1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Interpreting
  4. Volume 20, Issue 2
  5. Article
Volume 20, Issue 2
  • ISSN 1384-6647
  • E-ISSN: 1569-982X
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

This article investigates aspects of intercultural communication in institutional interaction with refugees in Britain following the 1956 Hungarian uprising. Their arrival, against a backdrop of Cold War politics and the ongoing Suez crisis, constituted Britain’s first test as a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees. While accounts of displaced persons in 20th century Britain mention communication problems, the impact of interpreters on the early phases of refugee reception can be better understood only through systematic research into their lived experiences and those of their interlocutors: this should include social attitudes and recruitment practices. The use of non-professional interpreters in the period concerned is examined in relation to the metaphor of the interpreter as a technology of care and control, which also serves as a broader critique of post-war refugee treatment in Britain. Contributing to the growing body of interpreting scholarship that explores the sociology of agents and structures in the translation process, the article focuses primarily on the actors concerned with translatorial activity in the many reception camps set up at that time. Artefacts from the National Archives and accounts from the field help identify institutional approaches to mass population displacement, and related discourses about (and by) interpreters.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/intp.00012.tip
2018-09-24
2023-12-08

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/intp.00012.tip
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Ager, Alastair
    (Ed.) (1999) Refugees: Perspectives on the experience of forced migration. London/New York: Pinter.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Baldwin-Edwards, Martin & Schain, Martin A.
    (Eds) (1994) The politics of immigration in Western Europe. London/New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Beckett, Francis & Russell, Tony
    (2015) 1956: The year that changed everything. London: Biteback Publishing.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Behrent, Michael C.
    (2013) Foucault and technology. History and Technology29 (1), 54–104. doi: 10.1080/07341512.2013.780351
     https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2013.780351 [Google Scholar]
  5. Biegus, Zosia & Biegus, Jurek
    (2013) Polish resettlement camps in England and Wales 1946–1969. Ashingdon, Essex: PB Software.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Bivins, Roberta
    (2015) Contagious communities: Medicine, migration, and the NHS in post-war Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198725282.001.0001
     https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198725282.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  7. Boéri, Julie
    (2012) Translation/Interpreting politics and praxis: The impact of political principles on Babels’ interpreting practices. The Translator18 (2), 269–290. doi: 10.1080/13556509.2012.10799511
     https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2012.10799511 [Google Scholar]
  8. Boyle, Peter. G.
    (2005) The Hungarian Revolution and the Suez Crisis. The Journal of the Historical Association90 (300), 550–565.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Cambridge, Jan
    (1999) Information loss in bilingual medical interviews through an untrained interpreter. The Translator5 (2), 201–220.10.1080/13556509.1999.10799041
     https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.1999.10799041 [Google Scholar]
  10. Cohen, Gerard. D.
    (2012) In war’s wake: Europe’s displaced persons in the post war order. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Council of Europe
    Council of Europe (1957) Communication on aid to Hungarian refugees, Doc. 711. assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=1031&lang=en (accessed1 April 2016).
  12. Cronin, Michael
    (2006) Translation and identity. London/New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203015698
     https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203015698 [Google Scholar]
  13. De Aranjo, Alexandre G. A.
    2013 Assets and liabilities: Refugees from Hungary and Egypt in Britain, 1956–1960. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13503/1/De_Aranjo_Thesis.pdf (accessed20 October 2015).
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Dobson, Stephen
    (2004) Cultures of exile and the experience of refugeeness. Berlin: Peter Lang.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Dormandy Thomas, L. , Eldon, William & Milner, C. A.
    (1957) Medical care of Hungarian refugees. The Lancet269 (6980), 1183–1187.10.1016/S0140‑6736(57)91755‑5
     https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(57)91755-5 [Google Scholar]
  16. Dubslaff, Friedel & Martinsen, Bodil
    (2005) Exploring untrained interpreters’ use of direct versus indirect speech. Interpreting7 (2), 211–236.10.1075/intp.7.2.05dub
     https://doi.org/10.1075/intp.7.2.05dub [Google Scholar]
  17. Foucault, Michel
    (1954) Maladie mentale et personnalité. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Gatrell, Peter
    (2011a) Free world? The campaign to save the world’s refugees, 1956–1963. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. (2011b) Trajectories of population displacement in the aftermath of two world wars. In J. Reinisch & E. White (Eds.), The disentanglement of populations: Migration, expulsion and displacement in postwar Europe, 1944–49. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 3–26.10.1057/9780230297685_1
     https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230297685_1 [Google Scholar]
  20. Gémes, Andreas
    (2009) Deconstruction of a myth? Austria and the Hungarian refugees of 1956–57. In S. Dempsey & D. Nichols (Eds.), Time, memory, and cultural change (Junior Visiting Fellows’ Conferences, Vol.25). Vienna: IWM
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Gorman, Robert. F.
