for many participants in this research. A broad spread of participants – 25 out of a total of 28 – chose to recount instances of vulnerability to another in their descriptions of their communicative experiences and comparing Tables I and II illustrates that more participants spent more time talking about trust than distrust in their interviews. Almost all accounts of trust and distrust could be divided into three categories (see Tables I and II, vulnerability to another) and no one category predominated. Participants related trust and distrust equally to decisions about evacuation, radiation threats and emergency procedures. Face to face communication was also important for participants and was often associated by them in their interviews with trust, while it was rarely associated by them with distrust (see Tables I and II, communication channel). Electronic communication channels – such as e-mail, the internet and telephone calls – were also valorised by participants. One participant related a stressful account of realising her vulnerability and need to depend on others when watching a television news broadcast of an explosion that occurred at the early stages of the disaster at the damaged nuclear power plant. E-mail communication from a Japanese friend helped the participant make an immediate decision about the radiation danger she faced, but also highlighted problems she faced trying to respond to the disaster alone: I plugged in my TV and was watching it, and then the reactor exploded. That’s when I realised – this is probably where the translation stuff comes in – that’s when I realised I was completely alone and listening to Japanese news and had no idea what was going on; none at all […] And then I get an email from [my Japanese friend] that’s like, “Everything is okay. It exploded, but that was a good thing. Like, it released the pressure”. (Participant 21: low-level Japanese proficiency; from the USA; age 30–39; in Japan for 5 years at onset; Recruitment Consultant)

These findings support other research, which has shown that word of mouth – in the form of direct, face-to-face communication or facilitated through telephone and other technology – appears to be the preferred channel for culturally and linguistically diverse communities (Arlikatti et al., 2014; Nepal et al., 2012). It also offers an indication of the presence of thick interpersonal trust in the data; personal familiarity and a strong emotional commitment were features of this trust encounter. This account also introduces other features of the interview data: the challenges that language presented in the participants’ communicative experiences and the presence of translational processes in their accounts of the disaster. 5.2 Challenges of language It was found that about half of the participants who talked about trust and about a fifth of the participants who talked about distrust involved translational processes in their accounts (see Tables I and II, translational processes). We can say, therefore, that more participants spent more time talking about translation being involved in trust instances than distrust instances; nevertheless, this should not diminish the qualitative significance of translation in the distrust accounts and translational processes were significant to both trust and distrust. Several participants in this research moved into community evacuation centres after the onset of the disaster. The language of communication in these centres was predominantly Japanese. Luckily, many communities of foreign nationals contained people with Japanese proficiency and these key community members were relied on by others to carry out ad hoc translation: [The language in the centre was] mainly Japanese, but one or two people could comment in English. To use Japanese, it was not difficult for us, because all people [from the Bangladeshi community] were in the same place, and many of them know Japanese. In our community, three or four people know Japanese. If there is an announcement, instantly he translated, “Oh, this is like this”. (Participant 16: low-level Japanese proficiency; from Bangladesh; age 30–39; in Japan for 2 years at onset; Student)

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These findings should not be interpreted as a claim that foreign residents trusted other friends and acquaintances because they were on the ground with them, or because they were foreign; i.e. while thick interpersonal trust depends on strong bonds of familiarity, it is not caused by them alone. Indeed, though acquaintance and proximity were sometimes factors that were taken into account in trust reasoning, there were examples in the data where communication from another foreign or Japanese resident on the ground was distrusted. Take, for instance, one participant’s distrust in the ability of other foreign residents to coordinate response and recovery efforts: A lot of the foreigners who organised these volunteer things were just people trying to help, but not Japanese speakers, so that’s where I thought, you know, how much of this is completely true or do you have a complete grasp of the situation? (Participant 25: high-level Japanese proficiency; from Australia; age 30–39; in Japan for 11 years at onset; Sales Manager)

Where translational processes were involved in these accounts, participants were vulnerable because of their lack of linguistic and cultural knowledge. Having a third party supplement this knowledge was often helpful and participants were frequently willing to take the “leap of faith” that Möllering (2006b, p. 191) sees at the heart of trust. Nevertheless, participants still recognised that they could not be sure that taking this leap was a reasonable decision to make and their vulnerability still remained, as can be seen in the following encounter. We also see from this encounter that institutions as well as people were the objects of trust and distrust reasoning in the interview data; participants queried whether they could take a leap of faith in their social interactions with organisations such as broadcasters and news agencies and not just their interactions with people: I can’t read Japanese very well. So I started listening to NHK [Note: the Japanese national broadcaster] in English, because I think they built a lot of credibility during the crisis and I knew some of the people who worked there. But that’s just a translation, and I don’t know if it’s a good translation. I think the story for what you are talking about is the fact that I am not doing Japanese media except the English version of it. I’m doing Jiji and Kyodo [Note: Japanese news agencies] and NHK, you know, I’m going off the wires every day, but that’s just a translation and I don’t know if it’s a good translation. (Participant 27: mid-level Japanese proficiency; from the USA; age 50–59; in Japan for 25 years at onset; Consultant)

At the same time, other participants thought that being vulnerable to a linguistically and culturally proficient other – be it a person or an institution – would be a leap too far. For instance, one participant with low Japanese ability was due to move to Fukushima Prefecture where the damaged nuclear reactor was located to take up a job following the disaster. He recognised that information in the disaster zone would probably not be provided in a language he could understand and was unwilling to have to depend on others to contact him with translations: That was partly why I decided not to go up to Fukushima because I thought, “If something happens, even if they drive with an announcement, those are not going to be in English”. And there, language would have been an issue. I would be totally reliant on others ringing me, thinking of me: “Oh, he’s ringing because something has happened”. I wasn’t in a very vulnerable situation, at least not in every respect, but I also chose not to put myself in a situation where I would have been worse, at least that was my reasoning. (Participant 22: low-level Japanese proficiency; from Germany; age 30–39; in Japan for 6 months at onset; Language Teacher)

Thus, while we can argue from these interviews that translation was a factor in participants’ trust and distrust accounts at times, the presence or absence of translational processes in an account did not correlate with a presence or absence of trust. 5.3 Sources of information The most notable pattern that could be perceived by using translation as a lens through which to view the interview data related to the sources of information in these communicative acts.

The information summarised in Tables I and II indicates that participants considered more than one source of information in their trust reasoning when translation was involved: the source of the original text and the source of the translated text. Such layered sources are not unique to situations of translation; any situation involving intermediaries conveying trusted or distrusted information should take the issue into account. Nevertheless, the issue of layered sources of information is fundamental to translation because an original and translated text will always coexist and these will frequently come from different sources. We can see from Table I that in half of the accounts relating to trust, an acquaintance, friend or work colleague on the ground in the disaster zone was the source on whom participants relied for translation. One participant described the importance of these pre-existing social links to trust and claimed that they were, at times, even more important than expertise. This aligns with findings on thin interpersonal trust in the literature discussed above (see, e.g. Khodyakov, 2007) concerning the importance of developing weak social ties that can be called on when needed to access otherwise unavailable resources or information: You just wanted as much information as you could get, and then you start to parse it for yourself and figure out what’s going on. You rely on the people that you trust for, you know, who might not frankly be really great arbiters of nuclear radiation and understanding what’s going on with that. But at least you rely on them in a social context. (Participant 20: mid-level Japanese proficiency; from Canada; age 30–39; in Japan for 5 years at onset; Advertising Executive)

Indeed, it appears strongly from the data that personal, more than the cultural, bonds were significant in the relationships between translators and participants in accounts of both trust and distrust. While the beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviours that are common to certain populations can contribute to their perceptions of disaster risk and their vulnerability to hazards (Cannon, 2015), the data provided by participants in this research did not indicate a need for cultural similarity in the establishment of trust or distrust through translation. Indeed, we should understand that the crisis translators in the 2011 disaster were not only other foreign nationals but also local Japanese with particular pre-existing bonds to the foreign resident communities. The interview data also confirm the common contradiction in studies of disaster-related trust that one source of information can be both trusted and distrusted by the same cohort of research participants in the same setting. Take, for instance, news media. We cannot say from these data whether news media were a trusted or a distrusted source of information; it depended on whom you asked and on the news media involved. Some participants were unwilling to rely on foreign news accounts of the disaster – especially the Nuclear Disaster – because they felt it was sensational coverage not based in fact. The same participants also distrusted Japanese news accounts because they felt that these sources were biased and withheld facts. Japan is often described as a high-context culture in which significant interpretation of the communicative context is required to achieve understanding (Hall, 1976) and a hierarchical society in which individual expression is frequently constrained (Hofstede, 2001). These features meant that the cultural imperative to maintain calm and avoid overt expression may have been stronger than a need to communicate risk effectively in the Japanese media in the 2011 disaster, in stark contrast to the sensational coverage present in the overseas media: I felt like the foreign media covered it [Note: the nuclear disaster] a lot, but there was too much opinion. There were a lot of loud opinions going around about how bad that was. Then, the Japanese penchant for understatement just left me with, like, where the hell do you draw the middle line? You don’t know how far to one side or the other it should have been. I didn’t trust it. (Participant 12: low-level Japanese proficiency; from Ireland; age 20–29; in Japan for 5 months at onset; Company Employee)

Nonetheless, other participants talked in their interviews about how they placed institutional trust in information from both overseas and Japanese news media – such as the

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BBC or NHK – in order to make decisions about their own safety and whether to evacuate out of the disaster zone: I think the BBC seemed like a trusted resource to us. We probably did check several other ones but we kept going back to the BBC one because they seemed to be the most up-to-date and nonsensational, I guess. (Participant 28: low-level Japanese proficiency; from New Zealand; age 30-39; in Japan for 18 months at onset; Teacher)

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Trust reasoning is complex and context-dependent (Henry et al., 2011; Paton, 2007; Castelfranchi and Falcone, 2010), so we cannot argue that one group of sources, whether people or institutions, will routinely be trusted over another group of sources. This calls into question the value of presenting lists of trusted or distrusted sources of information in disaster-related research without also presenting the sources’ contextual embedding. 6. Implications for crisis translation Having established the ways in which trust and distrust were described by participants in this study and the role of translation in these descriptions, a final question remains to be answered in this paper: what are the implications of these findings for crisis translation beyond the 2011 disaster? Before proceeding to answer this question, it should be remembered that the findings in this paper are based on case study data and that making generalised claims from case study data is open to question (see, e.g. Gomm et al., 2000). Some authors argue that making claims about significant categories and relationships in case study data to guide further enquiry can be supported once rigour and transparency have been demonstrated (e.g. Mitchell, 2000). Implications beyond the 2011 disaster are presented here in this light. Crisis translation was not a matter of prepared, coordinated, professional translation for participants in this research. Instead, when participants lacked linguistic and cultural proficiencies to interpret information about risks and vulnerabilities, they turned to those nearby with the skills they lacked and on whom they already relied socially. The first implication, therefore, is that pre-existing personal bonds may be important considerations for generating trusted information through crisis translation. 6.1 Consider personal common ground How can we systematically explain the observation that personal acquaintance seemed significant to trust, distrust and translation in this context? Priem and Nystrom (2014) suggest the use of Clark’s (1996) concepts of “communal common ground”, suppositions made about the cultural communities to which a person is perceived to belong and “personal common ground”, assumptions based on shared experiences gained over a period of acquaintance. Looking at the Sources of Translated Information in Tables I and II, we see that many of the sources of translated information were Japanese and did not share the participant’s country of origin: we might speculate that communal common ground between them was low. More significant in the relationships were the shared experiences of the participant and translator, through work, friendship or exposure to the same hazards. Thus, regardless of cultural background, a crisis translator may want to consider strategically emphasising shared common experiences as a way to build trust with the person for whom they are translating. 6.2 Link crisis translation with disaster preparedness Emphasising shared personal common ground will be a more realistic proposition if opportunities to build the necessary acquaintance are available to local responders and foreign resident communities prior to the onset of a disaster. In short, while crisis translation was examined in this research in the response phase, there may be benefits to

linking crisis translation to disaster preparedness. Scholars who have studied trust in other crisis contexts argue for forging links between key potential local responders and culturally and linguistically diverse communities and providing these groups with community-based training (Arlikatti et al., 2014; Hyvärinen and Vos, 2016; Nepal et al., 2012). Conducting translation projects together in advance of a disaster could be one way in which to build personal common ground and foster trust between locally based responders and diverse communities. Japan’s 1961 Disaster Countermeasures Basic Act introduced in Section 3 recognises local residents and businesses as key stakeholders with responsibility for local level disaster planning – albeit in a voluntary capacity – and sets down in law that residents should have responsibility for self-preparedness, storage of basic necessities and voluntary participation in disaster preparedness activities (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, 2015). Foreign nationals have begun to be involved in citizen-centred disaster preparedness initiatives, with volunteering as translators and interpreters being one prominent activity. For instance, Tokyo Metropolitan Government has created a network of “Disaster Language Volunteers” that are being recruited and trained in preparation to carry out translation and interpreting activities in future disasters (Bureau of Citizens and Cultural Affairs, 2015). It has also been running annual disaster preparedness training drills for foreign residents since 2016 to improve capacity for self-help among residents and to increase cooperation between official responders and foreign communities (Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Bureau of General Affairs, 2019). These efforts are valuable, but participation by foreign nationals has been limited: about 129 foreign residents – with more than half linked to embassies – took part in the 2019 drill (Takahashi, 2019), out of a foreign resident population of 550,000 in Tokyo. Low participation rates and lack of preparedness could be culturally bound. Evidence from the 2011 disaster suggested that foreign residents coming from hazard-prone countries to Japan were more sensitised to disaster preparedness. For example, participants from New Zealand and hazard-prone parts of the USA spoke of experiences in their home countries preparing them to some extent for the events of 2011. At the same time, participants from countries with a lower risk hazardscape, such as Ireland or the Netherlands, declared a relative lack of preparedness. A stronger pattern in the interview data, though, attested to a lack of integration into local communities and a lack of weak social ties with close neighbours as a barrier to participation in disaster preparedness efforts, even for participants who had already lived in Japan for some time: I live in a danchi complex [Note: means a housing estate]. It’s reclaimed land. The buildings are old, they are from the seventies. It’s not safe if a big earthquake hits. But I am not aware of any disaster preparation measures they have in place in the community. I have lived there four years now. I don’t know any of my neighbours. I know some people, I’ll nod at them when I walk down the street, but at the same time, I’m not really interested in taking part in community activities […] maybe it is unfriendly on my part, but we come from different worlds. A lot of them are retirees, sixty, seventy to eighties – very Japanese domestic culture. They are nice people, but we have nothing in common. (Participant 6: mid-level Japanese proficiency; from Canada; age 30-39; in Japan for 5 years at onset; PR Consultant)

How can these barriers to disaster preparedness be overcome? Preparedness activities should be taken as opportunities to exchange cultural information to mitigate the cultural mismatch evident in Participant 6’s comments. They could also be opportunities to build the thin trust, the weak social ties, that might not exist yet between foreign residents and their local neighbours. An example of using translation training for the purposes of community development and the generation of intercultural awareness in the context of disaster preparedness is described in Federici and Cadwell (2018) and Shackleton (2018).

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6.3 Train crisis translators to empower others This begs the question: what form should crisis translation training programmes take? There are many possibilities. Based on the findings of this research focussed on trust, distrust and translation, crisis translators need to be trained to translate as much about the sources and contexts of production of disaster-related information as about the content of the information itself. We have seen in this study’s findings that trust reasoning is complex and context-dependent. To be denied access to relevant information about a source of information or the context of some information’s production is to be denied the articulation and empowerment required by people to truly understand the uncertainty or risk that they face (see Paton, 2007, pp. 375-377). Crisis translators can conceptualise part of their mission as one to empower the people for whom they translate to make informed decisions regarding a disaster. A key part of this decision making will be trust reasoning and such reasoning requires context-rich translation. In practice, context-rich translation could be achieved through training in the framing techniques used in news production and translation (see, e.g. Reese, 2018; Valdeón, 2015). Framing involves combining the content of information with pre-existing end-user knowledge and associated context in order to achieve a specific outcome (Reese, 2018). The process of framing, while being used to empower others, would nonetheless be an expression of the crisis translator’s power: to choose content, to make assumptions about the end-user, to interpret context, etc. For this reason, such training in framing techniques would need to be accompanied by a foundation of ethical principles and frameworks around disaster-related translation that would help the trainee to navigate such challenging decisions. 6.4 Lobby for further policy change The Disaster Countermeasures Basic Act introduced in Section 3 calls for the Japanese Government to produce an annual White Paper on Disaster Management in Japan in which an overview of the hazards faced, significant crises or disasters experienced and countermeasures taken over the preceding year are provided (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, 2015). Lessons learned through this dynamic annual reporting system inform revisions to the Basic Disaster Management Plan. In recent years, the plan has been revised as much as twice annually (Director General for Disaster Management, 2017) and the plan has been updated to take into account issues of language, culture and communication with foreign nationals at various stages since the 2011 disaster. The most recent version of the plan at the time of writing is the 2018 version. It acknowledges the need for those managing and those affected by a disaster in Japan to engage with languages other than Japanese in ways that were not present in 2011. The development of these revisions can be traced through the White Papers on Disaster published in the intervening years[1]. The plan now proceeds from the basis that the behaviour and informational needs of foreign residents and foreign visitors may be different, but that a system for timely and accurate information transmission needs to be put in place to support both groups (Central Disaster Management Council, 2018, p. 5). Another salient guiding principle set down at the very outset of the document is that foreign nationals can be grouped together with the elderly and disabled (Central Disaster Management Council, 2018, p. 5), as well as with infants and pregnant women (Central Disaster Management Council, 2018, p. 15) as “people requiring special assistance” (要援護 者). The principle here states that there is a need to adopt specific, detailed policies to support these categories of individuals. Communication with foreign nationals is acknowledged in the document in terms of disaster training and education (Central Disaster Management Council, 2018, p. 15), evacuation procedures (Central Disaster Management Council, 2018, pp. 31-32), communicating disaster-related information to evacuees (Central Disaster Management Council, 2018, p. 71) and communicating with

foreign counterparts and governments overseas (Central Disaster Management Council, 2018, pp. 18, 37, 43), especially with respect to nuclear-related issues (Central Disaster Management Council, 2018, pp. 249, 261, 271, 272, 278). The plan also states that local governments shall devise an accessible information communication system that takes into account “people requiring special consideration” including foreign nationals (Central Disaster Management Council, 2018, p. 144). In short, many issues of concern in crisis translation have been incorporated into disaster policy in Japan since 2011 through dialogue from local to national level via the White Paper reporting system. At the same time, trust has not yet been related in an explicit way to communication with foreign nationals in the plan. The importance of fostering trust between stakeholders through relationship building in advance of disasters is recognised in the plan (Central Disaster Management Council, 2018, p. 13) and there are multiple mentions of the importance of ensuring reliable physical infrastructure for telecommunications, transport and power supply (Central Disaster Management Council, 2018, pp. 90, 112, 134, 163, 221, 231, 232). More can be done through knowledge dissemination and lobbying to argue for the fact that those who do not speak dominant local languages in a disaster setting will make different decisions about their safety based on the trust or distrust they hold in the sources and content of the information involved, especially when translation is involved, as has been shown in this research. 7. Conclusions and future work The research presented in this paper used in-depth case study data to examine relationships between trust, distrust and translation embedded in the context of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. It found that participant accounts of trust and distrust confirmed the general importance, the linguistic challenges and the context dependency of trust in disaster-related communication. It found, too, that translational processes were involved in some of these accounts. The crisis translation involved was an ad hoc act undertaken by linguistically and culturally proficient acquaintances of participants on the ground in the disaster zone. Had this ad hoc translation not been available, a significant proportion of decisions made about emergency response, personal safety and evacuation and return would have been reasoned differently by participants. For this reason alone, further work on relationships between trust, distrust and translation seems warranted. It was also argued that findings from this case study could have implications for crisis translation more broadly. It was suggested that shared personal common ground could be used by crisis translators to build trust, that crisis translation could be linked usefully with disaster preparedness, that crisis translators should be trained to empower those for whom they translate to carry out more effective trust reasoning and that lobbying for further inclusion of trust in disaster management policy should be undertaken. The research presented here should be seen in the context of its limitations. First, generalisations from case study data should be approached with caution, though they can be used to suggest avenues for future research. Second, only a limited range of reason-based social trust phenomena were considered; other forms of trust that can be irrational, implicit, culture-based or derived in part from someone’s personality (Castelfranchi and Falcone, 2010) were not dealt with. Finally, only documented foreign residents in the disaster zone in 2011 were interviewed for this research; the perspectives of other foreign nationals in Japan for the disaster – such as foreign emergency responders, short-term foreign business visitors or tourists, or undocumented migrants – were not analysed due to the difficulty of gaining access to these groups. Despite these limitations, there is scope for further work arising out of this research. As translation was observed to be a factor taken into account in participants’ trust reasoning, studies could be developed to hypothesise and test this relationship further. In particular, it

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would be useful to examine ways in which the layered sources of information characteristic of translation moderate trust phenomena. In addition, it could be beneficial to study whether shared personal or perceptual experiences can be factors in building trust during an act of crisis translation. Finally, in relation to a broader project of establishing crisis translation as a systematic practice, it would be worthwhile to develop and evaluate training on the concept of trust and its relation to translation in existing crisis translation courses.

