Research Note: The silenced assistant. Reflections of invisible interpreters and research assistants

Research Note: The silenced assistant. Reflections ofinvisible interpreters and research assistantsapv_1425 206..219

Sarah TurnerDepartment of Geography, McGill University, 805 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Canada.

Email: [email protected]

Abstract: Given the increased attention in anthropology and human geography to the positionalityand reflexivity of researchers completing fieldwork in foreign countries, it is surprising that we stillknow relatively little about how research assistants and interpreters are positioned in the field andtheir own concerns, constraints and coping mechanisms. This article, based on in-depth interviewswith local interpreters/research assistants in Vietnam and China, working alongside Western doctoralstudents researching upland ethnic minority populations, provides space for the assistants’ voices.While reflecting upon their own time in the field, we see how the positionalities of these individualscan have rather unexpected consequences. Furthermore, the assistants’ analyses of particular events,as well as their take on the best way to proceed in specific circumstances can be at odds with thatof their employers, and negotiated coping strategies have to be found. The article concludes withadvice from these assistants regarding how future assistants can make the best of their position, andwhat foreign researchers need to consider in fostering constructive working relationships.

Keywords: China, fieldwork, interpreter, positionality, research assistant, Vietnam

Introduction

Recently there has been much written inanthropology and human geography concern-ing subjectivity and reflexivity and in particularthe impacts that a researcher’s gender, class,ethnicity, age and politics can have on fielddata collection, field experiences, data analysisand interpretation (see, among others, Burgess,1986; England, 1994; Rose, 1997; Dowling,2000; Scheyvens and Leslie, 2000; Kobayashi,2001; Valentine, 2002). Stemming from asocial constructivist approach, this scholarshiphas resulted in many valuable texts concerningthe need to account for one’s positionalityduring field research, either in foreign localesor closer to home. At the same time, debatesover bias and rigour in qualitative researchhave expanded and have further stressed theneed for reflexive approaches, as well as care-fully designed research procedures (see Baxterand Eyles, 1997, 1999; Bailey et al., 1999a, b).Given the vast array of excellent literaturenow available on such topics, it is therefore

somewhat surprising that little has beenwritten about the researcher–research assistant/interpreter relationship. What is more, from thelimited work available – mainly regarding inter-preters, and mostly within health science – Icould find none centred on the voices andopinions of assistants themselves. For all ourprogress within the social sciences to includethe voices of ‘the other’, especially under-represented research subjects and participants,and also our own voices as reflexive resear-chers, a key partner in the research processhas been rendered invisible and effectivelysilenced. As a consequence, we know verylittle about the subjectivity and experiences ofresearch assistants and interpreters from theirown standpoints.

Much research involving qualitative methodsundertaken in a cross-cultural setting involvesthe help of interpreters/research assistants,situating it far from the myth of ‘lone rangerresearch’ (Geertz, 1983; Davidson Wasser andBresler, 1996). Given the vital role that theseindividuals frequently play, and the lack of

Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 51, No. 2, August 2010ISSN 1360-7456, pp206–219

© 2010 The AuthorJournal compilation © 2010 Victoria University of Wellington

doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8373.2010.01425.x

reflexive work to date regarding these assistants,the purpose of this piece is to give space to theiropinions and reflections. I group interpreter/research assistant together as a term in thistext because the two individuals at the heart ofthis piece ‘wore both hats’. In my experience,regardless of job description, interpreters arefrequently called upon to fulfil ‘a cultural con-sultant role’, becoming both interpreter andassistant during fieldwork in cross-culturalsituations (Freed, 1988: 315). Similarly, asTemple and Young (2004: 171) note, ‘the trans-lator always makes her mark on the research,whether this is acknowledged or not, and ineffect some kind of “hybrid” role emerges inthat, at the very least, the translator makesassumptions about meaning equivalence thatmake her an analyst and cultural broker asmuch as a translator’.

In this article I bring together the reflectionsand suggestions of two research assistants/interpreters, one based in China, the other inVietnam, employed by two graduate studentauthors in this special issue. This article is not somuch about the right or wrong ways to workwith interpreters, nor how to go about under-taking cross-cultural research with local assis-tants. The aim is to give voice to the reflectionsof the research assistants/interpreters themselvesregarding their own field experiences and posi-tionalities so that we might better understandtheir agency. Nevertheless, from these narrativesemerge a number of valuable lessons and sug-gestions for future cross-cultural fieldwork.

