Xogo de reflexividades: a antropoloxía como aliada para repensar a interpretación social

Abstract

In a previous dissertation2, I aimed to reflect on the effect of prejudices on community interpreting, particularly in stigmatized situations such as in the context of gender-based violence and prostitution. The analysis was supported through sources from various fields from interpreting studies to psychotherapy. Certain terms from the field of psychotherapy enabled me to frame processes that, from my point of view, can occur during an encounter between interpreters and participants. Regardless of how useful the approach of analyzing both fields of interpreting and psychotherapy was for my initial dissertation, the purpose of this article implies shifting from the discipline of psychotherapy to that of social anthropology. Social anthropology is suggested as a valuable field to analyze interpreting experiences while considering both social structures as well as the agency of participants. The multidisciplinary dialogue in this article involves social anthropology, interpreting and translation studies, and sociology. Ultimately, this proposal unfolds reflexivity (Guber, 2001, 2004 [1991]) as a productive category to apprehend interactions in social interpreting, an anthropological effort.