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C. General (1) Is there anything else you’d like to mention in relation to experiences or needs in 2011 or your feelings of community in Japan? D. Your feelings on the research process

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(1) How did talking about your experience of the 2011 disaster today make you feel? (2) What benefits or burdens do you think talking about your experience of the disaster could bring to you, if any?

Corresponding author Patrick Cadwell can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Ethics and crisis translation: insights from the work of Paul Ricoeur Dónal P. O’Mathúna School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland and College of Nursing, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA, and

Matthew R. Hunt

Ethics and crisis translation

175 Received 8 January 2019 Revised 17 April 2019 20 August 2019 Accepted 21 August 2019

School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the ethical dimensions of crisis translation through the lenses of Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical scholarship. In particular, his work on both translation and ethics will be examined in order to draw practical applications for those involved in humanitarian action. Design/methodology/approach – The authors identified relevant themes in the work of renowned philosopher Paul Ricoeur and used philosophical analysis to apply them to ethical issues in crisis translation. Findings – Paul Ricoeur was one of the leading philosophers in the twentieth century, writing on a wide variety of topics. From these, his work on translation and on ethics provided suitable ways to examine ethical issues in crisis translation. In particular, his concept of “linguistic hospitality” provides an important lens through which translation ethics can be examined. In addition, Ricoeur’s approach to ethics emphasised relational and justice dimensions which are crucial to examine in humanitarian settings. Practical implications – While the findings are conceptual, they have many practical implications for how translation is approached in humanitarian crises. The focus on justice in Ricoeur’s approach has implications for policy and practice and serves to ensure that translation is available for all affected communities and that all groups are included in discussions around humanitarian responses. Social implications – Ricoeur’s work provides important insights into both translation and ethics that have significant social implications. His ideas highlight the personal and emotional aspects of translation and ethics, and point to their relational character. His openness to others provides an important basis for building trust and promoting dignity even in difficult humanitarian settings. Originality/value – Ricoeur’s ethics points to the importance of persons and their relationships, reminding responders that translation is not just a mechanical exercise. This approach fosters an interest in and openness to others and their languages, which can promote respect towards those being helped in humanitarian crises. Keywords Ethics, Justice, Virtue ethics, Paul Ricoeur, Crisis translation, Disaster bioethics, Linguistic hospitality Paper type Conceptual paper

Introduction Disasters and humanitarian crises lead to calls for help which are answered by neighbours and local agencies, as well as by responders from diverse disciplines and organisations coming from many parts of the world. Many disasters occur in locales where a variety of distinct linguistic communities live, and, in many crises, international responders have limited capacity to communicate in local languages and dialects. These events thus inevitably lead to interactions between people with different languages, creating urgent needs for translation and resulting in various challenges. Crisis translation is the term used for translation that occurs during these types of crises. Although various definitions of a crisis have been proposed, three conditions are generally present: expectations that have been violated, significant threats and the need for a response (Sellnow and Seeger, 2013). Elsewhere, we have adapted the work of Sellnow and Seeger to define crisis translation “as the act of transferring

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meaning and cultural encodings from one language/cultural system to another, either in written, oral, or signed modes, before, during or after a crisis” (Hunt et al., in press). Within this understanding of crisis translation, our focus here is on humanitarian crises where responders are not proficient in local languages. This most clearly applies to international responders, but can be relevant within countries where many languages are spoken, especially with minority languages. Similarly, when crises occur in regions where refugees and migrants live, language issues can be a factor for domestic responders. People in crises have a number of obvious needs, including those of nutrition, hydration, medical care, shelter and security. People in such situations suffer in various ways, and humanitarian responders seek to address their needs and their suffering. This puts ethics at the centre of humanitarian action arising from both “a profound feeling of compassion and responsibility towards others who are living and suffering in extremis. It is a feeling of identification and sympathy that demands some reasonable and effective action as a response to suffering” (Slim, 2015, p. 26). Humanitarian organisations accept a triple mandate: to save lives, alleviate suffering and promote dignity. Each does so by addressing one or more of the five areas of need mentioned above. The quotation from Slim notes that more than action alone is demanded; it should be effective action. This begins with effective communication between those suffering and those responding. Without adequate communication, people in crisis may be unable to communicate their needs and other local knowledge effectively, and those with resources may be unable to direct their distribution efficiently and justly. The response to the 2014–2016 Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa demonstrated many communication failings and shortcomings. Bastide (2018) reports that, at least in the early stages, many of the delays and inefficiencies could be traced to communication problems. In humanitarian crises, “information is gold” (Bastide, 2018, p. 106), but in this Ebola crisis, communication about the local context broke down, resulting in strategies based on biased (and inaccurate) assumptions. For these reasons, increasingly information is seen as a basic humanitarian good (Greenwood et al., 2017) leading to the view that access to information is a right to which people experiencing a crisis are entitled (O’Brien et al., 2018). For people to comprehend such information, however, translation is often necessary. Without effective translation during crises, good communication may be very difficult. We therefore hold that there is an ethical obligation to plan for and include translation services within crisis responses. This obligation should incorporate concerns for justice and the needs of various groups in such a crisis. Therefore, the strength of the obligation to provide crisis translation services will grow both as the linguistic diversity of the setting and the degree of marginalisation of linguistic minorities increase. This clearly not only applies for international humanitarian responses, but may also apply with domestic responses to crisis. Taking the view that effective translation services should be provided during crises leads to other ethical questions about how translation needs are met. Given the scarcity of resources following a disaster and many competing demands, the provision of translation services will have to be balanced against other services. Questions abound as to how these services should be provided and such questions lead to challenging decisions related to distributive justice: How should translation services be prioritised relative to other services during a crisis? Do these priorities change as a crisis develops and continues through different phases? How should organisations budget their limited human and financial resources towards translation? The importance of addressing such challenges ethically may be missed if translation is viewed “as a largely logistical issue, akin to booking flights, travel permits or a driver” (Wright, 2018, p. 97). To explore and begin to address some of the ethical issues in crisis translation, this paper draws upon concepts developed by the French philosopher, Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005). Ricoeur was widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. Over his extensive career, he wrote on a broad range of issues, including extended

analyses of ethics and a number of essays on translation. Given his attention to the two central aspects of this paper, ethics and translation, we have found Ricoeur’s work particularly enlightening for reflection on our topic. We believe that Ricoeur provides an important set of lenses through which to approach ethical issues in translation. Overall, this paper aims to explore and clarify the ethical dimensions of crisis translation by drawing upon insights from Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical scholarship. We begin with an overview of Ricoeur’s writing on translation, which developed from his long-term interest in language, interpretation and narrative. The central themes we take from this lens is the importance of going beyond a literalistic approach to translation and the impossibility of a perfect translation. The second lens is to view translation through Ricoeur’s approach to ethics. This combines concern for the good life, relationships and just institutions, along with how suffering and conflict can stimulate reflection on what is ethical. Ricoeur combines his concern for ethics and translation under the phrase hospitalité langagière, or “linguistic hospitality”. We explore the meaning of this approach to translation, particularly how it incorporates Ricoeur’s concern for justice. In the concluding section, we explore a number of practical implications for crisis translation that arise from implementing Ricoeur’s linguistic hospitality in humanitarian settings. Translation during crises through the lens of Ricoeur’s work on translation Much of Ricoeur’s (1974, 1976, 1978) foundational work was concerned with language and interpretation, leading him to focus on hermeneutics. Only later in his career did he explicitly address translation (Kearney, 2006). For him, translation included the commonly understood means of taking ideas from one language and rendering them understandable in another language, but Ricoeur also had a more psychological understanding of these practices as a means of translating oneself to oneself or to others (Kearney, 2006). He held that translation is a labour involving both tension and suffering as it seeks to bridge the gap between what Ricoeur called “two masters”, which could be “an author and a reader, a self and another” (Kearney, 2006, p. xv). In this way, translation for Ricoeur can refer to either textual or oral communication. Our paper will address both formats as the ethical implications apply equally to both, though we acknowledge that there are important differences between these activities that have important practical implications. The second lens from Ricoeur’s work is the interpersonal dimension of translation which implies that it is much more than a technical exercise. Translation thus becomes a means of bridging distances between people which was fundamental to all of Ricoeur’s ethics. He held that an action could be good only if “it were done on behalf of others, out of regard for others” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 189, emphasis original). Translation can then include people taking risks to reveal more about themselves and being open to reduce the otherness of others. Doing so will include emotional elements and the inherent risks associated with this labour may lead to suffering (risks like being misunderstood, ridiculed or rejected over what was revealed). Translation therefore, as Ricoeur understands it, requires certain ethical commitments, particularly an openness to others and their cultures. In his introduction to the English version of Ricoeur’s book, On Translation, Kearney (2006) summarises these ethical commitments thus: “We are called to make our language put on the stranger’s clothes at the same time as we invite the stranger to step into the fabric of our own speech” (p. xvi). Part of the important insight we believe Ricoeur brings to crisis translation is that these ethical and psychological dimensions are involved in translation whether they are explicitly acknowledged or not. They can be important factors either in bringing additional benefits with translation, such as respect and dignity for the other, leading to trust, or in contributing to negative impacts through misunderstandings and disrespect, leading to mistrust. They also intersect with experiences and articulations of suffering in the face of crisis, especially when translation is needed to communicate these experiences to others.

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Ricoeur’s (2006) ideas stemmed from his review of translation in human history. “Men of one culture have always known that there were foreigners who had different customs and different languages” (p. 32). Whether through trade or travel, people came to learn about others who were different, and this led to varied reactions. The foreigner could be seen as someone who triggered fear, but there could also be a “curiosity about the foreigner” (Ricoeur, 2006, p. 32). Ricoeur characteristically discussed the emotional reactions that could lead to different approaches to the topic under consideration. Such interactions with a foreigner could lead to a tension between a curiosity to learn more about the other and a fear about the differences that separate various others. Such conflicting emotional reactions were important in Ricoeur’s approach to ethics, which we will address shortly (Pellauer, 2019). Ricoeur’s view includes a critique of mechanistic approaches to translation. This analysis begins with his view that texts are not just words on a page or someone’s tongue, but are ways in which “different visions of the world are expressed” (Ricoeur, 2006, p. 31). These different visions can exist even within the same culture, and are closely connected with cultural identities and understandings. Translation for Ricoeur happens between languages, as is widely recognised, but also occurs within languages because of the different ways that things can be said (Pellauer, 2019). This has important practical implications for translation: “the work of the translator does not move from the word to the sentence, to the text, to the cultural group, but conversely: absorbing vast interpretations of the spirit of a culture, the translator comes down again from the text, to the sentence and to the word” (Ricoeur, 2006, p. 31). One practical consequence of this for Ricoeur (2006) is that we should “give up the ideal of the perfect translation” (p. 8). Cultural studies note that even within one culture, people vary in how they give meaning and expression to different things and ideas, which further complicates translation. From studying the history of translation, Ricoeur concludes that translating literally, word for word, is flawed. He calls this approach a disgrace, and one that many translators have resisted: “They gave up the comfortable shelter of the equivalence of meaning, and ventured into hazardous areas where there would be some talk of tone, of savour, of rhythm, of spacing, of silence between the words, of metrics and of rhyme” (Ricoeur, 2006, p. 38). During a crisis, or in other intense settings like police interviews or court cross-examinations, “it is not just what people say, but also how they say it that is significant” (Mulayim and Lai, 2017, p. 43). Humanitarian practitioners – and the translators who work with them – will need to be attentive to these considerations. Interpersonal communication allows this more readily, but it can be particularly challenging with text. With the recognition that a perfect translation is not achievable, history shows that humans have continued to have “the desire to translate” (Ricoeur, 2006, p. 21). Kearney (2006) calls this “the primordial need for translation” (p. xii), based on Ricoeur’s (2006) view that translation satisfies “the need to extend human exchanges beyond the linguistic community” (p. 32). This need arose from an initial curiosity about foreigners, and their different cultures and languages. It had pragmatic benefits by facilitating travel and trade, but also had psychosocial benefits. One anticipated benefit, in addition to pragmatic ones, is the discovery of things about ourselves and our own language. Through translation, people have come to discover more about “their own language and of its resources which have been left to lie fallow” (Ricoeur, 2006, p. 21). Thus translation is an important avenue for Ricoeur’s larger project of discovering and understanding the self, and of interpreting and expressing meaning. This insight should lead us to anticipate that we will benefit from engaging with the other and the stranger. Such engagement can lead to learning important things about ourselves and our cultures while addressing aspects of our need for “social cohesion and group identity” (Ricoeur, 2006, p. 32) and therefore should impact how we approach such interactions. Ricoeur’s insights into translation are particularly cogent when examined in the light of crisis translation. One of these relates to the quality of a translation. As with all areas of

humanitarian action, interventions should be effective, not just well intentioned. Therefore, it is important that careful attention is given to the degree of accuracy warranted in translations in different contexts. How exact does the match need to be between what the communicator means and what the receiver understands her to mean? In a humanitarian setting, this quality (or correspondence) often must be balanced against the urgency of the situation (Hunt et al., in press) or the lack of availability of highly trained professional translators (O’Mathúna et al., in press). When viewed through Ricoeur’s lens that perfect translation is not possible, it may become easier to accept adequate correspondence. Given the current interest in using technology to assist translation in humanitarian settings, Ricoeur can provide further insight while acknowledging that he wrote about translation before the latest generations of translation technologies emerged. Machine translation has been used successfully in humanitarian crises, including during the 2010 Haiti earthquake where a machine translation engine was created rapidly to translate text messages from Creole to English (Lewis et al., 2011). Such technologies have many benefits, but their use in crisis settings also raises several ethical challenges reviewed elsewhere (Hunt et al., in press). Some of these ethical concerns include the possibility of algorithmic bias in machine translation systems (where systematic errors in the technology can lead to constant and systemic unfairness), the possibility of reinforcing marginalisation since technologically mediated translation is less feasible for languages spoken by fewer people, and justice concerns around access to technology and its required infrastructure. As one example, currently about 7,000 languages are spoken around the world, but only slightly more than 100 are supported by machine translation or supported online (Clear Words Translations, 2019). Technology can help address such disparities, but also can exacerbate them if they are not explicitly considered. The current drive towards using technology for translation is based to some degree on a more mechanistic approach to translation, and a perception that technology will consistency improve translation. However, striving for perfection is an elusive aim, especially in a humanitarian context. Even when another’s language is not understood at all, basic meanings still can be conveyed through expression, gesture and intonation. While this is not as relevant to textual translation, communication in crises often requires verbal translation. For this, translation involves much more than manipulating words, yet translation technology can be focussed on only that dimension. In addition, machine translation is based on rules and algorithms derived from grammar and syntax. Yet, when people speak, studies have found that they “hardly ever use language in strict adherence to rules of grammar, syntax or coherence” (Mulayim and Lai, 2017, p. 43). This is particularly the case in crises when people are under duress and suffering, which is something else that Ricoeur addressed when he examined how suffering impacts people’s choice of words. These insights on translation are important lenses that Ricoeur provides as we examine some of the ethical tensions in crisis translation. But before we continue, we need to review some of Ricoeur’s ideas on ethics. Translation during crises through the lens of Ricoeur’s work on ethics Ricoeur was pluralistic in his approach to ethics (Pellauer, 2019). He addressed ethics throughout his career, but his fullest statement was presented later in what he called his petite éthique, or “little ethics” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 290). For him, the goal of ethics was “the ‘good life’ with and for others, in just institutions” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 172). Approaches to ethics are often separated into those which are, very broadly speaking, teleological (consequences-focussed), deontological (duty-focussed) or based on virtues (focussed on character traits). Barnett and Snyder (2008) note that “the language of moral duties and responsibilities underlies much of the discussion on humanitarian aid”, but since the early 2000s, they identified an increasing focus on an “ethic of consequences” among

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humanitarian organisations (p. 143). Virtue ethics approaches have received considerably less attention in humanitarian ethics, though these have been seen by some as having the potential to enrich ethical discussion in the field (Slim, 1997; Hunt et al., 2014; Löfquist, 2017). Ricoeur brings these three approaches to ethics together into a practical wisdom where the more theoretical aspects are applied to real-world situations. Some approaches to ethics seek ideal solutions, but these may be unattainable with some of life’s perplexing ethical dilemmas, particularly in humanitarian settings (O’Mathúna, 2016; Slim, 2015). Ricoeur points out that in many ethically charged situations, “the choice is between bad and worse rather than simply between an obvious right and wrong” (Pellauer, 2019, p. 1). Such tragic choices are a recurrent feature of humanitarian ethics (Terry, 2002; Hunt et al., 2012). For example, well-trained professional translators ideally should be deployed to ensure the highest degree of accuracy and best communication. Such professionals can be unavailable in crises, so that others with less training may need to be used, knowing that this risks introducing mistakes and miscommunication (O’Mathúna et al., in press). Arguably, poor communication is better than none. Ricoeur’s petite éthique provides a means of drawing a variety of approaches together to widen the scope of ethical analysis to address vexing ethical challenges, such as those occurring in crisis situations when a “least worse option” is the best available. As noted earlier, Ricoeur had a strong interest throughout his career in narratives and hermeneutics – the science of interpretation. This focus had a strong impact on his approach to ethics. As with classical virtue ethics, Ricoeur used narratives to highlight conflicting values and suggest practical ways forward. For example, he held that tragedies are important to teach people about ethics because “tragedy says something unique about the unavoidable nature of conflict in the moral life and, in addition, outlines a wisdom […] capable of directing us in conflicts of an entirely different nature” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 243). Conflicts for Ricoeur were important in learning practical wisdom in ethics, in part because of the emotional reactions they can trigger and the resulting self-knowledge. Ricoeur placed much importance on sollicitude, spelled “solicitude” in English, which is the compassionate reaction that leads to concern and care for another, particularly for people in positions of vulnerability or marginalisation (Potvin, 2010). He held that solicitude was more fundamental to ethics than duty because of its emotional and relational dimensions (Ricoeur, 1992). For him, ethical considerations do not begin from a neutral place, but from a reaction that is often expressed in the negative. Thus, for example, “the idea of justice is better named sense of justice […] for what we are first aware of is injustice: ‘Unjust! What injustice!’ we cry” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 198). This aligns with the sense of frustration with injustice and inequality that can lead people to become involved in humanitarian action. In a similar way to how Slim (2015) described humanitarian action arising from a feeling of sympathy for those suffering which leads to action, Ricoeur saw ethics as a practical enterprise to determine how to address the things in life that are broken, wrong or not the way they should be. This understanding of ethics aligns with Ricoeur’s approach to translation. He held that the realisation that a perfect translation was not achievable should result in mourning over the loss of this ideal. However, after recognising something negative in the world, Ricoeur believed that moral philosophy could “make sense of everything in the end” (Pellauer, 2019, p. 5) and lead to a hope that good can come from the negative. His engagement with narratives, as noted above, helped prevent this analysis from becoming a purely intellectual exercise as narratives bring the emotional and relational dimensions into engagement with the philosophical. He held that “feelings of pity, compassion, and sympathy” needed to be given a renewed appreciation within philosophy (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 192). At the same time, because he took account of the teleological, deontological and virtue approaches to ethics, Ricoeur’s ethics involved engaging in “a complex and iterative deliberative process” that

