Linguistic and Intercultural Mediations in a context of International Migrations - LIMINAL
Summary
What do the social spaces of migration do to languages? In what ways do languages put migration policies to the test? How can we qualify the languages of migration, the "migralects"? These are the questions that have mobilized researchers in the LIMINAL program. At the Franco-Italian and Franco-British borders, in camps and reception and accommodation structures, the team has developed an innovative methodology to account for a pragmatics of the languages of migration.
Studying situations of interaction and mediation in migration has a major social impact. Based on the major hypothesis that there is a language specific to recent migratory experience, the initial issues at stake in the LIMINAL project concern interactions and mediations between migrants and institutional, associative and informal actors in situations of migratory and humanitarian crisis, such as has been developing in France since 2015 (multiplication of encampments, camps, reception and accommodation centers). The project, rooted in a field anthropology that borrows from interactionist (Goffman, 1972) and situational (Puaud, 2016) approaches, pays special attention to what goes on behind the socio-cultural scenes of interaction situations. These are specifically revealed in language mediations, which must be apprehended as the central place where power relationships are woven between actors (exiles, states, associations, humanitarians, etc.), but also resistance (Scott, 1990). It is precisely where the socio-political context and the epistemic violence of asylum mechanisms assign migrants to minority social positions and ignore their discourses, that languages can produce spaces of refuge and action. The LIMINAL project thus proposes a novel approach combining anthropology and socio-linguistics to understand what is at stake through languages in contemporary migration. On the one hand, it focuses on the specific nature of interactions and mediations in situations of migratory emergency, and on the other, on situations of incomprehension and incomplete transmission of information concerning access to rights, healthcare and asylum procedures. Finally, LIMINAL focuses on the trajectories and skills of people in "translation situations" in so-called sensitive areas, notably volunteers or even multi-skilled employees of associations, refugees, for whom the neologism "translator" has appeared operational.
Dates and duration
11/2017 - 12/2021 (48 months)
Scientific coordination and team
Marie-Caroline SAGLIO-YATZIMIRSKY (CESSMA, Inalco), scientific coordinator
Peter STOCKINGER (PLIDAM, Inalco)
Amir MOGHANI (CERLOM, Inalco)
Objectives
The LIMINAL project analyzes linguistic and intercultural mediations in the context of international migration and crisis. It studies interactions between migrants, institutions, professionals and volunteers, in order to understand how language practices structure access to rights, care and social support. The project aims to describe communicative dynamics in situations of vulnerability and to shed light on the ethical, political and social issues involved in translation, interpreting and cultural mediation.
Methodology
The LIMINAL project adopts a multidisciplinary approach crossing anthropology, sociology and interactional sociolinguistics. It is based on field surveys carried out in pairs of researchers in emergency migratory contexts (camps, reception centers, border zones in France and Europe). The data collected - multilingual oral interactions, textual, audio and audiovisual materials - are subjected to detailed qualitative analysis. An ethical charter governs data collection and processing. The project brings together external collaborators and speakers of poorly endowed languages in order to document linguistic and intercultural mediation practices and build up resources (corpus, glossaries, lexical base).
Expected results
The LIMINAL project has generated significant scientific and operational results. It has produced multi-sited, multilingual and multi-disciplinary knowledge on linguistic mediation in migratory contexts, enriching academic work based on novel anthropological fields. It has enabled the creation of the MIGRalect.org multilingual database, documenting the vocabulary specific to migration and language practices in emergency situations. It has also contributed to professional training via the Hospitality, Mediations, Migrations university diploma (DU H2M) and inspired other similar diplomas, testifying to an impact that is at once scientific, pedagogical and societal for the benefit of social actors and migrants themselves.
Livrables
- 1 collective work (Lingua (non) grata, 2022)
- 1 multilingual database (MIGRalect)
- 1 journal dossier ("Traduire l'exil", Plein Droit n°124, 2020)
- 10 colloquia and workshops including a collaborative workshop "Territoires & savoirs partagés" (May 2021) and an international closing colloquium "Lingua (non) grata
- Les langues à l'épreuve des politiques migratoires" (September 2021)
- Publication of a book "Violence et récit, dire, traduire, transmettre le génocide et l'exil"
- Several thematic seminars
- Several open-access video recordings
- Papers and posts published on the LIMINAL notebook
Key words
International migration, language mediation, intercultural mediation, interpreting, translation, sociolinguistics, anthropology, discourse analysis, access to rights, vulnerability, reception policies, health, asylum.
References
Main publications:
- Lingua (non) grata. Langues, violences et résistances dans les espaces de la migration (collective work, Presses de l'Inalco, 2022) - contributions from the LIMINAL project
- Violence et récit : Dire, traduire, transmettre le génocide et l'exil (work edited by Marie-Caroline Saglio-Yatzimirsky, published under the aegis of ANR LIMINAL)
- Special file Traduire l'exil, Plein Droit n°124, mars 2020 (coordination A. Galitzine-Loumpet & M.C. Saglio-Yatzimirsky) with articles by project members
Research resources and corpus:
- Multilingual database MIGRalect.org (vocabulary of contemporary migrations)
Funding agency
Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR) - Appel à projets générique - AAPG 2017
