Interpreting Ideals and Relaying Rights
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Interpreting Ideals and Relaying Rights A Comparative Study of Video Interpreting Services in Norway, Sweden and the United States Hilde Maria Haualand Dissertation submitted for the degree Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) March 2012 Department of Social Anthropology Faculty of Social Sciences University of Oslo © Hilde Maria Haualand, 2012 Series of dissertations submitted to the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo No. 346 ISSN 1504-3991 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. Cover: Inger Sandved Anfinsen. Printed in Norway: AIT Oslo AS. Produced in co-operation with Akademika publishing, Oslo. The thesis is produced by Unipub merely in connection with the thesis defence. Kindly direct all inquiries regarding the thesis to the copyright holder or the unit which grants the doctorate. Table of contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ 3 Preface ............................................................................................................................. 5 Why are they so different? .................................................................................................... 5 Directory for readers .............................................................................................................. 6 Some comments on terminology ......................................................................................... 10 1. Connections ............................................................................................................ 17 Producing a field ................................................................................................................... 17 Intertwined history ............................................................................................................... 19 The struggle to make access possible .................................................................................. 29 Communication digitalised ................................................................................................... 38 Bundled connections ............................................................................................................ 47 2. The journey ............................................................................................................. 51 Assembling material ............................................................................................................. 51 Researching disability politics .............................................................................................. 52 Entering the field .................................................................................................................. 59 An Interruption ..................................................................................................................... 68 Going Multisited ................................................................................................................... 76 3. Conversations ......................................................................................................... 95 Thinking with theories .......................................................................................................... 95 The Main Concepts ............................................................................................................. 104 Messages ....................................................................................................................... 117 Why should they be the same? .......................................................................................... 117 An industry of comparisons ............................................................................................... 118 The articles ......................................................................................................................... 123 Constructing and crafting ................................................................................................... 127 A service multiple ............................................................................................................... 128 A closer look ....................................................................................................................... 130 References ..................................................................................................................... 133 Appendix … …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..143 Article 1: "Interpreted Ideals and Relayed Rights - Video Interpreting Services as Objects of Politics", 2011. Published in Disability Studies Quarterly 31(4) Article 2: "Video Interpreting Services: Calls for Inclusion or Redialling Exclusion?" Accepted for publishing in Ethnos Article 3: “Scripts of Video Interpreting”, submitted to Science, Technology & Human Values 1 2 Acknowledgements This dissertation is a network. Without books, papers, articles, airplanes, trains, cars, roads, desktop computers, a laptop, a webcam, a camcorder, the Internet, several mobile telephones, glasses, notebooks and writing materials, this dissertation would not exist. This material network would however only be an accidental assembly of stuff, if it had not been supplied, enacted and assembled by a wide network of people, who have made the connections warm and active, resulting in this text. At times, it seems as if the network of people, ideas and things that have provided me with the ideas, resources and ability to finish this dissertation is endless. It is a challenge to give my warmest thanks to all those people who in one way or another supported, inspired, informed, comforted and kicked me through the research and writing process and kept life going. Only a few names are mentioned below. To all of you I have talked with or listened to, but whose names do not appear, I hope you can accept my sincere assurance that you too have been important. The first group of people I would like to acknowledge are those who have been involved with lobbying for, developing or providing the video interpreting services in the US, Sweden and Norway. It has been an honour and a learning experience to meet and talk with all of you. The invaluable conversations I had with Al Sonnenstrahl, Vigdis Jynge and Thor Nielsen provided me with insight, disclosed connections, revealed histories and put me on the trail of the material that is used in the analysis. To all the interpreters, bureaucrats, technicians and lobbyists I met, each and every one of you not only provided invaluable input to this dissertation, you are also developing and maintaining one of the most important services to Deaf people in the 21st century. Also, I would like to express my sincere appreciation of the time spent by the numerous Deaf people I talked with about communication, technology and interpreters, whether in planned interviews or in casual chats. The effort and kind provision of resources of yet another group of people and institutions provided me with the practical and financial foundation for pursuing the daily work. The scholarship from the Norwegian Research Council’s programme on Disability and Disabling Conditions, administered by my employer, the Fafo Institute of Labour and Social Research, made it possible to simultaneously pursue the research process and feed my family all these years. I am also grateful for having been appointed with the Dr. Powrie V. Doctor Chair in Deaf Studies from Gallaudet Research Institute in 2005-06, and for the space provided by the Department of American Sign Language (ASL) and Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University. I am in particular grateful for the open doors of Michael Karchmer at Gallaudet Research Institute and MJ Bienvenu and my colleagues at the Department of ASL and Deaf Studies, who made me feel welcome at the campus, and opened yet other doors. Working with a dissertation is often a work in solitude, and maybe more so to a person who cannot take communication for granted. Teater Manu and Skådalen kompetansesenter made the loneliness easier to handle. These institutions provided a working environment where sign language was the rule, and a space where I could feel communicatively at ease once a week. I 3 believe this space is what kept me somewhat level-headed through the process of writing this text. Corrie Tijsseling, I also want to give you a big hug for the space of freedom and mutual understanding we created over sometimes daily chats via Skype. The interpreter service of the National Insurance Agency (NAV) at the office for the regions of Oslo and Akershus is another party who recognized the importance of communication in order to pursue a doctorate degree. Without question, they made Norway’s three best (and friendliest) sign language interpreters available for the PhD seminars, lectures and courses. Torill Ringsø, Marianne Michelet and Guri Amundsen, I am sure you know the vocabulary in this thesis better than I do. At the Department of Social Anthropology, I have had great pleasure and learned much from participating in the colloquium for PhD students and the discussions in the reading group “ANThropology Interfaces”. I would also like to thank my colleagues at the group of Welfare Studies and the Work, Inclusion and Competence group for feedback on papers, and in particular Hanne C. Kavli’s insistent pushing in times of demotivation and devastation.