involved reflecting on the whole situation and the views of all the people involved (Potvin, 2010, p. 318). The way translation facilitates such engagement on ethics also links his approaches to both arenas. Ricoeur’s (1992) ethics is fundamentally relational – emphasising “the ‘good life’ with and for others, in just institutions” (p. 172) – which accounts for why his work has been of interest to advocates of care ethics (van Nistelrooij et al., 2014). He claimed that in order to be and to become, the self must engage with and incorporate elements of otherness (van Nistelrooij et al., 2014). For Ricoeur, our being is fundamentally relational and the good life cannot be found or lived in isolation. This understanding reinforces the relational dimensions of translation which have already been mentioned. It also suggests that human connection needs to be prioritised as ethical dilemmas in crisis translation – and in humanitarian action more broadly – are encountered and addressed. The crisis setting itself will tend to fracture relationships, through separation, isolation and frayed social structures, to which additional challenges can arise as strangers are thrown together suddenly. The inclusion of “just institutions” in Ricoeur’s central articulation of his petite éthique seeks to balance individual goods and societal goods. Ricoeur viewed institutions as those social structures that allow people to live together well, with justice being the key virtue to extending the good of interpersonal relationships to larger groups. At the ethical core of justice is equality, which for Ricoeur is not based on equal distribution of things, but is an equality based on the fair sharing of advantages and burdens among groups of people. It reflects an attitude towards groups of others, just as solicitude reflects an attitude while engaging with individuals. Ricoeur (1992) holds that justice is identified when it is lacking, and uses Aristotle’s approach of a virtue being a mean between two extremes. “The unjust man is one who takes too much in terms of advantages […] or not enough in terms of burdens” (p. 201). He admits this is unavoidably ambiguous, and holds that just institutions should act to promote care and compassion (sollicitude) among their members. “Equality, however it is modulated, is to life in institutions what solicitude is to interpersonal relations” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 202, emphasis original). As ethical tensions arise in contexts of urgency, scarcity and exigency, being attentive to relational engagement between people, understanding people as having equal moral worth, and getting beyond a dynamic of “victim and rescuer” are all essential for a robust relational ethics of humanitarian action and crisis translation. The difficult ethical decisions will remain, but when people approach one another with a vision and mind-set characterised by such ideas, understanding and communication will be more likely to emerge. When communication falters, important lessons may be learned by reflecting on how such dimensions have been lost in translation, not just assessing the practical details. Ricoeur’s insights on translation are particularly relevant to disasters when combined with his understanding of suffering, experiences of distress, and how people tell stories. A 1992 paper by Ricoeur, La souffrance n’est pas la douleur, or “Suffering is not the same as pain”, has been applied to disaster victims (Devisch et al., 2017). These authors summarise Ricoeur’s theory of suffering as something which medical and instrumental approaches cannot grasp as it entails deeper existential dimensions of our existence in and experience of the world. Because of this, Ricoeur indicates that distress must be “read” in people by paying attention to “the signs of suffering” (Devisch et al., 2017, pp. 260-1). In this way, Ricoeur’s understanding of suffering is relevant to translation and interpretation in humanitarian action. For example, Ricoeur held that telling stories (to ourselves and others) about our lives is an important way of making sense of our experiences and that suffering arises or is compounded when we cannot talk about our experiences in ways comprehensible to others. Translation is a valuable – sometimes indispensable – means for sharing such experiences. At the same time, Ricoeur pointed out that when people suffer intensely, they often cannot find the right words to express themselves. As a result, they place greater emphasis

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on non-verbal aspects of communication. This can arise from an overload of affective stimuli for which words appear to be inadequate. Ricoeur’s lens thus reveals the importance of non-verbal cues which translation may have difficulty communicating. Certainly, translation technology will be unable to grasp and render these dimensions accessible across languages. Ricoeur noted the importance of cultural and community dimensions of language in any area of translation, but in a disaster setting these components will be highlighted to an even greater degree. People who have experienced a disaster may be suffering to such a degree that they cannot put their own thoughts, feelings or needs into words in their native languages. How then is the translator to pass on the messages that she may be hearing or reading? The impossibility of making a perfect translation is revealed to an even greater degree among those suffering after disasters. Viewed through such a lens, the importance of translating with humility, diligence and attentiveness becomes even more significant than in normal situations. In crisis settings, various translation tasks exist which must be prioritised ethically: translation of logistical information is important and consequential, but is not freighted with the same moral weight as translating narratives of trauma and suffering. Ricoeur’s lens reminds us that while technology may be completely adequate for some translation tasks, it will be insufficient or unsuitable for other translation tasks. Choosing the most appropriate means of translation is an important way of expressing compassionate solicitude and enacting justice in crisis settings. Linguistic hospitality Ricoeur’s discussions of ethics and of translation are very much focussed on others and not primarily the self. Ricoeur (1992) developed his “little ethics” in Soi-même comme un Autre, published in 1990 and translated as Oneself as Another. An aspect of ethics is learning to see how our actions could be interpreted by others, and how others view us and our actions. We noted earlier that as Ricoeur reviewed the history of translation, he found that encountering new cultures could produce fear of the other. Rather than letting this negative reaction dictate behaviour, Ricoeur noted that curiosity about the other can lead to a desire to translate. But “translation sets us not only intellectual work, theoretical or practical, but also an ethical problem. Bringing the reader to the author, bringing the author to the reader, at the risk of serving and of betraying two masters: this is to practise what I like to call linguistic hospitality”, originally hospitalité langagière (Ricoeur, 2006, p. 23, emphasis original). This brings us back to his relational approach to translation as well as ethics: “the ‘good life’ with and for others, in just institutions” (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 172). Linguistic hospitality suggests that translation should be approached with certain attitudes and dispositions, not just with technical skills and devices. A desire to learn about and learn from other people and cultures is needed to have some hope of translating their languages adequately (Ricoeur, 2006). Even while mourning the lack of a perfect translation, Ricoeur (2006) held that linguistic hospitality would bring the translator happiness partly from acknowledging “the difference between adequacy and equivalence, equivalence without adequacy” (p. 10). The happiness arises from taking pleasure in dwelling in a place of imperfect translation, yet at the same time taking pleasure in dwelling in another’s language. This is a place of appreciating and valuing another’s language, even without being able to translate it perfectly, or without mastering or understanding it completely. “Linguistic hospitality, then, where the pleasure of dwelling in the other’s language is balanced by the pleasure of receiving the foreign word at home, in one’s own welcoming home” (Ricoeur, 2006, p. 10). In a broader sense, this is similar to how ethics can arise from a place of valuing others and their concerns, even if those involved do not understand or appreciate fully one another’s views on those concerns. Linguistic hospitality can thus be analogous to “welcoming a stranger” and suggests an approach to ethics which has been called “moral hospitality” (Pellauer, 2019, p. 7, emphasis original).

Thus, linguistic hospitality is about much more than an attitude towards others that benefits them, but includes how this attitude has value for us. As we are open to others’ languages, we learn more about them and their cultures, but also about ourselves, which can be of great benefit to us. This is one of the fundamental insights into translation provided by Ricoeur which is of great value to translation ethics and to humanitarian ethics more broadly. A different approach could view translation as merely a means for humanitarians to get information into local languages and for local people to convey their needs to responders. In a more complete way, linguistic hospitality approaches the same situation as an opportunity for both parties to learn about one another and from one another so that learning, appreciation and deeper communication occur. This fits well with a common motivation for humanitarian work: people not only want to help others, but in giving they also receive, including gaining new insights into themselves and where they come from (Bjerneld et al., 2006). Underlying linguistic hospitality is a disposition of openness accompanied by humility. This orients humanitarians and crisis responders to approach other languages and cultures with curiosity and interest, even before engaging in translation. Recognising that language divisions cannot be fully bridged by the act of translation, people responding to crises require humility to accept, among other things, that they will always be learners when it comes to understanding the other, and that their understanding will always be partial and incomplete. In this way, linguistic hospitality calls for an approach to the other which incorporates a desire to draw closer to another’s culture and experiences, and thereby come to know, understand and respect the other more. Unfortunately, humanitarianism has not always exemplified an approach like linguistic hospitality. Accounts exist of humanitarians imposing outside perspectives, failing to engage with local communities, and acting in ways that replicate patterns of cultural imperialism (Barnett, 2011; Rieff, 2003). Translation can be seen as merely a means of conveying information, enacting accountability measures or simply ensuring that different views are available. One analysis of archival texts about the history of one humanitarian organisation, Oxfam, concluded that the organisation was slow to see the importance of a “two-way learning process” (Footitt, 2017, p. 529). For example, originally all dialogue and reports were in English, but Oxfam learned than other languages had richer ways of conveying important ideas. Eventually this led to policies and practices “which both respected ‘the other’, and supported the sort of linguistic hospitality to which Ricoeur alluded” (Footitt, 2017, p. 530). Footitt (2017) argues that, at its root, linguistic hospitality is about “an ethic of exchange” that involves an orientation of openness and receptivity towards others, a desire “to engage with the other”, and through that process come to a better understanding of oneself (p. 521). Such insights have broader application than within the domain of translation. In the context of international aid organisations, Ricoeur’s approach moves things “towards a paradigm of conversation, transnational exchange, and narrative plurality” (Footitt, 2017, p. 521). These lenses illuminate core ethical concerns at the heart of humanitarian action itself: aid is not just a set of services and goods to be given or received, or a resource to be offered or withheld, but is a form of relational engagement, receptivity towards others and promotion of justice. Conclusion: putting Ricoeur’s ideas into practice for crisis translation As we have described above, Ricoeur’s ideas around translation, ethics and linguistic hospitality provide useful lenses through which the ethics of crisis translation can be examined. They help us understand better the ethical dimensions of language and its translation during crises. They also offer insights for practice. As humanitarians respond to crises, those who are suffering can come to be seen as passive victims who have neither resources nor the capacity to overcome the challenges they face. Responders then come as

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rescuers to save those in need. Ethical challenges, from this perspective, turn around the question of how the limited resources brought by responders can be fairly distributed among people in need. Viewing the situation through the lens of Ricoeur’s ethical understanding calls on responders to practice humility, be open to engage with people affected by crisis, and to develop “two-way learning” (Footitt, 2017, p. 529). While local people may have lost their property and possessions, they have other essential resources which can be shared with responders. These include their linguistic and cultural expertise which responders should want to learn about and learn from. Through this process, responders may come to learn about local resources such as community values and institutions which emphasise helping and sharing with neighbours, or individual character strengths which bring resilience in the face of suffering. Stories and sayings from other languages may capture and communicate values and concepts better, allowing deeper understanding from their translation. Engaging with communities with a desire to learn from them would differ significantly from an approach where the focus is only “on the contractual, the standard and the quantifiable” (Footitt, 2017, p. 519). The former exemplifies linguistic hospitality. The lenses we identified from Ricoeur’s scholarship on ethics and translation also draw attention to the notion of shared humanity. During crises, a sharp divide may appear to exist between the helpers and the helped which emphasises difference. Linguistic hospitality reminds us that we can and should always learn from others. At the very least, it reminds us that as we seek to help others, we need their help to understand their needs and to communicate with them. Both require translation which necessitates learning from those with knowledge of local languages and cultures. Seeing the importance of humanitarian helpers seeking and accepting the help of those in need can promote values like solidarity and mutual respect. Ricoeur’s approach also promotes other attitudes and virtues that strongly influence the ethics of humanitarian action: humility towards the other and her community as a way to demonstrate respect; a commitment to continue to understand others and their cultures, as opposed to having only a desire to get the job done; and the need to learn about oneself as one engages in responding to the pressing needs of others. Humility in particular can be in short supply in humanitarian settings as responders arrive from elsewhere under the mantle of being essential experts and rescuers. Linguistic hospitality shows a different path for such engagement, one based on a fundamental respect for the other, a focus on restoring and strengthening relationships, and a desire to build (or rebuild) just institutions. Ricoeur’s emphasis on justice – and just institutions – highlights the importance of translation as a way to address the exclusion of minority groups. Ricoeur noted that language is foundational to equality and justice, and its lack highly significant: “the inability to speak well results in effectively being expelled from the sphere of discourse. In this regard, one of the first forms of the equality of opportunity has to do with equality on the plane of being able to speak, explain, argue, discuss” (Ricoeur, 2007, p. 76). Crisis translation is crucial to allow people to express their views and needs, and defend themselves if necessary. Otherwise, the sense of difference about the other, particularly minority groups, can lead to fear and detachment, or even accusation and villainisation. Linguistic hospitality promotes an interest in others that can lead to the breaking down of barriers, the inclusion of minority groups, and the promotion of equality and justice. As responders are receptive to people telling their stories in their own words (including the non-verbal aspects), mutual understanding becomes possible and people can start down a path towards restoration and justice. The focus that Ricoeur brings on justice and language may also provide an opportunity for humanitarian organisations to consider their linguistic policies and the potential for bias and exclusion. For example, in Haiti, after the 2010 earthquake, some cluster meetings for the health sector were held in English which prevented some local officials and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from participating (Kirsch et al., 2012). Making sure that translation is available at planning and coordination meetings allows

government and community representatives to participate more fully and contribute actively to discussions and resulting actions. At the same time, the practical limitations of an approach like linguistic hospitality must be recognised. As a concept, it is not amenable to easy measurement. Its existence is often felt, not seen, limiting the ways it can be exemplified. While it is ethically laudable, it should be balanced against the pragmatic dimensions of crisis translation. In the acute aftermath of a crisis, there may be little time and few resources for extensive work on translation. But this is where Ricoeur’s reminder of the impossibility of perfect translation is important. Rather than seeking a certain level of coherence, linguistic hospitality calls for an ethical, virtuous engagement. This sort of engagement may be aspirational in many crisis settings, but it is based on a set of values and virtues that are crucial to promoting mutual respect, building trusting relationships and developing justice. The notion of hospitality reminds humanitarian responders that they are, as it were, guests visiting another’s home and that while they bring help, they should be open to learning from the hosts. As the acute phase of a crisis wanes, and humanitarian action moves into longer-term engagement, conditions will allow translation to improve. Yet, the same attitudes and virtues should be fostered as humanitarians and local communities work together more long-term via on-going dialogue through translation. The trusting relationships that can develop may thereby lead to more ethical engagement and, in due course, to an ethical withdrawal of humanitarian assistance. References Barnett, M. (2011), Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. Barnett, M. and Snyder, J. (2008), “Grand strategies of humanitarianism”, in Barnett, M. and Weiss, T.G. (Eds), Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power and Ethics, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, pp. 143-171. Bastide, L. (2018), “Crisis communication during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa: the paradoxes of decontextualized contextualization”, in Bourrir, M. and Bieder, C. (Eds), Risk Communication for the Future, Springer, Cham, pp. 95-108. Bjerneld, M., Lindmark, G., McSpadden, L.A. and Garrett, M.J. (2006), “Motivations, concerns, and expectations of Scandinavian health professionals volunteering for humanitarian assignments”, Disaster Management & Response, Vol. 4 No. 2, pp. 49-58. Clear Words Translations (2019), “Machine translation could make marginalized languages more accessible”, available at: http://clearwordstranslations.com/machine-translation-marginalizedlanguages/ (accessed 14 August 2019). Devisch, I., Vanheule, S., Deveugele, M., Nola, I., Civaner, M. and Pype, P. (2017), “Victims of disaster: can ethical debriefings be of help to care for their suffering?”, Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 257-267. Footitt, H. (2017), “International aid and development: hearing multilingualism, learning from intercultural encounters in the history of OxfamGB”, Language and Intercultural Communication, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 518-533. Greenwood, F., Howarth, C., Escudero Poole, D., Raymond, N.A. and Scarnecchia, D.P. (2017), “The signal code: a human rights approach to information during crisis”, available at: https:// hhi.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/publications/signalcode_final.pdf (accessed 14 August 2019). Hunt, M., O’Brien, S., Cadwell, P. and O’Mathúna, D.P. (in press), “Ethics at the intersection of crisis translation and humanitarian innovation”, Journal of Humanitarian Affairs. Hunt, M.R., Sinding, C. and Schwartz, L. (2012), “Tragic choices in humanitarian health work”, Journal of Clinical Ethics, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 338-344. Hunt, M.R., Schwartz, L., Sinding, C. and Elit, L. (2014), “The ethics of engaged presence: a framework for health professionals in humanitarian assistance and development work”, Developing World Bioethics, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 47-55.

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Kearney, R. (2006), “Introduction: Ricoeur’s philosophy of translation”, in Ricoeur, P., On Translation, trans. Brennan, E., Routledge, London, pp. vii-xx. Kirsch, T., Sauer, L. and Sapir, D.G. (2012), “Analysis of the international and US response to the Haiti earthquake: recommendations for change”, Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 200-208. Lewis, W., Munro, R. and Vogel, S. (2011), “Crisis MT: developing a cookbook for MT in crisis situations”, Proceedings of the 6th Workshop on Statistical Machine Translation, 30–31 July, Edinburgh, pp. 501-511. Löfquist, L. (2017), “Virtues and humanitarian ethics”, Disasters, Vol. 41 No. 1, pp. 41-54. Mulayim, S. and Lai, M. (2017), Ethics for Police Translators and Interpreters, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL. O’Brien, S., Federici, F.M., Cadwell, P., Marlowe, J. and Gerber, B. (2018), “Language translation during disaster: a comparative analysis of five national approaches”, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Vol. 31, pp. 627-636. O’Mathúna, D. (2016), “Ideal and nonideal moral theory for disaster bioethics”, Human Affairs, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 8-17. O’Mathúna, D.P., Parra Escartín, C., Roche, P. and Marlowe, J. (in press), “Engaging citizen translators in disasters: virtue ethics in response to ethical challenges”, Translation and Interpreting Studies. Pellauer, D. (2019), “Ricoeur, Paul”, in LaFollette, H. (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Ethics, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, pp. 1-8, available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/ 10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee214.pub2 (accessed 14 August 2019). Potvin, M.-J. (2010), “Ricoeur’s ‘petite éthique’: an ethical epistemological perspective for clinician–bioethicists”, HEC Forum, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 311-326. Ricoeur, P. (1974), The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics, Don Ihde (Ed.), Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL. Ricoeur, P. (1976), Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning, Texas Christian University Press, Fort Worth, TX. Ricoeur, P. (1978), The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-Disciplinary Studies in the Creation of Meaning in Language, trans. Czerny, R. with McLaughlin, K. and Costello, J., University of Toronto Press, Toronto. Ricoeur, P. (1992), Oneself as Another, trans. Blamey, K., University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. Ricoeur, P. (2006), On Translation, trans. Brennan, E., Routledge, London. Ricoeur, P. (2007), Reflections on the Just, trans. Pellauer, D., University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. Rieff, D. (2003), A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis, Simon and Schuster, New York, NY. Sellnow, T.L. and Seeger, M.W. (2013), Theorizing Crisis Communication, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester. Slim, H. (1997), “Doing the right thing: relief agencies, moral dilemmas and moral responsibility in political emergencies and war”, Disasters, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 244-257. Slim, H. (2015), Humanitarian Ethics: A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster, Hurst & Company, London. Terry, F. (2002), Condemned to Repeat?: The Paradox of Humanitarian Action, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. van Nistelrooij, I., Schaafsma, P. and Tronto, J.C. (2014), “Ricoeur and the ethics of care”, Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, Vol. 17, pp. 485-491. Wright, K. (2018), “ ‘Helping our beneficiaries tell their own stories?’ International aid agencies and the politics of voice within news production”, Global Media and Communication, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 85-102. Corresponding author Dónal P. O’Mathúna can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Ophelia, Emma, and the beast from the east effortful engaging and the provision of sign language interpreting in emergencies

SLI in emergencies

Lorraine Leeson

Received 9 January 2019 Revised 5 June 2019 8 July 2019 Accepted 8 July 2019

Centre for Deaf Studies, University of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