But let me briefly situate my own experienceswith research assistants/interpreters first. I haveundertaken academic fieldwork with approx-imately 30 research assistants and/or interpret-ers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, China andFrench/English-speaking Canada. I have workedin cross-cultural, cross-gender and cross-language settings, often at the same time, andmy level of language competency has variedin locations where English was not spoken,from near fluent (Indonesia), to nil (China).All, except two of these research assistants/interpreters, have been younger than myself,and just over half were male. In Vietnam, thescene has changed remarkably since my firsttrip to the uplands in 1999. On my first researchvisits I was accompanied by different juniormembers of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sci-

ences (VASS). These assistants were sometimesin internship-like positions, hoping to provetheir worth to senior VASS officials to be hiredas full time Bienˆ che� (permanent state employ-ees), or they were recently promoted Bienˆche� (see Nguyen An Phuong, 2002). Theseassistants were trained in quantitative surveytechniques, were ill-prepared for the qualitativemethods I wished to employ, and appeared veryuncomfortable undertaking interviews withethnic minorities, especially when I asked maleassistants to help me interview ethnic minoritywomen (see Bonnin, this issue). Over time, theneed to bring such assistants to the field hasrelaxed, which I can only presume is a reflec-tion of Vietnam opening up further to outsiders,and perhaps because I have avoided ‘gettinginto trouble’. Nowadays, while still carrying aresearch visa and having completed the appro-priate meetings in Hanoi, I tend to work in theuplands with privately employed research assis-tants, including ethnic minority women whohave learned English from tourists. My fieldexperiences with these women have been someof the most rewarding and enriching to date.Alternatively, when working with male stateemployees in both China andVietnam who holdfaculty or more senior research positions, theseindividuals (and friends) are willing to humourmy ‘odd’ qualitative techniques to a certainextent, especially when collaborating on aresearch project that has financial benefits forthemselves and their team. In China, these rela-tionships have also been tinted by the hope ontheir behalf of visiting Canada for a higherdegree; while I have tried to support suchdreams financially and bureaucratically, theyhave yet to transpire. I am very aware that suchworking relationships are laden with powerimbalances and ethical concerns (see Molonyand Hammett, 2007). Before delving into suchdebates further, however, let us review therather limited literature on research assistantsand interpreters to date.

Ghost-workers

In the social science literature concerningresearch assistants and interpreters, we chieflyfind reports of concerns regarding ethnographictranslation, along with procedures of how towork with interpreters. For example, a body of

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established anthropological texts has focusedon precise translation details and/or the tech-nicalities of the interview process (such asMalinowski, 1923; Casagrande, 1954a, b,1955; Werner and Campbell, 1973; Venuti,2005).1 The concerns of many such authors arewith rigour and process, and how to arrive at a‘correct’ version of an interview transcription.The central worry is therefore how ‘translationproblems’ can be solved. As Temple and Young(2004: 163) have observed, ‘this is the predomi-nant model in much cross language research, ifonly by default’.

Since the late 1980s, a series of articles inthe health science and social work fields hasfocused on the different options available tohealth service providers hiring interpreters.Debates have included whether to hire trainedinterpreters versus friends or relatives of theinterviewees, and the pros and cons of eachapproach (Freed, 1988; Phelan and Parkman,1995). Discussions also centre around commu-nication effectiveness with or without inter-preters (Kline et al., 1980), potential seatingarrangements for effective interviews (Freed,1988; Phelan and Parkman, 1995) and cross-cultural interviewing concerns in social work(Freed, 1988). Again the focus of such articles ispractical and unreflexive, the objective being tosolve ‘problems’ when one is aiming to obtainthe closest interpretation as possible to the origi-nal source – such as undertaking ‘back transla-tion’ to test interpreter skills – and to reachconsensus on what constitutes best practice(Edwards, 1998).2

In one of the few early pieces to discuss theinterpreter’s role and positionality, Phillips(1960: 297) notes that ‘it is clear that the inter-preter’s effect on the informant – on what theinformant may or may not say – is theoreticallyno different from the anthropologist’s effect’.Yet, taking a positivist approach, Philips goes onto note that ‘ideally, the interpreter should benothing more than an agent for transferring mes-sages between the informant and the fieldworker – a kind of passive instrument for theanthropologist’ (Phillips, 1960: 298).

Partly in reaction to such statements, a smallnumber of authors have begun to take a morereflexive stance to analysing working relation-ships with interpreters. Edwards (1998: 197),commenting upon her research on the concerns

of immigrants and refugees in England, arguesthat ‘researchers need to acknowledge that theycarry out interviews with, rather than through,interpreters, and that the latter’s role shouldbe made explicit and be the subject of criticalreflection’. She adds that nearly all socialscience research raises ethical quandaries tosome degree and is riddled with power dispari-ties at a range of scales. There is no exemptionwhen working with interpreters. Noting thatmost academics undertaking research withimmigrants are not from those groups them-selves, she reasons that a reliance on suchinterpreters will be vital, yet questions whythe relationship between interviewer andresearcher is seldom discussed (see also Temple,2002; Temple and Edwards, 2002). Similarly,Temple and Young (2004: 164) suggest that ‘therelationships between languages and research-ers, translators and the people they seek to rep-resent are as crucial as issues of which word isbest in a sentence in a language’. These authorsproblematise the fact that the positionalityof interpreters has been ignored in qualitativeresearch and stress the impact this has onknowledge construction. They argue that thereis no such thing as a neutral position from whichtranslation can take place, and that we mustacknowledge the power relationships inherentin such research (see also Spivak, 1992; Simon,1996; Scott et al., 2006). As such, Temple(2002) suggests that the ‘intellectual auto/biographies’ of researchers and translators bemade part of methodological discussions.

