Introduction : responding to the 21st-century migration challenge : community interpreting in the European periphery

Ross, Jonathan Maurice (author), Mikolič Južnič, Tamara (author)

This article explains the thematic focus of the current special issue, a collection of contributions that deal on macro and meso levels with the evolution of community interpreting services in the 2010s and early 2020s in what could be considered the 'European periphery', i.e., countries in Southeastern and East Central Europe. In this period, countries as varied as Turkey, Poland and Hungary were faced with massive and sudden flows of asylum-seekers and other migrants from the east, south and southeast, creating unprecedented challenges for effective communication between users and providers of public services. Due to the paucity of existing infrastructure for community interpreting, as well as the lack of interpreters with the required cultural and linguistic competencies, national and local governments, international organisations, NGOs, and individual interpreters and administrators often improvised and resorted to ad hoc remedies. The article suggests that some of the problems that arose in the field and that are addressed in the articles in the special issue (e.g., the role of the community interpreter and the status of cultural mediators) were not new and had a long-standing presence within the literature on community interpreting. It also shows how the responses of national and international bodies to the so-called refugee crisis can be conceptualised within the framework of humanitarian interpreting; when understanding the behaviour of individual interpreters, moreover, insights can be gained from the burgeoning field of research on non-professional interpreting.

• Language: English
• Keywords: migration, community interpreting, humanitarian interpreting, non-professional interpreting, interpreting policy
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.03 - Other scientific articles
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 7-26
• Numbering: Vol. 5, iss. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-190502
• UDC: 81'253
• ISSN on article: 2784-5826
• DOI: 10.4312/stridon.5.2.7-26
• COBISS.SI-ID: 264399619
• Publication date in RUL: 02.11.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Stridon : journal of studies in translation and interpreting
• Publisher: Založba Univerze v Ljubljani
• ISSN: 2784-5826
• COBISS.SI-ID: 68759811

Licences

• License: CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Description: This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Odzivi na izziv migracij v 21. stoletju : skupnostno tolmačenje na evropskem obrobju

Abstract

V članku je predstavljen tematski fokus posebne številke, v kateri so zbrani prispevki, ki obravnavajo makro in mezo ravni razvoja skupnostnega tolmačenja na evropskem obrobju v drugem in tretjem desetletju 21. stoletja. V tem času so se različne države, kot so Turčija, Poljska in Madžarska, soočile s povečanimi in nenadnimi tokovi prosilcev za mednarodno zaščito in drugih migrantov z vzhoda, juga in jugovzhoda, kar je povzročilo izzive brez primere na področju učinkovite komunikacije med uporabniki in izvajalci javnih storitev. Zaradi pomanjkljivosti obstoječe infrastrukture za skupnostno tolmačenje, pa tudi zaradi pomanjkanja tolmačev s potrebnimi kulturnimi in jezikovnimi kompetencami, so nacionalne in lokalne oblasti, mednarodne organizacije, nevladne organizacije in posamezni tolmači in upravni uslužbenci pogosto improvizirali in posegali po ad hoc rešitvah. V prispevku izpostavljamo, kako nekatere težave, ki so se pojavile na terenu in ki so obravnavane v prispevkih posebne številke (npr. vloga skupnostnega tolmača in status kulturnega mediatorja), niso nove, saj se že dolgo pojavljajo v literaturi o skupnostnem tolmačenju. Prav tako je prikazano, kako odziv nacionalnih in mednarodnih organov na t. i. begunsko krizo lahko razložimo v okviru humanitarnega tolmačenja, pri razumevanju vedenja posameznih tolmačev pa se lahko opremo na naraščajočo množico raziskav o neprofesionalnem tolmačenju.

• Keywords: migracije, skupnostno tolmačenje, humanitarno tolmačenje, neprofesionalno tolmačenje, tolmaška politika