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Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Republic of Ireland’s National Emergency Coordinating Group performed with respect to ensuring access to emergency information for deaf sign language (SL) users over the course of two emergency situations in 2017 and 2018 as a result of storms. The storms book-ended parliamentary and public debate around the recognition of the indigenous SL of Ireland, Irish Sign Language (ISL). The author explores if/how increased political awareness led to better access in 2018, and how access provision maps to best practice guidelines set out by the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI) and the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD). Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides empirical insights about the asymmetrical effort that is required of a minority linguistic community, in this instance, community of deaf ISL users and their allies, to secure provision of access to emergency information that is provided as a matter of course to the wider community of hearing English language speakers. The author draws on parliamentary records, social media and print media to document the political, societal and deaf community discourse around ISL recognition and the emergencies. Findings – The author finds that significant effort was required of deaf people and their allies to secure access to national emergency briefings in 2017, with significant improvement evidenced in 2018 for Storm Emma and the Beast from the East, in the aftermath of the adoption of the ISL Act (December 2017). The author drew on the theory of effortful engaging, which posits that unless we have greater awareness of and pro forma consideration of SLs and deaf people, the burden of work required to ensure appropriate access and participation falls on deaf people. Research limitations/implications – There is scope for completing a 360° analysis of stakeholders engaged in the process. Further work should also include interviews with deaf community members and emergency response coordinators. Practical implications – This paper identifies implications for emergency coordinating groups: provision of appropriate interpreting must be a pro forma element in the planning for delivery of any emergency information. Broadcasters must be required to ensure that interpreters are visible on screen at all times during live briefings: what is unseen is “unheard” for SL users. Work remains to ensure that deaf people have access to preparatory information in their language, and that they have ease of access to two-way emergency services. Emergency coordinating teams need to integrate the UNCRPD-mapped WASLI-WFD recommendations into their emergency strategy. Social implications – Communities depend on information for their survival in times of crisis. Communication requires comprehension and interaction. For SL users, information in an indigenous SL is a lifeline in a time of crisis. This requires emergency response teams to understand that “language” is multi-modal and embed strategies for engaging with deaf communities in all aspects of their processes, with guidance from deaf community leaders and advocates. There is also a need to consider deafblind people and deaf people who have disabilities, who are more vulnerable in crisis situations. Originality/value – This is the first analysis of state provision of access to information for the Irish deaf community in an emergency setting. It is one of very few empirical analyses of how deaf communities fare in emergency contexts and the first to evaluate a state’s practice vis-à-vis UNCRPD-led guidelines on best practice issued by the WASLI/WFD. The socio-political context described represents a unique period where the Irish deaf community and ISL were central to political and media discourse because of the ISL Act and the death of two deaf brothers in tragic circumstances in Autumn 2017. Keywords Effort, Deaf people, Emergency interpreting, Irish Sign Language, Sign language interpreting (SLI), UNCRPD Paper type Research paper

Disaster Prevention and Management Vol. 29 No. 2, 2020 pp. 187-199 © Emerald Publishing Limited 0965-3562 DOI 10.1108/DPM-01-2019-0007

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Introduction In January 2015, the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) and the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI) published guidelines on best practice for ensuring access to information for deaf sign language (SL) users during disasters. This followed from a history of lack of access to emergency information on the part of SL users. There were two major emergency weather events in Ireland in 2017–2018 that called for a national response: Storm Ophelia in October 2017, and “The Beast from the East”/Storm Emma in March 2018. Ophelia hit Ireland the same week that the Irish Sign Language (ISL) Recognition Bill 2016 came before the Irish Parliament in the final stages of the legislative process. The struggle to ensure provision of access for ISL users demonstrated the relative lack of position and power held by this minority linguistic community and the lack of awareness of the need for a strategic response by the nation’s Office of Emergency Planning. The ISL Act (2017) was signed into law on Christmas Eve 2017. The provision of interpreting for emergency briefings in Spring 2018 was built into the public information response, though occasional gaps in provision remained along with real concern about a lack of visibility of the interpreters on the national broadcaster for live briefings. To date, no evaluation of the efficacy or quality of the provision has been put in place. Given this, we consider the WASLI/WFD guidelines and examine how the Irish response was handled, evaluating the efficacy of access provided. Methodology The study reported on here is one part of a broader range of ongoing work that takes a classic grounded theory approach (Glaser, 2016) to the question of relative ease/difficulty of participating in society for deaf SL users, with particular reference to interpreted events (e.g. see Haug et al., 2017; Leeson, 2016). This paper reports on a subset of data collected to explore how Ireland responded to these two national emergencies. Here, we draw on documentary sources, including both traditional media and social media sources to report on the political, societal and deaf community discourse that was evident in the public space around ISL recognition and the emergencies. We also draw on parliamentary transcripts to cross-reference contemporaneous public and political discourse. Follow-on work will entail analysis of interviews with service providers, interpreters and deaf activists, as well as a more fully fledged discussion of the emerging theory, “Effortful Engaging” (Leeson, 2016), than is possible here. In this paper, the focus is firmly on an “action research” approach (Williams and Chesterman, 2002), with the goal of leveraging the findings presented here to shape policy and practice in the Irish context and perhaps, by extension, further afield. Emergencies in the digital era National and international responses to national disasters entail highly coordinated communicative engagement to ensure public safety, underpinned by international and national legal instruments, policies and practices. Access to objective, accurate information is a public good, essential for communities during times of crisis: “If communities depend on information for their survival in times of crisis, then communication technologies are their lifelines” (Coyle and Meier, 2009, p. 4). The right to information exists at every phase of a crisis and must be treated as a humanitarian necessity for the survival and well-being of crisis affected populations by all actors at all times. As Greenwood et al. (2017) point out, everyone has “a fundamental right to generate, access, acquire, transmit, and benefit from information during a crisis” (p. 13). In line with this, the signal code calls for information to be treated as equally important to other forms of humanitarian assistance because, fundamentally, it is “[…] critical for the recognition that affected persons and communities are agents of their own protection” (Greenwood et al., 2017, p. 14).

Despite such guidance, there are shortcomings in effectively reaching those at risk (United Nations, 2006b). Translation and interpretation are underdeveloped tools in disaster management, and a neglected topic in research to date (O’Brien et al., 2018). In this context, civil society often steps in where the state fails (Coyle and Meier, 2009; Rogl, 2017). Sometimes, this is because available information assumes that the recipient can hear, see and read messages distributed by state agents. However, substantial evidence exists that emergency preparedness and response materials do not reach vulnerable populations, particularly as a result of language-, literacy-, cultural- or disability-related barriers (Neuhauser et al., 2013; O’Brien et al., 2018). This also holds true for deaf communities. In the USA, 22m Americans are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HoH), and face higher risk of injury, death and property loss in disasters. For example, deaf people had few sources of information and were especially vulnerable during both the 11 September 2001 World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks, and the Hurricane Katrina disaster (see also Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network, 2004). In this regard, several gaps have been identified with respect to both federal and state planning including the readability of emergency preparedness communications and the lack of information available in an SL. Neuhauser et al. (2013) report that few studies have examined the readability of emergency prepared materials for any population. Many D/HoH people experience literacy difficulties and a significant percentage of the deaf population cannot access content meaningfully when it is presented in written form (Brueggemann, 2004; Conrad, 1979; Power, 1985; Kyle and Harris, 2011; Mathews and O’Donnell, 2018). Therefore, assumptions that written information is accessible to D/HoH individuals are highly problematic (Conama, 2019) but, given ongoing limited access to information in indigenous SLs, this challenge remains (Leeson et al., 2015). Emergencies and deaf communities An issue surfacing repeatedly in the literature relates to the display (or lack thereof ) of interpreters on screen at emergency briefings. Even when SLI are provided, too often, they are left off screen for the duration of the broadcast (Callis, 2017). Conversely, sometimes it appears that interpretation is provided on screen, but those on screen are not adequately trained or certified as interpreters, jeopardising the health and safety of an entire group of people (Callis, 2017). The (American) National Association of the Deaf’s (n.d.) Position Statement on Accessible Emergency Management for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People makes a number of recommendations. They advise that there is a need to: •

pre-emergency, compile a list of appropriately licensed/qualified SLI who can handle emergency management situations;

•

implement a protocol to secure appropriately qualified SLI immediately; and

•

ensure that SLI hired for emergency press conferences are visible on television at all times during the broadcast.

This fourth point may seem obvious, but is frequently overlooked: for a SL, what is unseen is “unheard” and video cutaways to other visual information on screen result in informational loss for viewers requiring the SL content. Thus, the National Association of the Deaf’s (n.d.) recommends the monitoring of “all broadcasts to ensure that on all stations broadcasting the press conference, the ASL interpreter’s face, body, arms, and hands are visible on the television screen at all times. If a broadcaster needs to show any other graphics or video feed, the video with the interpreter must remain visible on the screen at all times”. This is not a uniquely US challenge. In one of very few empirical studies that examine SLI provision in emergency settings, McKee (2014) describes challenges that deaf communities faced in accessing information in the wake of disasters in Australia and New Zealand in

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December 2010–January 2011. The state of Queensland experienced flooding that affected 200,000, and in February 2011, evacuated tens of thousands of people ahead of Cyclone Yasi (which exceeded category 5 in strength), which led to the loss of 35 people. Telecommunications were disrupted and television was the key medium for sharing information about weather warnings and offering precautionary advice to those in affected areas. Against this backdrop, an Australian SL (Auslan)/English interpreter working at Deaf Services Queensland (DSQ) brought information of the storm warning to a group of elderly deaf citizens, concerned that they may have missed the television announcements, not fully understood the closed captions in English, or the need to act promptly (McKee, 2014). They asked how they would know if there was a need to evacuate. Responsibility lay with the police rather than the State Emergency Service but neither body had any system in place to alert deaf people. A solution presented was that DSQ encourage those deaf people they had contact details for to follow the Queensland Police on Facebook, and share information with their networks, “snowballing” the roll-out of information. However, as in the USA, there were issues with the quality of captioning provided on screen, and, very quickly, deaf people began posting messages to the Queensland Police page, complaining that the closed captioning was not fit for purpose. As a result, the emergency response team established a team of volunteer SLI working pro-bono. In New Zealand, following from the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, immediate lobbying on the part of the Deaf Association of New Zealand led to SLI provision at media briefings on the direction of the Prime Minister’s office (McKee, 2014). Television producers were initially resistant to fitting an interpreter into their shoot and additional advocacy work was required to ensure that this occurred for the second day of the emergency. Unlike the Australian example, in New Zealand, interpretation costs were covered by the public authorities. Aside from the push to ensure SLI provision, there were additional challenges to be faced by the SLIs in their practice, which McKee maps to Dean and Pollard’s (2013) Demand Control Schema, considering the “demands” that impact on an interpreting task as well as the “controls” that SLI bring to bear in every context (their skills, knowledge and behaviours). Of particular relevance here are environmental demands, such as physically getting to work in a severely damaged city. A pressing environmental demand was to remain visible on camera as producers would pan to the Premier and other key speakers, leaving the interpreter partially or completely invisible to viewers. This was rectified following complaints from the deaf community. Further, as one of the interpreters reported, “[…] the Premier came in the next day and told them all they were not to leave the interpreter out of shot, they were to keep the interpreter in the shot at all times […] She would grab our arms and pull us in closer […]” (McKee, 2014, p. 115). (Indeed, this was protocol again in 2019, following from the Christchurch terrorist attacks, with the NZSL interpreter firmly in frame in all of the official reporting (e.g. video of Premier’s speech reported in Whyte, 2019, 25 March). Global recommendations from deaf community experts Given that SL communities are often overlooked when considering emergency planning and response protocols, procedures and processes, the WFD and the WASLI and WFD (2015) issued a joint policy statement that embeds principles from the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, 2006a). They proposed seven key recommendations to facilitate effective communication during disasters and other mass emergencies for deaf SL users, built on input from a task force comprising deaf people and interpreters from regions that had experienced disasters. The first three are most relevant to the Irish context.

Recommendation 1 requires access to emergency telecommunications Deaf people must be able to use their national SL to contact emergency services. Video relay services or direct emergency call services with service operators fluent in the national SLs accessible via videophones, smartphone applications and webcams are potential mechanisms for ensuring access. Text-based communications should also be available. All communications should be free of charge to the deaf individual and offer the same level of protection as corresponding services for the broader community. Recommendation 2 relates to the need to ensure access to emergency preparedness information via an SL Deaf communities need to know where they can find emergency information. Preparatory information could be made accessible to deaf communities by providing SLI at emergency preparedness workshops, and via the translation of advisory materials into the national/ regional SL online, for download, and/or on DVD. Content should also be subtitled. Deaf-specific information must be made available, e.g. how to make emergency calls using a relay service. Recommendation 3 focusses on access to emergency information during disasters or other mass emergencies Information is essential in order for individuals to make decisions about the risk to their own health and safety or that of their family and the risk to their property. While governments frequently use radio as a means of mass communication in emergency settings, this is clearly not accessible to deaf people. Thus, strategies are required for ensuring that deaf people can access emergency information at the same time as the wider community. Television broadcasts and/or materials published online must be interpreted into the national SL(s) and open captioned. Social media should be used to allow deaf people receive emergency information and assist in disseminating this information further. Additionally, radio stations with responsibility for broadcasting emergency information should ensure that such information is also published on the station website. Deaf communities require information about whom they should contact if accessible emergency information is not provided and how they can go about this (e.g. if television channels are not showing an SLI present at emergency briefings, or if subtitles provided are illegible). The Irish context There are some 5,000–6,500 deaf ISL users in the Irish deaf community, across the island of Ireland (Matthews, 1996; Leeson and Saeed, 2012). While recent national censuses have sought to record use of ISL, reporting a lower figure, there has been concern that figure cited is not accurate (Dr John Bosco Conama at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality, 2016, 28 September). For 35 years, the community fought for recognition of their language, a period which also led to increased political consciousness (Conama, in press). ISL is an indigenous language with a complex history of suppression (Leeson and Saeed, 2012). From the mid-1940s until the 1990s, deaf children were told to sit on their hands, sent to confession when caught signing, and ISL users were not allowed to sit state examinations (McDonnell and Saunders, 1993). However, indigenous SLs have now been recognised pan-nationally (European Parliament, 1988, 1998, 2016; Council of Europe, 2003, 2018). Indeed, the first European Parliament (1988) Resolution on Sign Languages was chaired by Irish MEP, Eileen LeMass (a member of the Fianna Fáil party). At home, the push towards ISL recognition was led by another Fianna Fáil member, Senator Mark Daly. In January 2014, Daly’s original ISL Bill was defeated in the Seanad by a margin of three votes. Following re-election in 2016, he brought a revised Bill to the Seanad.

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During the process of securing support for the 2016 bill, several events brought greater public and political awareness to the situation of the Irish Deaf community. In September 2016, the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality met the Irish Deaf Society (IDS) and published a report calling for the recognition of ISL ( Joint Committee on Justice and Equality, 2016). A few weeks later, Daniel and William McCarthy, two elderly deaf brothers, were found dead in their Dublin home. One brother died and the other, seemingly unable to cope without him, stayed with him and subsequently also died. Their vulnerability made headlines, along with discussion of the need for access to services via ISL, and legislative protections for ISL users (Byrne and Feehan, 2016, 6 October). Storm Ophelia Just ahead of the return of the ISL Bill to the Seanad on 17 October, Storm Ophelia hit. On 15 October, Met Éireann issued a status red weather warning, advising that this storm was likely to be the most severe weather event to hit Ireland in over 50 years (TheJournal.ie, 2017, 16 October). Yet, those responsible for delivery of the emergency briefings seemed unaware of their responsibility to ensure official updates were accessible for ISL users. Across 15 October, no interpreting was provided. Senan Dunne, a highly skilled (deaf ) interpreter volunteered, presenting information in ISL on FaceBook, and securing more than 2,000 views, a significant portion of the deaf community (Leeson, 2019). The community was palpably upset by the lack of state-level provision in ISL. They also pointed out that subtitling was missing from key briefings, leaving them at a complete loss as to the content of the message. Their distress generated the hashtag #WherestheAccess. @snappy_boss wrote a moving thread ending with “Access to information is literally a matter of life & death. Lest you hearing people forget” (15 October 2017). The hashtag caught on. Next day, @corkgeek wrote, “Extremely frustrating 4 Deaf ppl: @rte is publicly funded, we pay 4 TV licence too, but no access to emergency info in ISL. #WheresTheAccess” (16 October 2017). On 16 October, Met Éireann reported hurricane force winds which hit 200 km per hour. Defence Minister Paul Kehoe advised people that staying indoors was “a matter of life and death” (TheJournal.ie, 2017, 16 October). The state shut down. Schools, colleges and universities were closed; public transport and all flights to and from the country were cancelled. Power was lost in 360,000 homes and businesses (TheJournal.ie, 2017), remaining down for a period of up to ten days after the storm, but emergency calls to the Electricity Supply Board could be made only via telephone, leaving deaf people without the possibility of directly reporting a problem. There is currently no two-way interaction possible between Irish deaf people and emergency services unless a deaf person happens to be with someone who can interpret for them when an emergency strikes. Instead, they may register with the state’s 112 SMS service, which allows them to text a message to the emergency services if needed. Coupled with this, 11,000 customers were left without broadband, telephone and mobile services (TheJournal.ie, 2017, 16 October), leaving ISL signers dependent on what information they could find on television. But initial briefings were not interpreted. This was roundly criticised by the deaf community and their allies online, and then picked up on by politicians. @grehango tweeted, “@MetEireaan #Ophelia […] Half hour news. No sign of Irish Sign Language Interpreter there with you? U forgot Deaf people. U let us down!” (15 October 2017). On the morning of 16 October, Minister Shane Ross tweeted that Mary Lou McDonnell, TD, had raised concern about the lack of ISL interpreting for emergency briefings and that, as of 4 p.m., interpreting would be provided. IDS Board member, Melissa Howlett responded, saying, “Should have been an ISL interpreter there from the start though #WheresTheAccess #deaf” (@goofiesweetie 16 October 2017). The IDS and CISLI (2017) issued a press statement expressing “deep disappointment and annoyance at the National Emergency Coordinating Group/Met Éireann’s failure to alert

Deaf ISL users of the imminent dangers out of Hurricane Ophelia”. They point out that this omission put the lives and property of deaf Irish citizens in danger, and “left us wondering if the State has any concern for the lives and safety of Deaf Irish citizens at all” (16 October). The provision of a fully visible on-screen interpreter on the afternoon of 16 October was met with appreciation, and acknowledgement that “#hashtagactivism” worked (@DialectsIreland, 16 October 2017). The next day, the Seanad debated the Recognition of ISL for the Deaf Community Bill 2016, bringing it through the “Report” and Final Stages. Several senators made reference to the storm and the importance of providing SLI for emergency briefings. Senator John Dolan referred to SLI provision on the afternoon of 16 October, saying, “That happened because it was brought to people’s attention yesterday. It was not planned”. Critically, he adds that “[…] too often we presume everything will be okay for everyone or that everyone can hear or read in the same way. That is not so, which is why a cultural shift and the push to have this happen is important. I know of no other group across the broad disability family that feels exclusion so innately as those who are deaf... I hope a lesson has been learned from yesterday [...] It was not important just for deaf people that there was sign interpretation. It was important for everyone else watching it to realise that some of our neighbours do not get the updates and do not know what is happening” (Houses of the Oireachtas, 2017a, b, 17 October). The Minister for State for Disability Issues, Finian McGrath, TD, responded, agreeing. He added: “The good news is that people listened and responded to it. The days of exclusion are ending” (Houses of the Oireachtas, 2017a, b, 17 October). The Bill, having been renamed the “Irish Sign Language Bill 2016” at the request of the deaf community, passed. On 15 December 2017, it returned to the Seanad for final consideration. Here, Senator Daly poignantly dedicated the Bill to the memory of Daniel and William McCarthy (Houses of the Oireachtas, 2017a, b, 15 December). On Christmas Eve 2017, the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, signed off on the ISL Act 2017 (Government of Ireland, 2017). Storm Emma and the beast from the east In early 2018, Ireland faced further weather disruption as two weather fronts met over the country. Storm Emma brought high winds and precipitation. Emma met the Beast from the East, a polar vortex, bringing significant snowfall, something highly unusual in Ireland (Barry, 2018, 1 March). A Status Red weather warning was issued and the National Emergency Coordination Group (NECG) issued a national curfew ahead of what was expected to be an “exceptional” weather event (Independent.ie, 2018, 27 February). The first NECG broadcast aired on 26 February 2018. While an interpreter was provided, they were not properly visible on screen for the first 1.26 min of the briefing (Privett, 2018). This was also an issue on 3 March (see MerrionStreetNews, 2018a, b, c, 3 March). The on-screen space allocated to the interpreter was variable, with inconsistencies regarding the framing of the interpreter’s body on screen across the period of the briefings, which ran from 26 February to 6 March 2018. In some broadcasts, only part of the interpreter’s torso is shown, while in other briefings, their whole body is on screen (see MerrionStreetNews, 2018a, b, c, 26 February). These public daily briefings were broadcast on RTÉ, the state broadcaster and online by MerrionStreet.ie, the Irish Government news service. While most briefings were interpreted, not all were. For example, on 28 February 2018, The Taoiseach (Prime Minister) made a statement ahead of anticipated deterioration in weather conditions (MerrionStreetNews, 2018a, b, c, 28 February), while SLI was provided for most other briefings, there was none for this broadcast (Privett, 2018). However, when the NECG got it right, they did an excellent job, securing praise from as far afield as the USA (e.g. Neil McDevitt, the Executive Director of the Deaf Hearing Community Centre in Pennsylvania, commented on Facebook with respect to how Ireland had done things right). The IDS also

