POWER UNRECOGNISED IS POWER MISUSED - MANAGING DYNAMICS IN INTERPRETED INTERACTIONS

With Paul Belmonte

5 March 7.00-9.00pm

Every interaction between people involves a power dynamic. Our role as interpreters invests us with some of that power; we may be the only person in the room who understands both languages being used, or when we are working in a simultaneous, two-way interpreted interaction, managing turn taking may require us to decide who gets to speak and when. Even our role as a professional means that we will carry a certain amount of power into any situation that we work in.

Of course, as interpreters, our aim is to empower others, especially doing all we can to support the agency of those who have historically had their power and agency repressed. Empowering deaf people is one of the main aims of our work. However, our desire to empower others may lead us to fail to recognise the power we ourselves hold.

In this workshop, we will discuss the various ways in which interpreters hold power, whether we recognise it or not. It will suggest that power that goes unrecognised can easily end up being power misused. Two perspectives will be discussed: that of interpreters who strive to exhibit empowering behaviours and their experience of recognising their part in a power imbalance, as well as that of deaf people who have experienced interpreters’ misuse of power, whether that has been intentional or otherwise.

Deaf people have for some time been telling us as interpreters that a power imbalance exists, both through conference presentations and their writing in academia and the media. This will be a good opportunity for us as a profession to continue this conversation, identify misuses of power we may not even be aware of, and together find ways to address this imbalance.

Paul will present in either BSL or English, depending on demand

This discussion and workshop will be not recorded

Structured CPD 2 hours

contact southwest@asli.org.uk for more information

Maximum 20, if you can't attend, please orgainse to give your ticket to someone else

Paul has been practising as an interpreter since 2005. He did his initial training at Heriot-Watt University, then worked for 15 years in a deaf organisation. Since 2020 he has worked as a specialist health interpreter for the NHS in Scotland. He also enjoys interpreting political conferences, theatre and comedy and has mentored interpreting students from Finland, Germany and the UK. He has presented training events and at conferences all over Europe and completed his MSc from Queen Margaret University in 2022. As well as interpreting and training, Paul loves wandering around Edinburgh and playing with his Lego.