Building Educational Tools for Solidarity Interpreters in South Asia
Total Project Years: 2017 - 2020
Role: Co-Lead UX Researcher, Designer, and Writer
Methods: Participant Observation, Usability Studies, Literature Reviews, Artifact Analysis
Organization: South Asia Solidarity Interpreters’ Collective
Artwork by Asanda Ncwadi
Context
South Asia contains some of the world’s most densely multilingual societies. Organizations and social movements working cross-culturally are often faced with communication barriers that limit who can participate in decision-making spaces to elites who are fluent in Hindi and English. This poses language accessibility and inclusion - also known as language justice - challenges for organizations who seek to center the experiences of their users and participants.
Problem Space
Given the vast multilingualism of these contexts, there is a large number of what are called solidarity interpreters in movement spaces — people who are not trained in interpretation and perform these functions in an unpaid capacity to facilitate cross-movement interaction. Solidarity interpreters perform a critical function for movements who often do not have the resources to hire professional interpreters, but they also often lack the necessary training from which to interpret appropriately.
Together with 15 activists, professional interpreters, and academics, I helped co-found the South Asia Solidarity Interpreters’ Collective in December 2017 in New Delhi to promote language justice as a core value of social movement spaces in India. We provided resources and trainings for solidarity interpreters across India.
Objective
Understand the needs and challenges faced by solidarity interpreters in movement spaces.
Design training modules to be used to recruit, train, and organize a pool of solidarity interpreters.
Conduct 5 in-person trainings with solidarity interpreters
This objective was altered when the COVID-19 pandemic began, and we decided to focus instead on designing a website containing our training modules to be used by participants.
Methods
Affinity mapping in December 2017
Phase I: Data Collection [December 2017 - March 2018]
Conducted participant observation in a workshop with 20 solidarity interpreters to understand pain points in interpreters’ work
Conducted unstructured interviews with movement leaders to understand their experiences with interpreting in movement spaces
Conducted literature reviews to understand social context of multilingualism in South Asia
Conducted affinity mapping to process data and plan next steps for project design.
Phase II: Funding [2019]
Co-wrote a grant proposal to fund research and training activities
Received funding from U.S. State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship Alumni Development Fund in 2019
Phase III: Design and Implementation [July - August 2020]
Designed a website to host training modules and other resources on solidarity interpreting.
Conducted usability testing of the website to understand where pain points lie in design.
Wrote website copy and contributed blog posts to website on issues pertaining to language justice.
Blog post on SASI website.
Impact and Deliverables
Designed training modules for solidarity interpreter workshops
Translated written modules into digital resources through a website
Write blog posts on language justice for the website
Shared website resources with movement participants and interpreter trainers across India