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tweeted their acknowledgement of those who ensured information was made available to deaf community members: “Thank you to all the ISL interpreters @emergencyIE, ISL presenters on News for the Deaf @rtenews & those who took time out to translate & share on social media during #StormEmma to ensure that Deaf people got some information through ISL. #IrishSignLanguage #YestoISL” (@IrishDeafSoc, 5 March 2018). On 7 March 2018, Ireland ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), the last European country to do so (Conneely, 2018, 7 March). As we saw earlier, the UNCRPD makes explicit reference to state obligations around providing access to information in SLs and is explicitly referenced in the WASLI and WFD (2015) policy document. How did Ireland do? Ireland still needs to do significant work with respect to Recommendation 1, the provision of access to emergency telecommunications. This could be addressed in partnership with key stakeholders following from commencement of the ISL Act and subsequent to ratification of the UNCRPD. Legislation requires a review of the ISL Act no later than three years after its commencement, and every five years thereafter (Government of Ireland, 2017). Further, semi-state bodies must consider how D/HoH customers can engage with them in reporting emergencies such as damage to powerlines during storms. Irish deaf people have previously reported that they dislike having to pre-register for the 112 service, raising concerns about the fact that their messages are seemingly sent into a void; they have no way of knowing if their message had been received, if help was on its way or how long that might take. Deaf people want a system that facilitates a “live” response, providing parity of access to hearing people, e.g. a dedicated text number, a live chat option or social media sites (Citizens Information Board, 2018). Recommendation 2 requires attention to emergency preparedness. No government sites currently present information about what to do in an emergency in ISL, something that can be raised with the NECG, with reference to the state’s obligations under the ISL Act 2017 and the UNCRPD. Recommendation 3 relates to access to emergency information during disasters. While there were some glitches in provision, it was clear that the intention was to provide interpretation and ensure that it was accessible. Content provided on MerrionStreet.ie is generally well shot: the interpreters are appropriately lit, in-frame and remain on screen for the duration of the briefings in most instances – but this information is online, and when powerlines are down, this is not accessible. Feedback could help ensure that future broadcasts are fully accessible. However, there were (and remain) difficulties in convincing broadcasters – state-funded and commercial – that they need to present the interpreter on screen and ensure that they are fully visible across live emergency broadcasts. This is an issue that can be raised with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, the NECG and with respect to legislative requirements around access. Further, the WASLI-WFD document can be shared with key stakeholders, including deaf advocacy groups like the IDS and interpreting bodies like CISLI and interpreter providers to ensure heightened awareness of accessibility targets ahead of future emergencies. It can also be included in interpreter education programmes and those of other key stakeholders, for example, healthcare workers. Effortful engaging: towards a theory of SL users in interpreted interaction Deaf people are frequently required to put in significantly more effort to negotiate access, as well as greater effort to engage in interpreted interactions (Leeson, 2016). This involves the work that deaf people have to do to position themselves as language groups deserving of consideration by those who have the power to decide if SL interpretation will be provided

(e.g. administrators, and, in this case, emergency response planners). SL users have to continuously promote the idea of “language as a right” (De Meulder and Murray, 2017); this leads to a situation where deaf people and their allies frequently engage in significant work to ensure that appropriately skilled SLI are provided in a given context, and that the SLI has the capacity and competencies required for the task at hand. For example, the Australian interpreter Peter Bonser reported that he “[…] had to do a bit of running around because it wasn’t the State Emergency Services’ (SES) responsibility, it was the police responsibility, and neither of them had any mechanism in place to alert Deaf people […] they hadn’t thought about Deaf people” (McKee, 2014, p. 111). The consequences of this were significant. Bonser goes on to say, “We know from later that there was actually an elderly Deaf man who was stranded in his house. The flood waters had come into his house and he was sitting in there with water up to his knees, and the SES people were outside in a little boat with a loud hailer, saying, ‘Come out, come out’. Of course, he didn’t hear it, so the only way they found out he was there, was that his son, who lived somewhere else, rang (police) and said, ‘This is my father’s address – he’s deaf, can you please go and check on him?’ So, that was how they found him. He was already in water up to his knees” (McKee, 2014). Several studies have discussed the fact that deaf participants in interpreted events have to put in a greater degree of effort to engage in the interaction than their hearing counterparts (see Haug et al. (2017) on “asymmetrical effort” and Brunson (2010) on “calculated consumer labor”). This can cause great stress (e.g. Leeson et al., 2014; Leeson, 2016). In Ireland, an estimated two thirds of deaf people face difficulties in accessing public information (Citizens Information Board, 2018). The culmination of this often leads to consideration of whether the potential for or continued engagement is worth the effort required for a deaf individual or group (Leeson, 2016). There are innumerable references online regarding provision of inappropriate or “fake interpreters” in emergency and other high-profile events (Napier and Leeson, 2016), particularly in the USA (Callis, 2017). In such instances, it is deaf communities that point out the problem, suffer the resulting lack of access to information, the rather warped comedic coverage that often accompanies such events, and challenge the status quo by pointing out the inappropriateness of same (e.g. see Williams, 2013, 14 December). In the Irish context, the onslaught of deaf community and their allies’ online engagement (predominantly via Twitter), and subsequent advocacy from Irish politicians engaged in the debate around ISL recognition meant that appropriately trained SLI were provided for on-screen emergency coverage, though, as we noted, access online was better than that on live TV. Further, the concern about a lack of access led others in the interpreting community to produce interpretations that they posted online in order to mediate a broader based and more immediate access to information for deaf people. This was commented on in the IDS and CISLI (2017) Press Statement on the lack of state provision of access around Storm Ophelia: “Were it not for interpreters who have volunteered to translate some of these safety announcements via social media, the situation may have been even worse” (16 October). All of this assumes that deaf people (and their allies) have the autonomy and fund of information (Dean and Pollard, 2013) required to engage effectively with organs of the state, not to mention the continued energy required to state their case time after time (Haug et al., 2017, Leeson, 2016) in the language of power, in this case, the dominant language of the state (Rose and Conama, 2017). Ad hoc, individualised efforts to secure the right to interpretation in contexts where policies already exist that should provide access for deaf SL users is highly problematic. However, this is a challenge that remains to be resolved in many countries, including here in Ireland. In emergencies, there is limited time available to fight such battles. This is why it is so essential that state agencies obligated to lead emergency responses must build robust plans

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that secure universal access for all citizens, with specific consideration given to the provision of access in SLs. If we do not do this, the burden of work required to ensure appropriate access and participation falls on deaf people time and time again. Conclusions We have considered the key challenges reported by deaf communities in securing access to emergency information in many countries, focussing specifically on the Irish response to two key weather driven emergencies in 2017 and 2018. We saw that significant effort was required of deaf people and their allies to secure access to national emergency briefings in 2017, with significant improvement in 2018 for Storm Emma and the Beast from the East. However, there is still some way to go to ensure that SLI provision is a pro forma element in planning for any future emergency information, and particularly around ensuring that interpreters are visible on screen at all times during live broadcast briefings. Work remains to ensure that deaf people have access to preparatory information in their language, and that they have ease of access to two-way emergency services. We briefly considered the “effortful engaging” required to secure access, noting that unless we have greater awareness of and pro forma consideration of SLs and deaf people, the burden of work required to ensure appropriate access and participation unfairly falls on deaf people. In 2017 and 2018, Ireland took some significant steps forward by adopting a rights-based legislation that impacts the lives of SL users via the ISL Act 2017 and the ratification of the UNCRPD. Critically, this would not have happened without effortful engaging via sustained, concerted citizen action. The result of this legislation should mean that less effort is required on an ongoing basis to ensure access to state services, but there is no doubt that open and ongoing engagement with key gatekeepers will be a hallmark for those seeking to operationalise the legislation. Concerted citizen effort continues to be required. References Barry, A. (2018), “What’s the difference between ‘the beast’ and ‘storm emma’?”, TheJournal.ie., 1 March, available at: www.thejournal.ie/beast-from-the-east-storm-emma-explained-3877264Mar2018/ (accessed 3 January 2019). Brueggemann, B.J. (2004), Literacy and Deaf People: Cultural and Contextual Perspectives, Gallaudet University Press, Washington, DC. Brunson, J.L. (2010), “Visually experiencing a phone call: the calculated consumer labor deaf people perform to gain access through video relay service”, Disability Studies Quarterly, Vol. 30 No. 2, available at: http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/1245/1273 (accessed 28 June 2019). Byrne, L. and Feehan, C. (2016), “Tragic deaths of deaf brothers ‘show effects of social isolation’ ”, Independent.ie., 6 October, available at: www.independent.ie/irish-news/tragic-deaths-of-deafbrothers-shows-effects-of-social-isolation-35107870.html (accessed 3 January 2019). Callis, L. (2017), “Emergency management systems neglect deaf citizens”, Huffington Post, 7 November, available at: www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/emergency-management-systemsneglect-deaf-citizens_us_5a01ebebe4b02f3ab3377d6b?guccounter=1 (accessed 3 January 2019). Citizens Information Board (2018), Information Provision and Access to Public and Social Services for the Deaf Community, Citizens Information Board, Dublin, available at: www. citizensinformationboard.ie/downloads/social_policy/Deaf_Community_Research_Rpt_Feb20 18.pdf (accessed 3 January 2019). Conama, J.B. (2019), “ ‘Ah, that’s not necessary, you can read English instead’: an ecological analysis of state language policy concerning Irish Sign Language, Irish and English”, in De Meulder, M., Murray, J. and Mckee, R. (Eds), Recognizing Sign Languages: An International Overview of National Campaigns for Sign Language Legislation and Their Outcomes, Multilingual Matters, Bristol, pp. 19-35.

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O’Brien, S., Federici, F., Cadwell, P., Marlowe, J. and Gerber, B. (2018), “Language translation during disaster: a comparative analysis of five national approaches”, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Vol. 31, pp. 627-636, available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2018.07.006 Power, D. (1985), “Reading and language development for hearing-impaired children”, in Unsworth, L. (Ed.), Reading: An Australian Perspective, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, pp. 46-53. Privett, K. (2018), “Provision of Irish Sign Language interpreters during national weather emergency broadcasts: a case study”, unpublished paper prepared in part-fulfilment of the requirements of the Bachelor in Deaf Studies, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin. Rogl, R. (2017), “Volunteer translator networks and language technologies in disaster aid”, in Antonini, R., Cirillo, L., Rossato, L. and Torresi, I. (Eds), Non-Professional Interpreting and Translation: State of the Art and Future of an Emerging Field of Research, John Benjamins, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA, pp. 231-255. Rose, H. and Conama, J.B. (2017), “Linguistic imperialism: still a valid construct in the oppression of Irish Sign Language users”, Language Policy, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 385-404. TheJournal.ie (2017), “As it happened: country in lockdown as Storm Ophelia kills three people”, 16 October, available at: www.thejournal.ie/weather-storm-ophelia-liveblog-3648353-Oct2017/ (accessed 3 January 2019). United Nations (2006a), Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, United Nations, New York, NY. United Nations (2006b), Global Survey of Early Warning Systems: An Assessment of Capacities, Gaps and Opportunities Towards Building a Comprehensive Global Early Warning System for All Natural Hazards, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, New York, NY, and Geneva. WASLI and WFD (2015), “WASLI and WFD guidelines: communication during natural disasters and other mass emergencies for deaf people who use signed language”, World Association of Sign Language Interpreters and World Federation of the Deaf, Geneva and Helsinki, available at: http://wasli.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/WFD-and-WASLI-Communication-during-naturaldisasters-and-other-mass-emergencies-for-deaf-people-who-use-signed-language-Jan-2015FINAL.pdf (accessed 3 January 2019). Whyte, A. (2019), “Royal commission of inquiry into Christchurch terror attacks to be held, Prime Minister says”, 1 News Now, 25 March, available at: www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/newzealand/royal-commission-inquiry-into-christchurch-terror-attacks-held-prime-minister-says (accessed 28 June 2019). Williams, D. (2013), “Paul Whitehouse rubbed the ‘fake’ interpreter controversy in deaf people’s faces”, The Limping Chicken, 14 December, available at: https://limpingchicken.com/2013/12/14/paulwhitehouse-fake-interpreter-comedy/ (accessed 3 January 2019). Williams, J. and Chesterman, A. (2002), The Map: A Beginner’s Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies, St. Jerome, Manchester.

Corresponding author Lorraine Leeson can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Transnational crisis translation: social media and forced migration

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Department of Social Work, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Jay Marlowe

Received 22 November 2018 Revised 24 May 2019 9 July 2019 Accepted 9 July 2019

Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to outline how refugees’ transnational networks and online relationships facilitated through social media provide access to timely and trusted translated information in disaster settings. Design/methodology/approach – The study is a digital ethnography of resettled refugees’ practices of transnational care and support through social media that took place over 12 months. It involved conducting 50 semi-structured interviews and collecting 472 online social media diaries with 15 participants. Data analysis was conducted through constructivist grounded theory. Findings – Transnational networks are increasingly part of refugees’ everyday lives that illustrate how social media platforms can provide forms of transnational care and access to trusted translated communications during times of crisis. The paper discusses the possibilities and cautions of such support. Research limitations/implications – The small number of participants limits the ability to make generalised claims about refugees and transnational possibilities for reducing disaster risk. However, the reality that social media effectively provide a bridge between “here” and “there” signals the importance of incorporating these considerations as a form of transnational disaster risk reduction. Practical implications – The project highlights from policy and practice standpoints, how transnational networks and social media can be used to improve disaster communications and translation. This focus is achieved through examining the usability, accessibility and affordability of digital communication technologies for forced migrants. Originality/value – Few studies focus on refugees and disaster risk reduction. This is particularly the case as it relates to the roles of transnational networks, which have increasing everyday interactions in countries that provide refugee resettlement programmes. Keywords Disasters, Social media, Refugee, Translation studies Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction The unprecedented flows of forced migrants globally requires additional considerations to effectively address the information needs of culturally and linguistically diverse groups. This is particularly the case with disaster communications. Within the many countries that receive refugees and asylum seekers, it is often difficult to accurately track their total numbers and people’s associated movements making disaster risk reduction strategies and communications non-existent or difficult to deliver. This situation means that potential vulnerabilities for refugees and asylum seekers can be exacerbated in a crisis event as access to reliable information is limited. For information to be disseminated in more than one language, it needs to be translated. This paper approaches the concept of “translation” broadly, including oral translation (interpreting) alongside written translation. Basically stated, translation is the rendering of meaning expressed in one language to another. When crisis events occur, individuals or groups that do not speak the dominant language in which important information is conveyed can be disproportionately impacted. After providing several local contexts and examples in which forced migration occurs, this paper addresses the main issues related to the dissemination of accurate and timely translated Disaster Prevention and Management Vol. 29 No. 2, 2020 pp. 200-213 © Emerald Publishing Limited 0965-3562 DOI 10.1108/DPM-11-2018-0368

This research was supported by the Royal Society New Zealand under a Marsden Fast Start grant, ID No. 3708459. The author would like to thank Katharine Haddock for her assistance in sourcing relevant literature for this paper.

information in a disaster. In particular, the paper focusses on the possibilities of transnational relationships to ensure that disaster messaging adequately reaches forcibly displaced populations. It draws on a 12-month digital ethnography with 15 refugee-background participants living in New Zealand to ascertain how they used social media with transnational and local networks. During this study, several natural and human induced hazards and disasters occurred in New Zealand and internationally. Consequently, the study captured the various ways that participants received or delivered translated disaster risk communications and information through social media platforms – in written, audio and audio-visual formats. The paper presents these findings to outline the possibilities and limitations of social media to provide translated information as a relatively unrealised source of transnational disaster risk reduction. 2. Forced migration, transnational networks and crisis translation The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR, 2018) acknowledges that there are more than 68m people forcibly displaced worldwide. The associated movement of people seeking relative safety and security means that they are often in positions of heightened vulnerability where they can have limited access to resources, support and information. Across the globe, these displaced communities face increasing disaster risks and vulnerabilities from threats such as climate change, scarcity of resources and protracted conflicts. The UNHCR (2018) report on global trends provides sobering reading. More than 700,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar that had thousands of people crossing into Bangladesh daily during the peak of this crisis. An average of 44,400 forced displacements occurred globally for every day of 2017. Approximately 85 per cent of these people are hosted in developing regions, which are less resourced to support such populations. Since 2015, more than 3m first-time asylum seekers applied for protection to member states of the European Union. And finally, fewer than 80,000 refugees were resettled to the 35 countries that have resettlement programmes that offer permanent protection to some of the world’s most vulnerable. These resettlement numbers highlight that only 1 per cent of the world’s refugees have the opportunity to resettle. It often means that they are left thinking about the 99 per cent they were forced to leave behind. Refugees often preserve ongoing relationships with their transnational networks to maintain ongoing connections to important people, histories and cultural traditions that assist with sustaining relationships and a sense of identity (Blunt, 2007; Marlowe, 2018; Perkins and Thorns, 2011). The prefix, “trans-nationalism”, suggests a process or movement of transcending or being able to traverse beyond the nation and national borders. Basch et al. (1994, p. 6) define the term as “the processes by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement”. The focus on strands provides the basis to consider the multiple ways that people are able to maintain such linkages and relationships. As the availability, affordability and usability of digital communications improves, social media have become an increasingly powerful strand that connects refugees to “here” in a country of settlement and their transnational “there” – often the country of origin or where their diasporic communities are now based. For instance, a Tamil person living in Canada can simultaneously connect with their diaspora in the USA, UK, New Zealand and Indonesia through various social media platforms. However, countries can develop digital firewalls that prevent such interaction and there can be limitations to connection due to poor infrastructure or the prohibitive cost of having online interaction. The state can effectively block certain social media applications and surveil others (Gillespie et al., 2018; Marlowe, 2019). Hence, transnational interactions do not always transcend borders as powerful structures and the availability of communication technologies create an uneven and unequal map of digital mobility.

