The constraints that manipulate interpreting services at disasters

Abstract

This work focuses on the voluntary interpreting services provided for foreign rescue team members at disaster sites (with specific reference to the constraints that manipulate the task of a voluntary interpreter) and the project started for the standardization and development of these services. Interpreters-in-Aid at Disasters (IAD)/Afette Rehber Cevirmen (ARC) is a voluntary group launched in 1999 at Istanbul University in collaboration with the General Directorate of Civil Defence in Istanbul and the Association of Translation, bringing a university, a state and a civil organization together for the purpose of 'contributing to the National Disaster Preparedness Plan'. The efforts in the way of standardizing the voluntary interpretation services given under disaster conditions challenge us, the researchers, with a profound theoretical basis from the status, the role and the position of the interpreter to the group identity and the code of group behavior. The status of the individuals serving voluntarily at disaster sites needs to be discussed with reference to the constraints of role description, expertise, inter-cultural and ethical beliefs. Since IAD is under Community Interpreting by definition, the theoretical and applied work done in the field has been the major source of information in the attempt to define IAD services.