    (2001) Great debates at the United Nations: An encyclopedia of fifty key issues 1945–2000. Westport: Greenwood Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Granville, Johanna
    (2006) Of spies, refugees and hostile propaganda: How Austria dealt with the Hungarian crisis of 1956. History91 (301), 62–90.10.1111/j.1468‑229X.2006.00359.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-229X.2006.00359.x [Google Scholar]
  23. (2010) Between Scylla and Charybdis: Austria’s first test case of neutrality during the Hungarian Crisis, 1956–57. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics26 (4), 494–517. doi: 10.1080/13523279.2010.519188
     https://doi.org/10.1080/13523279.2010.519188 [Google Scholar]
  24. Hall, Stuart
    (1985) Signification, representation and ideology: Althusser and the post-structuralist debates. Critical Studies in Mass Communication2 (2), 91–114.10.1080/15295038509360070
     https://doi.org/10.1080/15295038509360070 [Google Scholar]
  25. (1986) On postmodernism and articulation: An interview with Stuart Hall, ed. by Lawrence Grossberg . Journal of Communication Inquiry10 (2), 45–60.10.1177/019685998601000204
     https://doi.org/10.1177/019685998601000204 [Google Scholar]
  26. Hall, Stuart & Du Gay, Paul
    (1996) Questions of cultural identity. London: Sage.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Hansen, Randall
    (2000) Citizenship and immigration in post-war Britain: The institutional origins of a multicultural nation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Hokkanen, Sari
    (2012) Simultaneous church interpreting as service. The Translator18 (2), 291–309. doi: 10.1080/13556509.2012.10799512
     https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2012.10799512 [Google Scholar]
  29. Holborn, Louise
    (1960) The problem of refugees. Current History38 (226), 342–345.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Hynes, Patricia
    (2011) The dispersal and social exclusion of asylum seekers: Between liminality and belonging. Bristol: Policy Press.10.2307/j.ctt9qgrp9
     https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt9qgrp9 [Google Scholar]
  31. Inghilleri, Moira
    (2005) Mediating zones of uncertainty: Interpreter agency, the interpreting habitus and political asylum adjudication. The Translator11 (1), 69–85.10.1080/13556509.2005.10799190
     https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2005.10799190 [Google Scholar]
  32. (2012) Interpreting justice: Ethics, politics and language. New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Isaac, Julius
    (1954) British post-war migration (National Institute of Economic and Social Research, Occasional Papers XVII). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Kay, Diana & Miles, Robert
    (1988) Refugees or migrant workers? The case of the European volunteer workers in Britain (1946–1951). Journal of Refugee Studies1 (3/4), 214–236.10.1093/jrs/1.3‑4.214
     https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/1.3-4.214 [Google Scholar]
  35. (1992) Refugees or migrant workers? European volunteer workers in Britain 1946–1951. London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Keeley, Brian
    (2007) Human capital: How what you know shapes your life (OECD Insights). Paris: OECD Publishing. doi: 10.1787/9789264029095‑en
     https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264029095-en [Google Scholar]
  37. Kelly, Lynnette
    (2004) A community empowered? The Bosnia Project in the UK. In P. Essed , G. Frerks & J. Schrijvers (Eds.), Refugees and the transformation of societies: Agency, policies, ethics and politics. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 121–134.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Kushner, Tony & Knox, Katharine
    (1999) Refugees in an age of genocide: Global, national and local perspectives during the twentieth century. London/New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Litván, György
    (1997) A forty-year perspective on 1956. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics13 (2), 14–25. doi: 10.1080/13523279708415342
     https://doi.org/10.1080/13523279708415342 [Google Scholar]
  40. Malkki, Liisa H.
    (1995) Refugees and exile: From “refugee studies” to the national order of things. Annual Review of Anthropology24, 495–523.10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.002431
     https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.002431 [Google Scholar]
  41. McDowell, Linda
    (2004) Cultural memory, gender and age: Young Latvian women’s narrative memories of wartime Europe, 1944–47. Journal of Historical Geography30 (4), 701–728.10.1016/j.jhg.2003.08.020
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2003.08.020 [Google Scholar]
  42. (2008) On the signification of being white: European migrant workers in the British economy in the 1940s and 2000s. In C. Bressey & C. Dwyer (Eds.), New geographies of race and racism. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 51–66.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Meeuwesen, Ludwien , Twilt, Sione , ten Thije, Jan D. & Harmsen, Hans
    (2010) “Ne diyor?” (What does she say?): Informal interpreting in general practice. Patient Education and Counseling81 (2), 198–203.10.1016/j.pec.2009.10.005
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2009.10.005 [Google Scholar]
  44. Messina, Anthony M.
    (2001) The impacts of post-WWII migration to Britain: Policy constraints, political opportunism and the alteration of representational politics. The Review of Politics63 (2), 259–285.10.1017/S0034670500031181
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670500031181 [Google Scholar]
  45. Mezey, A. G.
    (1960) Psychiatric illness in Hungarian refugees. British Journal of Psychiatry106 (443), 628–637.10.1192/bjp.106.443.628
     https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.106.443.628 [Google Scholar]