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Social media applications such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Viber and SnapChat provide a platform for people to deliver visual, audio and text-based communications in synchronous and asynchronous formats. These applications provide the basis for transnational networks to support one another and engage in everyday lives (Marlowe, 2018). The International Organization for Migration (IOM, 2017) particularly emphasises how social media have become a central organising force in how people maintain relationships and access information. These trends demonstrate that social media’s influence is interwoven into the ways that people negotiate, sustain and create networks – from local to transnational scales (IOM, 2017). 3. Disaster communications The UNHCR (2016) along with numerous scholars now acknowledges the potential of social media to bring people and communities separated by conflict together through social media – effectively serving as a “lifeline” (Gillespie et al., 2018; Maitland, 2018). Focussing on access to the availability, affordability and usability mobile and internet connectivity, the UNHCR highlights how these communication tools are increasingly becoming part of people’s everyday lives. While there is uneven coverage globally, many sites of displacement now have mobile 2G and 3G coverage that allow forced migrants to connect with one another across borders and the seas. Numerous social media platforms now provide a valuable tool to deliver disaster communications in a variety of contexts (Houston et al., 2015; Olteanu et al., 2015; Potts, 2013). Such interactions herald new opportunities (and cautions) for how disaster communications can be delivered through transnational sources. The associated movement of people seeking relative safety and security means that they are often in positions of heightened vulnerability where they can have limited access to resources, support and information. When vulnerable groups are excluded from decision making and access to information, they become more vulnerable to the impacts of disaster or crisis events (Gaillard, 2010). The United Nations Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Sustainable Development Goals address this need by promoting increased organisational cooperation and integration of disaster policy across sectors. They also aim to build resilience and reduce the effects of disasters on vulnerable groups (Guadagno, 2016). However, explicit policy approaches and the associated resourcing of translated information in many countries is limited, and at times, nonexistent (O’Brien et al., 2018). Within the sites characterised by linguistic diversity, numerous scholars recognise how improving language access can promote community resilience and disaster risk reduction (Alexander, 2013; Paton and Johnston, 2001). For instance, the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010–2011 impacted a number of refugee communities living in Christchurch. The linguistically diverse community groups that did not have effective approaches to translate information from English were effectively left uninformed about the status of ongoing aftershocks (Christchurch Migrant Inter-Agency Group, 2011; Marlowe, 2015; Osman et al., 2012; Wylie, 2012). These studies emphasised how a lack of interpreters, cultural sensitivity and a sense of trust negatively impacted on community resilience following the major earthquakes. Refugees and other forced migrants are not inherently vulnerable, but they can present patterns of vulnerability in the face of disasters. Factors that can affect these groups include forced migration experience, language and cultural barriers, lack of local knowledge (including hazard awareness), limited social networks, access to fewer resources, discrimination, and familiarity with local organisational structures for accessing relief and recovery assistance (Guadagno, 2016; Marlowe, 2013; Wisner et al., 2014). Despite these challenges, Uekusa and Matthewman (2017) highlight how linguistic minorities may have increased vulnerabilities in a disaster event but may also have forms

of resilience and capacities through existing forms of social capital. Other studies have clearly shown how transnational remittances (Le De et al., 2015) and translation support (Nezih and Melissa, 2014) can be a critical resource where people living thousands of kilometres away can provide immediate assistance and relief. Along with providing financial and emotional assistance, ensuring access to appropriate, accurate and timely risk information can significantly reduce disaster vulnerability (Shepherd and van Vuuren, 2014). In times of crisis and uncertainty, substantial barriers to effective communication can negatively impact the transmission of timely, accurate and trusted information. Further, different groups and communities interpret and value risks differently and have varying degrees of receptiveness to the medium of communication and the communicator. Therefore, the quality of risk communication is based on its ability to meet the specific needs of a community (Infanti et al., 2013). In relation to this, the role of transnational networks in providing disaster or crisis communications has received little scholarly attention. The absence is particularly important considering the acceleration of climate and conflict induced forced migrations. In response, this paper outlines how refugees’ transnational networks and online relationships facilitated through social media provide access to timely and trusted translated information in disaster settings. 4. Study design This paper presents a digital ethnography – the capture of people’s everyday lives through the online environment (Murthy, 2008) – with 15 people from refugee backgrounds as to how they practise transnational family and friendship through social media. This focus follows other recent studies that examine how refugees use digital technologies in countries of transit and resettlement (Alencar, 2017; Gillespie et al., 2018). The study was conducted over 12 months using online methods that included 50 interviews, informal monthly discussions and 472 social media diaries. As the study was conducted over one year, this meant it was possible to capture people’s perspectives and responses to emergent crises. This included events between 2016–2017 such as the Kaikoura, New Zealand earthquake (Mw 7.8), the Iranian earthquake (Mw 7.3), Hurricane Harvey in the USA, Cyclone Debbie in Australia, the Las Vegas mass shooting and other events related to conflict, dangerous forced migration journeys and acts of terrorism. Participants were recruited through online flyers and notices through Facebook and refugee organisation networks. Eight females and seven males participated in the study. All participants were fluent in English and were from a range of ethno-national backgrounds. Each participant completed three to four interviews (through an online platform using Skype, WhatsApp or Viber) and wrote regular online social media diaries in Qualtrics each month about what social media applications they were using. Participants resided in several of the main resettlement centres across New Zealand (Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Palmerston North and Christchurch). Their time resettled in New Zealand ranged from one year to more than 15 years. As the study involved ongoing interactions, this approach allowed for the development of the constant comparative method and theoretical sampling as informed by constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006). Theoretical sampling was achieved through subsequent interviews and informal online interactions with participants to examine the implications of transnational networks responding to emerging crises and the provision of support. The data were coded through the initial and focussed coding processes and memo writing as described by Charmaz (2006). At the focussed coding stage, all data were imported into NVivo to develop the main categories, which highlight the role of transnational networks for disaster risk reduction. The study received human ethics approval from the associated tertiary institution.

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5. Findings: bridging proximal and distant networks through social media The study findings focus on the ways in which resettled refugees use social media to communicate disaster risk and as a tool to deliver and receive support. The first section focusses on translated information for “crisis-near” events in New Zealand and the role of transnational networks in responding. The second then shifts to “crisis-far” events that show how participants are able to collate information from multiple sources to warn and provide support to their transnational networks. The last section focusses on how these interactions and the communication of translated information represent transnational forms of care and support. Participant comments from the interviews and online diaries are presented in italics. Where relevant, comments about gender, time resettled and ethno-national identification are made. 5.1 Crises-near The “crisis-near” events focus on participants’ direct experiences of disasters that included strong earthquakes in the Wellington region, the 2017 fires in Christchurch and the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake. This section focusses on the refugee’s transnational networks and their roles of supporting one another to provide timely and accurate translated information. During the Kaikoura earthquake, a participant recounts how younger members of the Afghan community living in Christchurch used social media to translate disaster messages to the older members: We have a Church group Viber […] The majority of the parents do not speak English well and understand so they take some information from younger people or people who are familiar with English and people who may reach Kiwis [term for a person from New Zealand] so they are kind of more into what is happening around. Young people provide information to Viber or text (Afghanistan, Male).

While it is unclear if this information was translated accurately, it is evident that local members who did not speak English relied upon it. It highlights how trusted networks are critical and often a preferred information pathway to access disaster communications. During this same event, another participant noted how the Bhutanese community supported one another: Yeah, they [Bhutanese diaspora] were worried. People watched news I think and again it was again interaction through Facebook or Viber or anything available. When earthquake was going on, I sent message to my friend in Nepal about what was happening (Bhutanese female Participant G).

And, for a Rwandese participant, social media was a principal tool for communicating what was happening and who was safe: I was in Wellington. We felt [the earthquake] around 12.00 am. It was alright. I let others know that I am safe with my family and also ask them whether they are alright […] Also from other countries and my relatives, everyone contacted me and asking me how I was and my family (Rwanda, female).

A woman from Sri Lanka articulated a similar experience as family responded to an earthquake close to Wellington that caused significant damage: It was really important during the earthquake for people to have information and to support each other and have information about each other inside New Zealand and other family overseas – was really strong earthquake so they were scared about what they saw on social media. We called them about our safety and security. Through the social media, the community updated each other continually and if something happened you should do this, if something happened you should do this and also we found each other through the social media, especially WhatsApp. Calling each other and also supporting each other (Sri Lanka, Female).

In an example where transnational networks were worried about what was happening in New Zealand, information about bush fires was quickly translated from English into Farsi as outlined in this participant’s social media diary entry:

Transnational crisis translation

There was a fire in Christchurch, my husband’s cousins wife was texting me to find out if my family were ok in Christchurch. I was surprised that people in US know about the fire and that it was so nice of my husband’s family to ask about my family and be so caring (Afghanistan, female).

As this participant articulates, the Afghan diaspora responded immediately to this event. In numerous examples, the other participants learned about disasters and hazards from their transnational networks first. This participant has lived in New Zealand for more than ten years and highlights the ongoing maintenance and practice of transnational family and friendship. Such findings were evident across the 15 participants whether they were settled for 1 year or more than 15. Social media effectively provided a means to connect people living “here” in New Zealand to the transnational “there” that offered access to translated information and forms of support, at times faster than locally sourced messaging. 5.2 Crises-far The participants in this study were all involved in responding to “crisis-far” events that occurred in their countries of origin and the wider diaspora where friends and family resided. These events included earthquakes, forced displacement, conflicts and acts of terrorism that occurred during the study. The participants effectively provided forms of support and care by translating information and collating it from various sources. In one participant’s social media diary, he articulates how he received information in Arabic and communicated this through his social media feeds (predominantly in English): I found out through BBC Farsi and few my Iranian friends through Facebook that a magnitude 7.3 Earthquake happened in the border of Iran and Iraq. Thank God my friends were ok along with their families. More than 400 people have died and thousands more were injured. I was thankful for the internet connection that I had contacted my friends in Iran and got informed that they are ok (Iran, male).

Category 4 Hurricane Harvey caused massive damage and flooding to the city of Houston when it hit the region as one of most costly storms in US history at $125bn with at least 107 deaths (US National Hurricane Center, 2018). Houston is one of the top US refugee resettlement localities and there are more than 90 languages spoken in the area; this highlights the challenges of communicating accurate and acceptable information to multiple linguistically diverse communities (see Marlowe, 2018). A Bhutanese participant speaks about how they supported a friend during this time: I interacted with one of our refugee friends from Nepal who is resettled in Houston, Texas, with his entire family. They’re in the midst of flood and are hiding inside the house. He says they waited for hours in a queue to buy and store food supplies for emergency. It’s so good that my Facebook messenger had stored people whom I could talk and learn about them (Bhutan, female).

During the Las Vegas mass shooting in which 58 people were killed, a woman spoke about how she was able to take information in English and communicate this in Farsi to inform and warn Afghan family members living in Las Vegas: I had just seen the news of the Las Vegas shooting break out on my phone. It was nearly midnight here. Some of my family live in Las Vegas, close by. I immediately used WhatsApp to get in contact with them to make sure they were ok. It turned out that they were at home asleep and we had actually found out about this tragedy earlier than they had. I was very worried both about my family and very upset by the terrible nature of the news. However I was also very grateful that we had the tools available to reach out to our loved ones (Afghanistan, female).

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The Afghan diaspora effectively served as a set of eyes that could warn people of potential dangers – often well before official communication channels could reach them. While the above examples relate to transnational forms of support to personal networks, others have a stronger political commitment to responding to crises and using translation to leverage support with governments and major international non-government organisations: We are in contact with people in Darfur. I hear that the government use chemical weapons […] I actually made contact with some friends there to get information about what is happening there […] From our area the crisis is going, not solved yet, so violence is still a lot. We see videos suffer from that, the torching, some of them lose their lives and so forth. So we receive information about that […] [We] contact Amnesty International to help them, even from here, from New Zealand (Sudan, male).

Another participant responded to the worsening civil war in South Sudan and his efforts to notify the international community of what was happening: A cousin of mine called [on WhatsApp] from South Sudan to break to me sad news that a civil war reached our village and the whole village was burnt to ashes […] He explain to me that a government’s military gunship bombed our village and killed people. As the result of government assault on civilians, hundreds of civil population is internally displaced and famine is looming because crops have been destroyed […] During my discussion with my cousin, we agreed that there is need for the Diaspora to rally the humanitarian community to rescue the situation (South Sudan, male).

The crisis-far events that participants recounted provided a basis for seeing how transnational networks and social media platforms provided the basis for the translation of information to support intimate networks and to raise wider international awareness of emergent crises. 5.3 Transnational care Social media provide a basis for the delivery of “transnational care” (Wilding and Baldassar, 2018). This not only relates to supporting intimate networks but also extends to finding means to inform major non-government organisations, governments and international actors for the purpose of disaster risk reduction. In the example below, a South Sudanese man convinced a friend not to step on a boat that was about to venture in the Mediterranean through audio and text chats on WhatsApp by translating information about the situation in Libya: He called me he said I’m leaving […] he called me he say he is in Libya. Then I asked him what are you doing and he said he want to take a boat to Europe. I say, “No don’t do it don’t do it, it is so bad.” He say, “I better do it there is no other option the country is so bad. If I die in the sea it would be better than being killed.” I told him the scenarios that I have seen and I got a lot of people who went to Europe that know. They say even if your boat has not sunk if you arrive say in Italy then you will be detained and, you know, there is mistreatment of course and life is not what you expect (South Sudan, male).

Another participant notes how she supports her Kurdish family members who were fighting Islamic State on the front line in Mosul and elsewhere. She discusses how she accessed information from family and from other sources to support loved ones and generate wider awareness of issues relating to Kurdish attempts for independence and its battle to reclaim territory: I’m always messaging them asking what is happening and for their take on what the situation is to understand from the inside perceptive because it is easy on the outside to start deciding what you think is going on and who is at fault or what things are happening, but you never know from the outside we are too far away to actually know how much of it is real news and how much of it isn’t (Kurdish, female).

This quote highlights how accessing reliable information (even before it is translated) can be difficult and the importance of triangulating disaster-based news from various sources. Following several suicide bomb attacks in Kabul, another participant acknowledges how Facebook connected friends and family and provided a platform where they could collect and share information. He articulates how various sources of information could be collated in Afghanistan and elsewhere to corroborate information to support friends and family:

Transnational crisis translation

There was a suicide attack in one of the military bases in north part of Afghanistan […] because of the time difference I was not been able to contact any of my family member at the time I got informed. I decided to leave voice messages in the messenger and post in Facebook that we are concern about friends and families safety. I received lots of update from friends of my cousins they advised me everything is ok with them and few hours later my cousins replied to my voice messages too. Thanks to the Facebook which usually help me to get updated information about security situation in my birth country and know what is going on and how is my family members (Afghanistan, male).

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While the previous examples relate to “crisis-far” scenarios, it is also clear that crises that occur locally for the participants in the study were mediated through transnational forms of care. Here a participant recalls how she received support following a powerful aftershock that had hit the city of Christchurch in 2017: When it [earthquake] hit I was all by myself and I was really, really traumatised. It was at night time. Everyone straight away went on Facebook. There was this thing called “Are You Okay or Not”, so everyone was on Facebook and say “yes, I’m fine” and checking on everyone else. I was full on sitting there [online] until I think three o’clock, four o’clock checking out on everyone and making sure everyone’s good. It was so good because everyone had come together through Facebook (Afghanistan, female).

These participants’ comments highlight how social media decreases the distance between people and delivers a platform for transnational networks to offer and receive various forms of care, support and provide important disaster communication. 6. Discussion: transnational translation and crisis response Translation is not just about the dissemination of information. As the participant comments clearly show, it is also about the communication of care and support that provide additional forms of resilience to prepare for, and respond to, disaster events. It is also about ensuring the “cultural translation” of information so that it is received in acceptable and accessible ways (Buden et al., 2009). For forced migrants, having access to trusted transnational networks means that disaster communications can have greater reach and relevance because such groups are more receptive to it through a history of relationships (see Marlowe et al., 2018). The online environment effectively delivers the platform for the ongoing maintenance and development of such relationships. It is imperative to recognise that not everyone has a smart phone or engages with social media. Some may not be able to afford connections, or the requisite infrastructure to support such communications is either unreliable or non-existent. And the reality is that as the digitisation of what seems almost everything, means that those who do not engage can effectively be left further behind and marginalised. These realities speak to the concerns around what is often referred to as digital inequality (Dekker et al., 2018; Khorshed and Sophia, 2015). Thus, this study has several important limitations to acknowledge as the participants had high levels of education and English language proficiency thus potentially providing greater access to transnational networks through social media. Further, the term “refugee” encompasses a massive diversity relative to other demographic identifiers and it is imperative to consider the intersectionality of various social locations (gender, education, culture, migration experience, etc.) alongside the accessibility, usability and affordability of information communication technologies for reducing disaster risk. In response to this, it is

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essential that further work is done in this space as new communication technologies develop and access to global networks proliferate (see also Alexander, 2014; Houston et al., 2015). In the sections that follow, the implications for social media to translate disaster communications from policy, practice and governance standpoints are discussed in order to consider both the possibilities and constraints of using social media and transnational networks to reduce disaster risks. 6.1 Transnational disaster risk reduction – a complementary approach The participants’ comments demonstrate how disaster-based support and responses to crises can be assisted through social media and transnational interaction. Whilst it is best seen as a complementary approach, one that sits alongside other forms of support and communication, the incorporation of transnational networks signals the reality that many migrants access their information from channels that are not necessarily locally sourced but are rather, relationally trusted. The participants’ narratives clearly illustrate that forms of transnational care extend from everyday interactions to responding to extraordinary events associated with disasters. In many ways, the ongoing interactions that refugees maintain with their transnational networks provide a basis for support and well-being that offer sources and forms of resilience to respond to adverse events. Transnational networks are also able to translate messages into accessible forms helping to ensure functional equivalence, cultural responsiveness and ultimately that disaster communications can be trusted. Online encounters through social media provide a portal whereby people can directly interact with their intimate networks – effectively offering opportunities to exercise transnational care. As was highlighted in the Haiti earthquakes of 2010, the Haitian diaspora was highly involved in providing translations to international non-government organisations to help communicate local perspectives and needs alongside assisting the dissemination of “official” information to their communities in need. Since transnational networks are less likely to be directly impacted by the negative effects of a disaster, they are well placed to assist and work alongside local forms of support. While there are obvious issues with the accuracy of such information, transnational networks can often be very keen to contribute when separated by distance in crisis situations as a means of providing care and support. An area of scholarship that is now beginning to receive attention is the use of “community” or “citizen” translators to provide disaster communications to culturally and linguistically diverse groups. For instance, Federici and Cadwell (2018) presented the design, delivery and evaluation of a programme to train citizen translators. While their paper focusses predominantly on supporting local capacities to prepare for, and respond to, hazards in the area, the possibility of extending this to transnational networks (alongside its limitations, discussed below) could be realised through social media. 6.2 Improving connectivity in sites of displacement and subsidising cost The use of transnational networks could also be bolstered through improving mobile connectivity in sites of displacement from a policy and humanitarian aid standpoint. While disaster risk reduction often has a local focus, funding communication infrastructure in sites of forced dislocation can help connect people to trusted networks. This has the potential to help increase translated information about hazard risk and disaster through trusted channels. Organisations that support such initiatives can help ensure that the associated information is accurate if meaningful relationships can be developed with these groups. As already emphasised, less than 1 per cent of the world’s refugees can resettle in places such as the USA, Canada, across Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Subsidising internet-based

connections in these receiving countries could ensure that resettled refugees are able to afford digital communications to improve their overall sense of well-being (Alencar, 2017) and also potentially create contexts where displaced populations can be the eyes and ears for emergent disasters and developing risks. 6.3 Disaster governance The Sendai Framework emphasises the importance of improving communications across society and key actors (Aitsi-Selmi et al., 2015). State-based action is a fundamental element in disaster governance, and international and global institutions, such as the United Nations and the World Bank, are important actors in shaping the contours of disaster governance on a global scale, especially in developing countries (Tierney, 2014). However, governments and industry have, historically, ignored the public in matters of risk and crisis with their aim being to protect the public, rather than to involve it (Infanti et al., 2013). In addition, many countries, particularly those with fewer resources, face numerous other pressing problems on an everyday basis; they often lack the capacity to develop and sustain disaster governance capabilities and communications. Many such nations are dependent on international institutions for basic post-disaster assistance. As a result, disaster governance tends to be fragmented and reactive, with most countries usually focussing more on immediate post-disaster recovery activities than on pre-disaster mitigation or preparedness. Whilst there is a clear role for central government to take leadership in disaster risk reduction, the Sendai Framework and Sustainable Development Goals encourage decentralisation, and finding local solutions to develop more flexible and culturally appropriate responses (CDKN, 2014). However, institutions and policy frameworks largely overlook or remain unaware of how forced migrants continue to live transnational lives. An area that remains largely absent within such goals is how transnational networks and actors can also improve disaster risk reduction. Institutions tasked with DRR could focus on greater engagement with local communities to understand where they receive everyday messaging and support that includes transnational relations and remittances. This would include ascertaining how transnational communications and resources are delivered through social media, mobile devices and other means. A proactive approach to such understandings would include establishing what social media platforms people use, in what languages, for what reasons, for how long and with whom. Institutions can then work through their communication strategies to consider the strengths and limitations of engaging on these associated platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and various others. Understanding these networks and sites of trust alongside a commitment to building community relationships opens possibilities where transnational support can become a complementary tool and resource for disaster mitigation – whether this is in relation to preparedness, response or longer term recovery outcomes. 6.4 Cautions and limitations While it is clear for the participants of the study that transnational communications about disaster risk and support were important, it is also essential to recognise several of its associated limitations: •

First, disasters can render communication infrastructure inoperable for indeterminate time frames effectively limiting access to transnational networks.

