Abstract
This article discusses the process of institutionalization of a migrantoriented NGO where volunteers work as non-professional interpreters and where this had led to the integration of volunteer interpreting services in two hospitals in the Costa del Sol region in southern Spain. It explores the processes of socialization of volunteers and institutionalization of interpreters, leading to the development of an official NGO, drawing on the personal narratives of volunteers collected through focus groups and participant observation. The article begins by looking at the early stages of socialization of volunteers, through which they internalize the field structures and a series of dispositions shaped by empathy and compassion, resulting in volunteers adopting different positions available to them such as interpreters, caretakers and patient advocates. After the initial process of socialization, a process of institutionalization was requested by the regional government for the official establishment of the NGO. Drawing up the constitution of the now official NGO entailed the bureaucratization of the volunteers’ position as interpreters, which provided them with a series of assets and the legitimization of their activity as institutional agents. This study demonstrates how in this particular case volunteer non-professional interpreting became essential for the institutions in which the services are provided. The volunteer interpreters of this NGO are now legitimate institutional agents with a strong degree of professional autonomy that allows them to adopt a series of positions that belong to the domain of intercultural mediators and cultural brokers.
Highlights
Non-professional interpreters often provide an essential service in multilingual societies that lack professional interpreting services (Baraldi & Gavioli, 2014)
The role of the public service interpreter as caretaker and patient advocate has been debated by the academy and criticized by the profession and employing institutions due to the repercussions that this position may have for said institutions and their members (Hsieh, 2013)
Interpreters are generally not provided with sufficient professional autonomy to negotiate their position in the way social workers are as mediators between public serving institutions and service users
Summary
Non-professional interpreters often provide an essential service in multilingual societies that lack professional interpreting services (Baraldi & Gavioli, 2014). In some European countries non-professional interpreting services, often found in migrant-oriented NGOs, tend to be conceived primarily as a form of intercultural mediation, a modality that goes beyond linguistic mediation, even though this is one of the principal tasks carried out by the volunteers (ValeroGarcés, 2008). These interpreters generate trust among service users by adopting additional roles such as caretakers and patient advocates.. Very little has been done to explore the experiences and self-perceived role of non-professional interpreters and to place them within the larger field of public service interpreting (hereinafter PSI) as social agents with a specific position within that field (Martin & Marti, 2008; Valero-Garcés, 2003)
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