Interpreting for Research: Inequality and Human Trafficking Protection in the United States-Interview with Heba Gowayed

Respond’s Spanish, Tagalog, Chinese and Portuguese teams collaborated with Heba, who is a professor at Boston University, so that she could conduct interviews with victims of human trafficking as part of her co-authored project with Julie Dahlstrom of Boston University’s Law School  “Inequality and Human Trafficking Protection in the United States.” 

Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery. It is an extreme form of labor exploitation where women, men and children are recruited or obtained and then forced to labor against their will through force, fraud or coercion. Trafficking victims are often lured by false promises of decent jobs and better lives. The inequalities women face in status and opportunity worldwide make women particularly vulnerable to trafficking.

The U.S. Department of State estimates that 14,500 to 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States each year.

Here is an excerpt of Heba’s project: 

The International Labor Organization estimates that over 25 million people, disproportionately from the Global South, are victims of human trafficking. In the U.S., human trafficking law has evolved to address survivors. However, sitting in a scaffold of a racist and exclusionary immigration system, exploitative labor laws, and a punitive criminal legal system, it often fails to protect them. Drawing on a survey of lawyers, and qualitative interviews with both lawyers and survivors, this project reflects on the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (“TVPA”), and how it can be reformed to better protect survivors.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your story?

I am a professor of sociology, and I work on issues of forced migration. My book Refuge, published earlier this year, is about the displacement of Syrians and the nature of services that receive them in countries including the United States, Canada and Germany. I am currently working on a second project which centers border impermeability from the perspective of those pursuing refuge who are forced to make incredible sacrifices to cross. Looking at these sacrifices – emotional, physical, and financial – of their journeys I ask what are the costs of borders? 

It is through this project that I was first introduced to the incredible work of Rapid Response, and the Haitian and Spanish teams. I’ve since also worked with the Tagalog and Portuguese teams. 

In what ways has the collaboration with Respond Crisis Translation helped your work or allowed you to do new things that you couldn't have done before?

I am completely in love with Respond Crisis Translation, and could not imagine doing my projects without their support. 
From the work on my Cost of Borders project, as well as this current one on Trafficking, I found the interpreters to be professional, precise, and humane. This latter point is so important – when I am speaking to people who have experienced a level of trauma, the interpreter becomes a sort of research collaborator. As a native Arabic speaker, who has also worked as an interpreter before, I know that direct translations of words are sometimes inadequate in expressing their meanings. I also know that the tone we use to get information across, the extent to which we’re willing to be patient as people find their words, or the knowledge of when to interject for a pause or not are just as important as the kinds of questions we ask. Overall, Respond Crisis Translators have been incredible partners in helping me conduct what are often difficult and delicate conversations. 

What are the greatest challenges inherent in your work? Can you share the language-specific challenges and context that come up frequently?

Language is an access and social justice issue. And there are so many challenges that emerge around it. I’ve already talked about the importance of humane and sensitive translation. But another is the constantly changing nature of fieldwork. To this end, I am deeply grateful for the flexibility and grace that Respond Crisis offers. Fieldwork which doesn’t allow much predictability. People may not show up for interviews, or they may choose not to participate once I’ve already made the journey. I have never been made to feel guilty or uncomfortable for any of these events, which is a major departure from interpretation support services and invaluable for conducting field research. 

Having the convenience of an interpreter on call on my cell phone is invaluable, particularly in Tijuana where I was able, through WhatsApp and Zoom,  to use my phone for remote interpretation. I simply couldn’t have done this project without this remote support. 

Anything else you’d like to add about the importance of language access to your work at Boston University, specifically, or just anything else you’d like to share about yourself / your work in general? 

When we think about research, it is easy to think just about the questions one asks, or the methods one deploys – whether we’re qualitative or quantitative, or whether we have access to a given population. But having honest, robust, precise, and of course humane translation can make or break the best-designed projects. It is a necessary, integral tool  to truly hearing what people have to say about their lives in the ways that they want to express them. 

The fact is that there’s something that’s always lost when we do research, even when we do it in our own languages, because we, as humans, understand what people say within the framework of our own experiences. But, when we speak across languages, there’s an even bigger likelihood for meanings to be lost. Having access to interpreters who are not only professional and able, but also politically committed to promoting mutual understanding is invaluable. I also love that when we pay for interpretation – which all of us researchers should do to the extent of our ability – we are funding moments in which interpretation is needed by those who cannot afford to pay. So, in a sense, Response Crisis allows for the research endeavor – which is by definition extractive – to also have a positive impact on the people it addresses.

Heba Gowayed is the Moorman-Simon Assistant Professor of Sociology at Boston University.  Her research, which is global and comparative, examines how low-income people traverse social services, immigration laws, and their associated bureaucracies, while grappling with gender and racial inequalities. Her writing has appeared in academic outlets as well as in public outlets including Slate, Al Jazeera English, The New Humanitarian,  and Teen Vogue.

She is author of Refuge, published with Princeton University Press, which explores how states shape the potential of people pursuing refuge within their borders. She is currently working on her second book, The Cost of Borders, which theorizes borders as a costly, and often deadly, transaction. You can read further information on her work on her website: https://www.hebagowayed.com/ 

Heba reached out to Respond Crisis Translation for support with interpretation into Spanish, Portuguese and Tagalog and over 10 interpreters contributed their expertise and talent to this important project. Thank you to our wonderful interpreters and PMs, and thank you, Heba, for your trust! Respond Crisis Translation is proud to support your amazing work!