•

Second, translated information about disasters may contain information that is inaccurate and unreliably sourced that could exacerbate vulnerabilities rather than ameliorate them. There are numerous examples of how poorly translated disaster communications have resulted in costly and tragic outcomes (see Guadagno et al., 2017).

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•

Third, it is essential to recognise the “dark side” to social media, particularly as it intersects with forced migration and ongoing conflicts. Concerns about surveillance, safety, security, confidentiality and vested powerful interests loom large.

•

And finally, as communications increasingly go digital, there is a real risk that those who do not, or are not able to, engage can be left behind through what is often referred as “digital inequality”.

These cautions signal that any transnational approach to disaster risk reduction needs to have complementary pathways and responses to ensure the accurate, timely and reliable communication of disaster-related information. It cannot simply be used as a basis for states and other major actors to inadequately fund translation support. These developments also signal the need for an ethics in practice that can help guide the possibilities from research, practice and policy standpoints. It also highlights the need for methodological innovation that includes online and transnational approaches alongside a responsive ethics to develop deeper understandings of people’s support systems. As the world witnesses fast-paced, and at times unheralded, change within numerous social, political and technological spheres, there is an increasing need to consider to the applications and limitations of transnational translation and support. 7. Conclusion This study emphasises the importance of primary social actors and their transnational networks in the contexts of forced migration to help inform disaster risk reduction. These actors’ role in reducing disaster risk through transnational networks needs to be considered along the meso and macro levels of disaster governance that often neglect the consideration of smaller scale social configurations. As forced migrants find themselves settling in different parts of the world, there is an increasing need to recognise the rich cultural and linguistic histories that they bring with them for effective disaster communications from local to transnational scales. The reality of refugee resettlement is that people who are forcibly displaced increasingly live in places both “here” and “there”. However, these terms also have the danger of echoing the dichotomy between the “origin” and “destination” categorisations of early migration scholarship. Thus, the “here” and “there” are not fixed but can rather shift over time as people’s commitments, relationships and circumstances powerfully shape interaction with and movement to different places. Facilitated through social media, these interactions provide both opportunities and cautions for improving disaster resilience and the transmission of translated information. As digital communications and access become increasingly affordable, available and usable, these developments have the potential to profoundly impact how transnational networks are able to reduce risks associated with the preparation for, and response to, disasters. References Aitsi-Selmi, A., Egawa, S., Sasaki, H., Wannous, C. and Murray, V. (2015), “The Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction: renewing the global commitment to people’s resilience, health, and well-being”, International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 164-176, doi: 10.1007/ s13753-015-0050-9. Alencar, A. (2017), “Refugee integration and social media: a local and experiential perspective”, Information, Communication & Society, Vol. 21 No. 11, pp. 1588-1603, doi: 10.1080/1369118X. 2017.1340500. Alexander, D.E. (2013), “Resilience and disaster risk reduction: an etymological journey”, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, Vol. 13 No. 11, pp. 2707-2716, doi: 10.5194/nhess-13-2707-2013. Alexander, D.E. (2014), “Social media in disaster risk reduction and crisis management”, Science and Engineering Ethics, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 717-733, doi: 10.1007/s11948-013-9502-z.

Basch, L., Schiller, N.G. and Blanc, C.S. (1994), Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments and Deterritorialized Nation-States, Routledge, London. Blunt, A. (2007), “Cultural geographies of migration: mobility, transnationality and diaspora”, Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 31 No. 5, pp. 684-694, doi: 10.1177/0309132507078945. Buden, B., Nowotny, S., Simon, S., Bery, A. and Cronin, M. (2009), “Cultural translation: an introduction to the problem, and responses”, Translation Studies, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 196-219, doi: 10.1080/14781700 902937730. CDKN (2014), The Future Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction: A Guide for Decision Maker, Climate and Development Knowledge Network, London, available at: www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/ odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/9230.pdf (accessed 2 November 2018). Charmaz, K. (2006), Constructing Grounded Theory, Sage Publications, London. Christchurch Migrant Inter-Agency Group (2011), Christchurch Migrant Inter-Agency Group: Lessons Learned Following the Earthquakes of 22 February 2011, Christchurch Migrant Inter-Agency Group, Christchurch. Dekker, R., Engbersen, G., Klaver, J. and Vonk, H. (2018), “Smart refugees: how Syrian asylum migrants use social media information in migration decision-making”, Social Media + Society, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 1-11, doi: 10.1177/2056305118764439. Federici, F.M. and Cadwell, P. (2018), “Training citizen translators: design and delivery of bespoke training on the fundamentals of translation for New Zealand Red Cross”, Translation Spaces, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 20-43, available at: https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.00002.fed Gaillard, J.C. (2010), “Vulnerability, capacity and resilience: perspectives for climate and development policy”, Journal of International Development, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 218-232, doi: 10.1002/jid.1675. Gillespie, M., Osseiran, S. and Cheesman, M. (2018), “Syrian refugees and the digital passage to Europe: smartphone infrastructures and affordances”, Social Media + Society, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 1-12, doi: 10.1177/2056305118764440. Guadagno, L. (2016), “Human mobility in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction”, International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 30-40, doi: 10.1007/s13753-016-0077-6. Guadagno, L., Fuhrer, M. and Twigg, J. (2017), Migrants in Disaster Risk Reduction: Practices of Inclusion, International Organization for Migration, Geneva. Houston, J.B., Hawthorne, J., Perreault, M.F., Park, E.H., Goldstein Hode, M., Halliwell, M.R., Davis, R., Vaid, S., McElderry, J. and Griffith, S.A. (2015), “Social media and disasters: a functional framework for social media use in disaster planning, response, and research”, Disasters, Vol. 39 No. 1, pp. 1-22, doi: 10.1111/disa.12092. Infanti, J., Sixsmith, J., Barry, M., Núñez-Córdoba, J., Oroviogoicoechea-Ortega, C. and Guillén-Grima, F. (2013), A Literature Review on Effective Risk Communication For The Prevention and Control of Communicable Diseases in Europe, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Stockholm. IOM (2017), “World Migration Report 2018”, International Organization for Migration, Geneva, available at: www.iom.int/wmr/world-migration-report-2018 (accessed 2 November 2018). Khorshed, A. and Sophia, I. (2015), “The digital divide and social inclusion among refugee migrants: a case in regional Australia”, Information Technology & People, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 344-365, doi: 10.1108/ ITP-04-2014-0083. Le De, L., Gaillard, J.C. and Friesen, W. (2015), “Poverty and disasters: do remittances reproduce vulnerability?”, The Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 51 No. 5, pp. 538-553, doi: 10.1080/ 00220388.2014.989995. Maitland, C. (2018), Digital Lifeline?: ICTs for Refugees and Displaced Persons, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Marlowe, J. (2013), “Resettled refugee community perspectives to the Canterbury earthquakes: implications for organizational response”, Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 22 No. 5, pp. 434-444.

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Marlowe, J. (2015), “Belonging and disaster recovery: refugee-background communities and the Canterbury earthquakes”, British Journal of Social Work, Vol. 45 No. suppl 1, pp. i188-i204, doi: 10.1093/ bjsw/bcv090. Marlowe, J. (2018), Belonging and Transnational Refugee Settlement: Unsettling the Everyday and the Extraordinary, Routledge, London. Marlowe, J. (2019), “Refugee resettlement, social media and the social organisation of difference”, Global Networks, pp. 1-18, doi: 10.1111/glob.12233. Marlowe, J., Neef, A., Tevaga, C. and Tevaga, C. (2018), “A new guiding framework for engaging diverse migrant populations in DRR: reach, relevance, receptiveness and relationships”, International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 507-518. Murthy, D. (2008), “Digital ethnography: an examination of the use of new technologies for social research”, Sociology, Vol. 42 No. 5, pp. 837-855, doi: 10.1177/0038038508094565. Nezih, A. and Melissa, L. (2014), “Challenges in humanitarian information management and exchange: evidence from Haiti”, Disasters, Vol. 38 No. s1, pp. S50-S72, doi: 10.1111/disa.12052. O’Brien, S., Federici, F., Cadwell, P., Marlowe, J. and Gerber, B. (2018), “Language translation during disaster: a comparative analysis of five national approaches”, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Vol. 31, pp. 627-636, available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2018.07.006 Olteanu, A., Vieweg, S. and Castillo, C. (2015), “What to expect when the unexpected happens: social media communications across crises”, paper presented at the Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work No. 38, 14-18 March, Social Computing, Vancouver, available at: http://crisislex.org/papers/cscw2015_transversal_study.pdf Osman, M., Hornblow, A., Macleod, S. and Coope, P. (2012), “Christchurch earthquakes: how did former refugees cope?”, New Zealand Medical Journal, Vol. 125 No. 1357, pp. 113-121. Paton, D. and Johnston, D. (2001), “Disasters and communities: vulnerability, resilience and preparedness”, Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 270-277. Perkins, H. and Thorns, D.C. (2011), Place, Identity and Everyday Life in a Globalizing World, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY. Potts, L. (2013), Social Media in Disaster Response: How Experienced Architects Can Build for Participation, Routledge, London. Shepherd, J. and van Vuuren, K. (2014), “The Brisbane flood: CALD gatekeepers’ risk communication role”, Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 469-483, doi: 10.1108/DPM-08-2013-0133. Tierney, K. (2014), The Social Roots of Risk: Producing Disasters, Promoting Resilience, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA. Uekusa, S. and Matthewman, S. (2017), “Vulnerable and resilient? Immigrants and refugees in the 2010–2011 Canterbury and Tohoku disasters”, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Vol. 22, pp. 355-361, available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2017.02.006 UNHCR (2016), Connecting Refugees: How Internet and Mobile Connectivity can Improve Refugee WellBeing and Transform Humanitarian Action, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva, available at: www.unhcr.org/publications/operations/5770d43c4/connecting-refugees. html (accessed 2 November 2018). UNHCR (2018), Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2017, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva, available at: www.unhcr.org/globaltrends/ (accessed 2 November 2018). US National Hurricane Center (2018), “Costliest US tropical cyclones tables updated”, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, US Department of Commerce, Miami, FL, available at: www.nhc.noaa.gov/news/UpdatedCostliest.pdf (accessed 2 November 2018). Wilding, R. and Baldassar, L. (2018), “Ageing, migration and new media: the significance of transnational care”, Journal of Sociology, Vol. 54 No. 2, pp. 226-235, available at: 1440783318766168. 10.1177/ 1440783318766168.

Wisner, B., Blaikie, P., Cannon, T. and Davis, I. (2014), At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters, 2nd ed., Routledge, New York, NY. Wylie, S. (2012), Best Practice Guidelines: Engaging With Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (Cald) Communities in Times of Disaster, Community Language Information Network Group (CLING), Christchurch. About the author Jay Marlowe is Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Auckland. He is Rutherford Discovery Fellow funded by the Royal Society New Zealand and has more than 60 publications related to forced migration and disaster risk reduction. He has a book published with Routledge (2018) entitled: Belonging and Transnational Refugee Settlement. Jay Marlowe can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Local capacity building after crisis The role of languages and translation in the work of development NGOs in Kyrgyzstan Wine Tesseur

Received 3 December 2018 Revised 4 June 2019 26 June 2019 10 July 2019 Accepted 10 July 2019

School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies (SALIS), Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of languages and translation in the context of capacity building in NGOs in Kyrgyzstan. It argues that language barriers can impede local capacity building, while translation can help in overcoming some of the issues encountered. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reports on what NGO workers have said on the role of languages and translation in their work in 34 semi-structured interviews conducted in Kyrgyzstan in January 2018. The discussion is structured around a theoretical understanding of capacity building at three levels: the organisational level, the individual level and a broader enabling environment. Findings – First, the paper demonstrates that knowledge of English plays a key role in accessing international funding and information. Second, it describes the challenges that NGO workers encounter when translating information related to development into Russian and Kyrgyz. Third, it argues that donors do not overtly consider the important role of languages. Together, the findings suggest that ignoring the role of languages and translation can have a negative effect on project outcomes and power relationships. Practical implications – Policy recommendations for international NGOs and donors drawn from this case study and from comparative case studies on Peru and Malawi have been published in Crack et al. (2018). Originality/value – The paper argues that taking the role of languages and translation into account can result in a more in-depth understanding of aspects that may contribute to better local capacity building. Keywords Knowledge, Languages, Translation, Western knowledge, Local capacity building, Central Asia, Development NGOs Paper type Research paper

Disaster Prevention and Management Vol. 29 No. 2, 2020 pp. 214-226 © Emerald Publishing Limited 0965-3562 DOI 10.1108/DPM-12-2018-0378

1. Introduction In recent years, networks of humanitarian organisations, language professionals and academics have started to address the challenges of working in multilingual crisis contexts through action and research. Examples include the work of the Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities network, non-profit organisations such as Translators without Borders and Red T, and research clusters that conduct research and training on interpreting in humanitarian settings (Moser-Mercer et al., 2013, 2014) and on crisis translation (Federici et al., 2019; O’Brien et al., 2018). Whilst the increase in initiatives and operations on the role of languages in humanitarian crisis indicates a growing awareness among main actors of the importance of effective communication, language issues in the context of long-term international development collaboration have been surrounded by relative silence. Illustrative of this language silence are, for example, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which argue to “leave no one behind”, but which do not mention the role of languages in achieving these goals. Various scholars have drawn attention to this blind spot in the SDGs, particularly to the absence of language planning in education, health and legal settings (Bamgbose, 2014; Marinotti, 2017; Taylor-Leech and Benson, 2017). In relation to the work of international NGOs (INGOs), who are key actors in delivering the SDGS, the low profile of languages has also been noted. For example, Crack (2018) has shown that donors such as DFID generally do not ask questions to NGOs about translation and interpreting, but assume that NGOs have the appropriate linguistic capacity to deal with the multilingual needs of

development work. Contrary to donors’ assumptions, research by Footitt (2017) and Delgado Luchner (2018) has indicated that INGOs’ capacity in local languages is often problematic, and that translation and interpreting costs do not tend to be taken into account in the planning stage of development projects. Although the rhetoric of international development is geared towards equitable relationships and genuine democratic dialogue, this growing body of research provides evidence that in practice the hegemonic role of English often excludes those from non-privileged backgrounds (Crack, 2018; Roth, 2018). This paper aims to add an additional perspective to these discussions, which are relevant to both disaster prevention and development studies. The paper focusses on the role of languages and translation in local capacity building in and through Southern NGOs (SNGOs) in Kyrgyzstan, which are here understood as compassing both national and local NGOs. It considers the language barriers that these organisations are confronted with in their work, and how translation may enhance access to funding, information and international networks, and may in this way contribute to local capacity building. Theoretically, the paper takes a long-term view of disaster and looks at Kyrgyzstan as an example of a society in which “the boundary between development strategies that aim to reduce poverty, powerlessness and underdevelopment and those of action focused on crisis prevention” have “become blurred” (Gibson et al., 2018, p. 127). Whilst Kyrgyzstan was led into acute poverty just after the collapse of the Soviet Union (Giffen et al., 2005), one can challenge the view that the disaster of acute poverty concerned issues that would be solved in the short-term, since the entire political, societal and economic systems were going through major processes of transformation, bound to take decades (Buxton, 2014, p. 12). Indeed, INGOs and donors from the very beginning not only provided humanitarian assistance, but also focussed their efforts on the development of a civil society sector in Kyrgyzstan, which previously did not exist, and which they considered as critical in tackling political, social and economic problems (Adams and Garbutt, 2008; Aksartova, 2005; Jailobaeva, 2011). The case of Kyrgyzstan is thus a prime example of one in which the lines between disaster and development were blurred from the very beginning. Furthermore, one could consider the withdrawal of international funding and donor programmes from Kyrgyzstan from the mid-2000s as a second “disaster”, as this led to less funding for SNGOs and communities to continue to develop their local capacity, which is considered as a critical aspect of development and disaster risk reduction (Bayalieva-Jailobaeva, 2018; Casazza et al., 2009). The 1990s had seen a steep growth in the number of new national and local NGOs in response to huge investment from international donors, but it became much more difficult for these organisations to survive once donor funding became heavily reduced because of changes in priorities (Bayalieva-Jailobaeva, 2018). Central to this paper’s analysis is the idea that overlooking the role of languages and the importance of translation may lead to reduced opportunities for SNGOs to develop their local capacity, to gain ownership of development projects and to engage in equitable relationships with international development partners and donors. By placing language at its centre, the paper makes an original contribution to the scholarly literature on civil society in Kyrgyzstan, which has briefly touched on the role of languages, but has not reflected on this as central to issues of capacity building and development (Aksartova, 2005; Féaux De La Croix, 2013; Howell, 2000; Jailobaeva, 2011; Simpson, 2010). The discussion in this paper also contributes to a growing body of research in translation and interpreting studies on the relationship between development and translation (Marais, 2014; Delgado Luchner, 2015, 2018), which can be considered as complementing research that has been conducted on translation and interpreting in humanitarian settings (Federici, 2016; Moser-Mercer et al., 2013, 2014). Finally, the paper is also a deliberate attempt to provide some insight into the linguistic and translational realities in a nonwestern context (Marais, 2014; Tymoczko, 2006).

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2. Conceptual framework and data Capacity building or capacity development is considered in western approaches to development as playing a key role in societal and state capabilities to minimise the impact of economic, climate and food crisis as well as in achieving the UN’s development goals (Casazza et al., 2009, p. 5). Approaches to capacity building have gone through a major paradigm shift in the mid-1990s. In earlier approaches, western donors and INGOs considered building capacity as assisting local organisations through funding, equipment and technical guidance. Nowadays, however, it is considered as a more complex process that aims to change people’s behaviour and create sustainable societies. In current approaches, more emphasis is placed on local ownership of development programmes and genuine partnerships between international and local actors (Milèn, 2001, p. 1). UNDP identifies “three points where capacity is grown and nurtured: in an enabling environment, in organizations and within individuals” (Casazza et al., 2009, p. 11). This paper considers aspects of language and translation that may hinder or enable capacity building in Kyrgyzstan on these three levels. It specifically focusses on SNGOs’ organisational capacity; SNGOs’ donor environment; the skills, experience and knowledge of SNGO workers and community members on an individual level. It should be noted that these levels depend on and influence each other (Casazza et al., 2009). The discussion of language and translation issues on these three levels therefore naturally overlaps in some places. The discussion presents findings from 34 semi-structured interviews with international and SNGO staff conducted in January 2018, of which 20 were with SNGOs. Interviews were held in two locations: in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, and in Osh, the country’s second largest city. The restriction to urban NGOs was mostly due to the time of year that fieldwork took place, as rural areas are often difficult to reach in Winter because of heavy snow, and NGO projects tend not to run because of harsh weather conditions. The data in Kyrgyzstan were collected as part of a larger UK AHRC-funded research project, titled “The Listening Zones of NGOs” (2015–2018), which investigated the role of languages and cultural knowledge in the relationships between NGOs and local communities (www.reading.ac.uk/listening-zones-ngos). The project team conducted exploratory case studies in Kyrgyzstan, Malawi and Peru. This selection was determined by the status of English and the unique multilingual setting in each of these countries, which offered critical variation and allowed for significant insight into the differences and similarities in how languages and culture may affect development relationships. Because the case studies aimed to explore the role of languages in these relationships at large, the sample of interviewees included INGOs and SNGOs that worked on a wide variety of thematic areas. For Kyrgyzstan, these included ten organisations working on human rights and women’s and girls’ rights; five on health-related issues; two on peacebuilding and community relations; and four with a broad range of activities. The remaining interviews were conducted with national networks and organisations that supported SNGOs through organising training and other events; and with Kyrgyz academics and language professionals. Because the researcher working on the Kyrgyz case study did not speak Russian or Kyrgyz, the role of the interpreter working with them, Cholpon Akmatova, was key in developing the case study and selecting interview participants[1]. Selection methods can roughly be split in two: interviews in English were arranged through the researcher’s network of contacts through the British non-profit organisation INTRAC, which was a partner in the research project and had an office in Bishkek. The initial list of contacts was further extended through the snowball method. For interviews in Russian and Kyrgyz, a selection of organisations was made in preparatory discussions with Cholpon Akmatova, who had over ten years’ experience in the NGO sector as a professional interpreter. Consent

forms and information sheets were translated into Russian and Kyrgyz in advance of fieldwork through a translation agency, and elaborate discussions on the translation of the interview questions were held with the interpreter in advance and throughout the interview period as a process of constant critical reflection. In total, 18 interviews were conducted in English, mostly with staff from INGOs, 13 were in Russian, and 3 in Kyrgyz. In total, 24 interviewees were female, and 10 respondents were male. The higher number of female interviewees can be explained by the fact that urban-based SNGOs in Kyrgyzstan tend to be female-led (Féaux De La Croix, 2013; Jailobaeva, 2011). 3. Linguistic context: Russian, Kyrgyz and English in Kyrgyzstan According to official statistics, 71.4 per cent of the population have Kyrgyz as their first language, 14.4 per cent speak Uzbek and 9 per cent Russian (Central Intelligence Agency, 2017). What makes Kyrgyzstan a compelling case is that the civil society sector is marked by an urban-rural divide that largely concurs with a Russian-speaking elite based in Bishkek, and to a lesser extent in Osh, vs a Kyrgyz-speaking rural population (Orusbaev et al., 2008; Simpson, 2010). After years of Russification during the USSR, Kyrgyz received official status next to Russian around the time of Kyrgyzstan’s independence. Recent years have seen a push for Kyrgyz in official settings linked to a discourse of nationality, ethnicity and identity, and rural populations now increasingly speak Kyrgyz (Orusbaev et al., 2008). However, Russian continues to be widely spoken in urban areas and is still the dominant language in professional and higher education contexts (Central Intelligence Agency, 2017). Its status as a language of socio-economic advantage that can offer employment opportunities abroad or in international organisations is further reflected in its high percentage of second language speakers, which stands at 34.5 per cent. In comparison, statistics for speakers of English as a foreign language are as low as 0.5 per cent (Aminov et al., 2010). 4. Study findings: languages, translation and capacity building in Kyrgyz SNGOs 4.1 Organisational capacity SNGOs in Kyrgyzstan generally work together with citizens to collectively solve problems they are facing, either through advocacy on political and civil rights, or by complementing the state through service delivery (Garbutt and Heap, 2002). Key actors that they work with in international development projects are international donors, INGOs and local communities. As these actors speak different languages, the linguistic capacity of the SNGOs interviewed often characterised the type of relationship they maintained with other actors. The languages that were typically used between SNGOs and other actors are presented in Figure 1, in which dotted lines represent communication through language mediation. The SNGOs interviewed in Bishkek, and to a lesser extent in Osh, were typically monolingual in Russian, with little to no working capacity in English and Kyrgyz, or in other local languages such as Uzbek or Tajik. Challenges with English: communicating with donors. Only 4 of the 20 SNGOs interviewed had some English language capacity. English was considered by interviewees as dominating the NGO sector, with Russian providing fewer opportunities for collaboration and learning on a global level, despite its status as an official UN language. In one case, an SNGOs’ beneficiaries were excluded from participating in international events because of insistence on English: Recently we received an invitation [for a conference]. And they ask please […] nominate your candidates from the youth who are infected by HIV, but they should know English. [We have] no one! (KYR 4, Director of SNGO, Bishkek)