  46. Pardeck, John T.
    (2015) An ecological approach for social work practice. The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare15 (2), Article 11. scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol15/iss2/11
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Paul, Kathleen
    (1997) Whitewashing Britain: Race and citizenship in the post-war era. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Pérez-González, Luis & Susam-Saraeva, Şebnem
    (2012) Non-professionals translating and interpreting, The Translator18 (2), 149–165. doi: 10.1080/13556509.2012.10799506
     https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2012.10799506 [Google Scholar]
  49. Pöchhacker, Franz
    (2000) The community interpreter’s task: Self-perception and provider views. In R. P. Roberts , S. E. Carr , D. Abraham & A. Dufour (Eds.), The Critical Link 2: Interpreters in the community. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 49–65.10.1075/btl.31.07poc
     https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.31.07poc [Google Scholar]
  50. Ramadan, Adam
    (2012) Spatialising the refugee camp. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers38 (1), 65–77. doi: 10.1111/j.1475‑5661.2012.00509.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00509.x [Google Scholar]
  51. Red Cross
    Red Cross (2015) The history of our refugee support. www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/Museum-and-archives/Historical-factsheets/Refugee-support (accessed25 October 2015).
  52. Rudvin, Mette
    (2007) Professionalism and ethics in community interpreting: The impact of individualist versus collective group identity. Interpreting9 (1), 47–69.10.1075/intp.9.1.04rud
     https://doi.org/10.1075/intp.9.1.04rud [Google Scholar]
  53. Ruscoe, Brian
    (1957) A Red Cross welfare officer’s experiences on a Hungarian refugee camp at Hednesford, Staffordshire 1957. Available athome2.btconnect.com/haughgateinnovations.co.uk/index/page25.html (accessed28 October 2015).
  54. Schouten, Barbara , Ross, Jonathan , Zendedel, Rena & Meeuwesen, Ludwien
    (2012) Informal interpreters in medical settings. The Translator18 (2), 311–338. doi: 10.1080/13556509.2012.10799513
     https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2012.10799513 [Google Scholar]
  55. Slack, Jennifer
    (1996) The theory and method of articulation in cultural studies. In D. Morely & K. -H. Chen (Eds.), Stuart Hall: Critical dialogues in cultural studies. London/New York: Routledge, 112–127.
     [Google Scholar]
  56. Steinert, Johannes-Dieter
    (2011) British post-war migration policy and displaced persons in Europe.” In ´J. Reinisch & E. White (Eds.), The disentanglement of populations: Migration, expulsion and displacement in postwar Europe, 1944–49. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 229–250.10.1057/9780230297685_11
     https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230297685_11 [Google Scholar]
  57. Tannahill John, A.
    (1958) European volunteer workers in Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Taylor, Becky
    (2015) “Everyone here wants to help you”: International cooperation, refugee rights and the 1956 Hungarian refugee crisis. www.historyworkshop.org.uk/everyone-here-wants-to-help-you-international-co-operation-refugee-rights-and-the-1956-hungarian-refugee-crisis/ (accessed1 April 2016).
  59. Tipton, Rebecca
    (2012) A socio-theoretical account of interpreter-mediated activity with specific reference to the social service context: Reflection and reflexivity. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Salford.
     [Google Scholar]
  60. Tipton, Rebecca & Furmanek, Olgierda
    (2016) Dialogue interpreting: A guide to interpreting in public services and the community. London/New York: Routledge.10.4324/9781315644578
     https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315644578 [Google Scholar]
  61. Tryuk, Małgorzata
    (2010) Interpreting in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Interpreting12 (2), 125–145.10.1075/intp.12.2.01try
     https://doi.org/10.1075/intp.12.2.01try [Google Scholar]
  62. United Nations
    United Nations (1957) Report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary. mek.oszk.hu/01200/01274/01274.pdf (accessed2 November 2015).
  63. Van Selm-Thorburn, Joanne
    (1998) Refugee protection in Europe: Lessons from the Yugoslav refugee crisis. The Hague/Boston/London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
     [Google Scholar]
  64. Vertovec, Steven
    (2007) Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies30 (6), 1024–1054.10.1080/01419870701599465
     https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870701599465 [Google Scholar]
  65. Wasserstein, Bernard
    (1996) Vanishing diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945, London: Hamish Hamilton.
     [Google Scholar]
  66. Wolf, Michaela
    (Ed.) (2006) Übersetzen – translating – traduire: Towards a social turn?Münster: LIT-Verlag.
     [Google Scholar]
  67. (2013) “German speakers, step forward”: Surviving through interpreting in Nazi concentration camps. Translation and Interpreting Studies8 (1), 1–22.10.1075/tis.8.1.01wol
     https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.8.1.01wol [Google Scholar]
  68. Ziek, Marjoleine
    (2013) The 1956 Hungarian refugee emergency, an early and instructive case of resettlement.” Amsterdam Law Forum5 (2), 45–62.
     [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1075/intp.00012.tip
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): camps; European Volunteer Workers; interpreters; National Coal Board; refugees; technologies of care and control

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error