“Can you work for us as an interpreter?” an ethnography of navigating tensions and emotions within an interpreting agency

Abstract

ABSTRACT The present study addresses certain methodological challenges of being a ‘practisearcher’ at a worksite that is physically distant from but no less influential to freelance interpreters – the interpreting agency. Drawing on the discourse of emotionality and positionality of workplace ethnographic research, this paper focuses on the diverse emotions that are experienced by the author through navigating conflicting expectations in a complex business environment. The purpose of this study is to highlight the analytical values of the emotional efforts of the researcher through reflecting upon the uneasy moments when our identities are questioned, our behaviours cause distrust, or when our rushed decisions lead to unforeseen results. Although such instances are integral to everyday fieldwork practice, they tend to be largely toned down in the rational account of academic reasoning. Through presenting a series of extracts from the research diaries and fieldnotes, the author argues that emotions are untapped resources that can help researchers to delve into the complex network of participants, to critically assess our multiple positions and identities (in the eyes of others and our own), as ethnographers go through rites of passage, and to make sense of the socio-cultural contexts where the organisation under study is situated.