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Int Donor

(EN or lingua franca)

(EN or lingua franca)

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INGO country Office

EN EN

EN

EN, RU (KYR)

EN, RU (KYR)

RU (KYR)

Int donor country office

Southern NGOs

RU (KYR)

RU (KYR)

Figure 1. Languages in international development projects in Kyrgyzstan

KYR (UZ, TAJ)

RU

Local communities KYR (UZ, TAJ, RU)

Another SNGO was part of an international network that fostered South–South development collaboration. However, because the SNGO’s representative did not speak English, these collaborative opportunities were much more difficult to benefit from. Even if an interpreter was available to participants, this still often resulted in reduced agency to contribute: When we have group discussions, by the time the interpreter translates, by the time I think about it, and for example I want to react and express my opinion, but by the time I am ready to speak, someone else, who speaks English, is already speaking the same thing that I wanted to say. (KYR 26, Director of SNGO, Osh)

A representative of a national NGO network described the insistence on English as: […] limiting capacity of civil society activists, to be fruitfully engaged, [this is point] A. [Point] B, it’s also disempowering the relations, because you can have no voice if you don’t understand all the details. (KYR 9, Director of national network, Bishkek)

SNGOs’ lack of English language skills reportedly also led to some organisations being excluded from participating in shaping development programmes: Mainly [international organisations] consult with the government agencies at the central level. They consult with ministries […] They don’t consult with local self-governments at the district level or the rural, village municipalities. (KYR 8, Director of national network, Bishkek)

Because communication took place at these higher levels, there would be no need for INGOs or donors to engage in conversations in local languages with local organisations and institutions. Thus, according to this interviewee, SNGOs often became involved in programmes when they had already been designed; when INGOs would go: […] with this programme to rural municipalities, [but] it was clear that rural communities and the local administration that they don’t need this programme, it doesn’t really meet their needs and requirements. And, yes, the programme will be implemented in the end, but it will be done just to kind of, to tick off, to say that it is done. (KYR 8)

It is important to note here that the issue of programming in itself is beyond the scope of this paper, and the data analysed here draws on what people have said rather than on what may happen in practice in specific development programmes.

A solution that was often referred to in interviews to overcome these language barriers was a system of subgranting, in which international donors such as the EU would give a grant to INGOs, who would be allowed to “use 25% of the money you receive to regrant to smaller NGOs” (KYR 7, INGO worker, Bishkek). In this collaborative structure, INGOs would then often take charge of the burden involved in reporting to donors in English. Whilst interviewees described this practice as a positive feature of this working model (e.g. KYR 29, Director of SNGO, Osh), a negative implication that SNGO staff associated with it was that INGOs were particularly keen on recruiting staff with English language skills. Many INGO staff were said to be English language graduates: English language was the first requirement, for the job […] So many of us, myself for example, I learned a lot about community mobilisation, project management, when I was employed by the organisation, but my initial skill was English language. (KYR 16, INGO worker, Bishkek)

INGOs’ appetite for English skills led to frustration among SNGOs, who felt this caused a brain drain in the SNGO sector: We build their capacity, and then they go off to work for the donors. And in reality, I don’t understand the donor policy. Like why they do this kind of thing, like why they lure away our staff members? In reality, it’s the civil society organisations who prepare staff for international donor organisations. (KYR 30, Director of SNGO, Osh)

Furthermore, it meant that local staff with in-depth knowledge of the local context did not have access to jobs in international organisations and could not influence development policy and practice on a structurally higher level (KYR 17, SNGO staff member, Bishkek). Challenges with Kyrgyz: communicating with communities. A lack of English language capacity was not the only challenge that SNGOs encountered. Many SNGO interviewees, particularly those from Bishkek, were monolingual Russian speakers, and organisational capacity in Kyrgyz in their SNGOs was limited. As many as 13 SNGO workers described their Kyrgyz language skills as limited. These skills would not be sufficient to deliver workshops or trainings to local communities, so SNGOs would hire others to do this. A typical set-up was to have two trainers, one Russian-speaking and one who spoke the local language, yet it was not always possible to find local professionals who mastered the appropriate terminology: Sometimes there are some topics where we don’t have trainers in Kyrgyz […] we try to translate some hand-outs into Kyrgyz, but the training is in Russian, and we ask like in Osh to invite people who have a knowledge in Russian language. (KYR 5)

Information and training was thus often not easily accessible to the very communities SNGOs set out to work with because of the Russian/urban-Kyrgyz/rural societal divide. SNGOs also related that it was difficult to produce written material in Kyrgyz. Next to SNGOs’ limited Kyrgyz language capacity, the reasons for this indicated in interviews were that Kyrgyz is considered to be composed of several different dialects, making it difficult to produce materials that are widely accessible to communities throughout the country (KYR 4, 13, 24); the fact that the Kyrgyz language is not well developed in areas such as business, technology and development (KYR 1, 10, 12, 13); and a reported lack of competent interpreters and translators into Kyrgyz, especially when translating from English into Kyrgyz (KYR 5, 8, 11) (cf. Korth, 2005, p. 125). The disconnect between Bishkek-based SNGOs, and by extension of international organisations, and Kyrgyz-speaking communities was a cause for concern for many interviewees. Whilst some Bishkek SNGO workers made efforts to learn Kyrgyz (KYR 21, Director of SNGO, Bishkek), others noted international organisations often did not

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insist on Kyrgyz language skills, which “shows the arrogance of the elite of Bishkek […] and it’s just not right, you know, not to have that capacity” (KYR 14, international donor, Bishkek). Some interviewees thus identified a responsibility on the part of the donor to reflect more carefully on the role of languages and language skills in the context of development.

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4.2 Donor environment Awareness among donors of the necessity of translation activities, the time and cost involved, and the fact that SNGOs’ multilingual capacities were often limited, were reported to be low. A major challenge for SNGOs was obtaining international funding, as most international donors would only accept funding applications in English and would not be open to funding the translation costs of project applications. For SNGOs without English language skills, three coping strategies were described: not apply for international funding at all; use Google Translate to produce an application in the required language; or hire a translator to do the work, which involved considerable financial investment without any guarantee that the application would be successful and would result in any income. Six SNGOs reported relying on Google Translate quite heavily in their work, although they recognised that it was not an ideal solution, because “the reader will not get the idea, the way that I want to express it”, but “we have no choice” (KYR 25, SNGO worker, Osh). As it was difficult for SNGOs to obtain their own funding, they would often participate in INGOs’ projects instead. SNGO interviewees related they were faced with multiple language barriers during such collaborations. First, INGOs rarely translated successful funding proposals into local languages, which made it difficult for SNGOs to fully understand project aims. Second, international donors would generally not ask NGOs how they would deal with language needs at any point in the development cycle. Third, there was no requirement to translate reports into local languages. This meant that often: Not all final monitoring reports are translated [into Russian or Kyrgyz]. The wider public does not have access to them. We have very little understanding of what’s going on there. (KYR 2, Director of national SNGO network, Bishkek)

In other words, final reports would often not contribute to local learning and capacity building because local organisations could not gain access to them. A question that received mixed responses was whether donors would be open to funding translation costs that were part of development projects. Sometimes this was not the case, as these costs were seen as administrative: They [donors] told that “we are not supporting any administrative expenses”. So how they want us to work? […] They only want us to provide some work […] but we need an office, we need, I don’t know, stationary, and electricity […] and of course the translation, payment for translation is the same. (KYR 19, SNGO worker, Bishkek)

On the other hand, others reported that particularly those international organisations that had an office within the country would sometimes expect to see translation costs budgeted for, and would want to see proof that SNGOs produced material easily accessible to local communities: “it was one of the requirements that we would produce simple concise text and content in any publication we published here” (KYR 18, INGO worker, Bishkek). One SNGO director explained that developing Kyrgyz language material was considered by their in-country based donor as part of the SNGOs’ work, and so they would not pay for it, yet the task was “very time consuming. We have to spend a long time to make sure that we are expressing things accurately and clearly in Kyrgyz” (KYR 29, Director of SNGO, Osh).

While some donors would be open to funding costs, SNGOs would not always think in advance of the translation needs of specific projects. One SNGO related that they had developed a booklet that their international funder liked very much, but “our communities, parents of children with disabilities, they are Kyrgyz-speaking people, but we didn’t think about budgeting the translation costs. So we cannot publish it in Kyrgyz” (KYR 26, Director of SNGO, Osh). Despite SNGOs being well aware of the local context and the need for Kyrgyz, these findings indicate that language and the need for translation often come as an afterthought. 4.3 Individual skills: understanding and explaining buzzwords The work of many SNGOs revolves around closing gaps in people’s knowledge in order to fight justice and poverty. A key challenge in transferring information on development to local communities was translating the many Anglophone buzzwords. Such terminology was often translated literally into Russian and then into Kyrgyz, without terms having real meaning. A freelance translator related that: First when I was translating the project proposals of NGOs into English, it was funny that in Russian already they were writing these words, like “actor” for example, and I was like, well, there IS no such word in Russian. It’s only someone who knows this word in English would understand what it means. (KYR 11, Freelance Translator)

Russian and Kyrgyz SNGO workers gradually learn to use these buzzwords: “They don’t speak English, but they know these words: actors, stakeholders, and then they would say ‘SWOT analysis’ in Russian: ‘analys SWOT’ ” (KYR 11). While using such terminology was acceptable with peers, problems would arise when speaking to local communities. Unpacking and applying terms to the local context was a widely employed solution: If you want to have a specific dialogue, specific interaction in a specific community, then you have to simplify the same sexual rights, for example. So you cannot just say sexual rights. You have to explain it in very simple terms, just to explain say that what sexual rights mean in a family for example, what sexual rights mean for a wife. So you have to oversimplify the concepts. (KYR 10, Director of SNGO, Bishkek)

Nevertheless, issues were unavoidable. Even when working with “an official translator of the president team” (KYR 4, Director of SNGO, Bishkek), one SNGO ran into problems with producing material that should be widely understood: We produced special instruction for police officers for this project, and we started trainings in all regions of our country, and we translated our presentation into Kyrgyz language […] our trainer, he was […] from Bishkek […] and when we go to the regions, people are listening and listening and they say: “who translated this?” They are very angry, because in our country, we have 7 regions, and we can say that we have 7 dialects of the language, and they said “we don’t understand!”. (KYR 4)

This implies that much of the training material and workshops that are delivered to increase knowledge and local capacity in local communities run the risk of being ineffective because of language barriers. One INGO worker reflected that: Even you if you understand fully the language of the training, the probability that you will keep only 40% of the information you receive is high […] when in addition […] you also have a language barrier, then probability will decrease down to 10% maximum, otherwise 5% so the impact of gathering all people with different backgrounds and spending a lot of money on simultaneous translation becomes very difficult to measure. (KYR 16, INGO worker, Bishkek)

The difficulty of development terminology also played a role here, as it made training not easily accessible to participants, who would “be kind of nudging you, like ‘what is that?’, and then you have to explain, and then while you are explaining you already missed a lot of things” (KYR 29, Director of SNGO, Osh).

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Despite these challenges, interviewees also shared some success stories. For example, one Kyrgyz-speaking NGO had produced a methodology on one of the main topics it was working on: [B]ased on our many years’ experience as an NGO in a rural area. It’s written in a very simple Kyrgyz language, and where we tell about the best practice including, like, what we learned from international best practice, and it’s all written in a very accessible Kyrgyz language, and that’s why it’s quite popular with rural NGOs. (KYR 6, SNGO, Bishkek)

Another interviewee related that their NGO had produced guidelines for local carpenters in Kyrgyz (KYR 28, INGO worker, Osh). Their handbook on construction norms was the first of its kind to be available in the Kyrgyz language and was seen as a key publication that makes this kind of information accessible to Kyrgyz people. An interesting development was that the international donor then asked to have the book translated into Russian, because it was difficult to find this kind of handbook in Russian. This project thus intentionally set out to produce information and knowledge in the local language, embedded in the local culture and context. It contributed to developing terminology of key development topics in the local language first, and in the regional lingua franca after. 5. Discussion The findings presented in this paper encourage more critical reflection on the role of languages in capacity building. A number of findings are of particular relevance in relation to previous research. First, on the level of organisational capacity, the interview data indicated that limited English language skills led to SNGOs often being excluded from shaping development programmes. As indicated in the wider literature on development and risk reduction, SNGOs tend to be contracted as partner organisations to carry out a particular service, but are often not valued for their knowledge of the local context (Banks et al., 2015; Gibson et al., 2018; Mawdsley et al., 2002; Wallace et al., 2007). The present data adds to this that a lack of English language capacity in SNGOs hinders them from being involved in the early stages of project design. Furthermore, interviewees indicated that because project proposals and reports are usually not translated into local languages, local organisations and communities are not fully informed of project objectives, which makes it difficult for them to claim local ownership. The development literature has been critical of INGOs placing too much emphasis on accountability to donors, instead of to their beneficiaries, which has led to a culture in which quantitative data and reporting templates defined by donors have gained priority (Banks et al., 2015; Eyben et al., 2015). The current findings add to this that the focus on accountability to purse-string holders also means information is often reported in a linguistic format that is not accessible to local organisations or communities. Second, on the level of the donor, international donors were considered as not overtly recognising the burden of translation that NGOs were faced with. Donors were typically only open to receiving grant applications in English, which meant that the large majority of SNGOs interviewed were excluded from international funding mechanisms. Furthermore, donors tended not to ask NGOs any information on how they would deal with language challenges in their work. This evidence further corroborates the findings of Crack (2018), which found that DFID does not ask questions on NGOs’ linguistic capacity. Third, on an individual skills level, translating development buzzwords was a key challenge for SNGOs. Whilst the issue of development terminology has been problematized in the development sector (Cornwall and Eade, 2010; Green, 2018), these discussions have largely focussed on the English language and have not yet fully engaged with the difficulties involved in translating this Anglophone terminology into vastly different languages and cultural contexts. Recent work in Translation Studies by Todorova (2019)

has started to explore the difficulties involved in translating civil society concepts, and the current paper adds to this limited body of evidence. Overall, this paper has provided new insights on the challenges involved in capacity building by taking language as the focus of analysis. In the development literature, establishing international partnerships and local ownership are considered as lying at the heart of local capacity building and sustainable development, but critics have contested the success with which these new theoretical understandings have materialised in practice (Groves and Hinton, 2004; Mawdsley et al., 2002). The findings described in this paper indicate that one key area that has been ignored within these development discussions is the role of language. The argument materialising from what interviewees said is that by ignoring the role of languages and by not allocating sufficient resources and time to producing communication that communities would be able to understand and act on, development programmes and attempts to build local capacity run the risk of being ineffective. 6. Concluding remarks and policy recommendations In conducting this research, there were some inherent limitations. The exploratory nature of the case study and the short time available to conduct the interviews in Kyrgyzstan meant that little other data were collected. The findings presented here thus rely on what interviewees have said, rather than on what they may do in practice. Future research that could add data from observing meetings between SNGOs, INGOs and local communities, for example, can shed further light on the complexity of development relationships and issues of programming. Furthermore, future research would ideally draw on participatory research methods and engage with SNGOs and local communities to discuss their needs and challenges from the early stages of the research, thus allowing space for collaboration (LeCompte et al., 1999; Stringer, 2007). An important observation is that researchers will face the same kind of linguistic issues as NGOs when aiming to engage with local communities. Just as in NGOs’ work, careful preparation and appropriate budgeting for translation and interpreting is essential to bring such plans to a successful end (Tesseur, 2019). Many of the findings on Kyrgyzstan outlined in this paper were similar to those of the two other Listening Zones research case studies on development relationships in Malawi and Peru. The joint research findings led to a number of practical policy recommendations for international donors and NGOs published in the study of Crack et al. (2018), many of which focus on incorporating linguistic reflections throughout the development project cycle. Some of the key recommendations in relation to translation and the data presented in this paper include: •

for donors to consider applications in other languages than English, e.g. another lingua franca, or reimburse translation costs of (successful) applicants;

•

for INGOs to translate successful applications and reports into local languages, and feed back to partners in their first languages;

•

for all actors to start recognising the “burden of translation” carried by some staff in the sector, i.e. the informal work of language mediation undertaken by bilingual/ multilingual personnel in addition to their normal work and outside agreed job descriptions; and

•

for donors to ensure that NGOs reflect on how language issues affect project outcomes; and to encourage them to include a budget line for translation and interpreting.

Overall, the findings confirm the silence that tends to surround language issues in long-term development work and demonstrate how this can negatively impact local capacity building.

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When comparing these findings to language practices in crisis situations, the research findings indicate that what is similar is the fact that language tends to be a blind spot in planning processes. Whilst the focus in this paper has been on local capacity building, much remains to be said on the consequences of overlooking languages in efforts to build equal power relationships. To interviewees, making an effort to speak each other’s language was considered as a cornerstone of building equitable relationships, in which trust and respect held a central place. Acknowledgement This paper presents findings from a broader research project, titled “The Listening Zones of NGOs: Languages and Cultural Knowledge in Development Programmes”, which has been conducted with Professor Hilary Footitt (Reading), Dr Angela Crack (Portsmouth) and INTRAC. The project has been funded with the kind support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (project reference AH/M006808/1). The author would like to thank Cholpon Akmatova for her assistance in conducting the research interviews in Kyrgyzstan. Note 1. Akmatova has given explicit and enthusiastic consent for her name to be mentioned in this research paper.

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Corresponding author Wine Tesseur can be contacted at: [email protected]

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