Turning to research assistants specifically,there is a dearth of literature on the roles thatthese individuals play, albeit on occasion theyare labelled ‘field staff’ and the problems ingaining well trained ‘staff’ are noted (Bulmerand Warwick, 1983). One exception, Sanjek(1993), provides an interesting overview ofthe different styles of relationship betweeninformants/assistants and anthropologists thatcharacterised anthropological fieldwork fromthe early 1900s until the 1950s. He notes:

While professional ethnographers – usuallywhite, mostly male – have normally assumedfull authorship for their ethnographic products,the remarkable contribution of these assistants– mainly persons of colour – is not widelyenough appreciated or understood. In nomajor treatment of the discipline is it portrayed

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as a fundamental part of the history of anthro-pology (Sanjek, 1993: 13).

In the anthropological tradition, Sanjek suggeststhat the position of field or research assistant, or‘cultural guide’ became more common from the1930s. Malinowski is often credited with thisshift from relying on one or two participantsfor information with preset questions, to a moreactive fieldwork approach in which peopleinvolved in everyday life and ceremonial activi-ties became objects of observation and targetsof interviews: the official birth of participantobservation. To undertake such interviews, localassistants became increasingly necessary and ‘itbecame common to enlist, and pay, one localcultural guide as a member of the ethnographicteam. This person might translate, introduce,negotiate, gather facts, and even conduct inter-views and write field notes to facilitate the workof the professional ethnographer’ (Sanjek, 1993:14). Karttunen (1994) also provides historicalinsight into the world of interpreters/researchassistants working for missionaries, civil ser-vants, anthropologists and linguists, drawingupon autobiographies and additional secondarysources of 16 such field workers from the 1500sto the current day.

In contemporary research, the multiple rolesof research assistants are briefly mentioned in apiece on collaboration in qualitative researchteams by Davidson Wasser and Bresler (1996).Robson (1994), in a reflexive piece on her timeas a graduate research student in Nigeria, delvesfurther into researcher-research assistant rela-tionships, expressing anxiety about whethershe could discern what was a ‘just’ rather thanexploitative arrangement with her assistants,and noting the potential pitfalls of livingarrangements in the field when assistants ofboth genders accompanied her. Also reflectingupon their time as graduate student researchers,this time in Vietnam, Scott et al. (2006) fittinglyraise concerns regarding the ethnicity of theinterpreters/assistants with whom they workedwhile attempting to interview ethnic minorities,as well as tensions along gender and class lines,concerns also mentioned by Yeh (2006) vis-à-visher fieldwork with different assistants in Tibet.Finally, Molony and Hammett (2007) write ofthe ethical dilemmas surrounding power rela-tions and wealth imbalances with assistants

in the field, and the complications regardingchoosing an appropriate assistant. They provideone of most nuanced articles regarding researchassistants to date.

In sum, while contributions on the roles, posi-tionalities and reflexivity of the researcher havehelped to add depth to our understandingsof cross-cultural research, there still remains agap in our understandings of the researchprocess as a whole due to the lack of attentionpaid to the voices of our interpreters/researchassistants. Indeed, as Temple and Edwards(2002) note, our research is subject to a ‘triplesubjectivity’ involving interactions amongresearcher, research participant/interviewee andinterviewer/research assistant. Yet in our task toput pen to paper and analyse our field data,reflections upon the process of working with aresearch assistant/interpreter have been fre-quently overlooked, and their voices too oftenignored.

Another point of view: Research assistantsand their field experiences

The two research assistants contributing theirvoices here have both worked for Westerngraduate students for a number of months. Theyhave also worked alongside me in the field:Vi inLào Cai province, Vietnam, for one month in2007, and Chloe in Gùizhou province, China,for two weeks in 2009. Given that I know bothassistants and the Canadian graduate studentsfor whom they worked, from the start I wascognisant that what Vi and Chloe said to mewould very likely be biased, as they might wantto portray their employers in the best light(especially as I supervise one of them). While Iconsidered having someone more independentundertake these interviews, upon reflection, thisprobably would have yielded fewer insights.An independent person would have had littleawareness of the tasks the assistants completed,the work circumstances in both uplandsregions, the relationships they had forged withtheir researchers and the difficulties (at leastsome of them) that I already knew they hadfaced. I wanted to probe these more. Therefore,despite the biases introduced by me directingthese interviews, it appeared to be a potentialroute to gain an in-depth understanding ofVi’s and Chloe’s experiences. In attempting to



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reduce partiality I avoided questions about theirresearcher employers, focusing instead on apriori themes of job practicalities, emotionsthey felt during fieldwork, and their own com-ments and suggestions for future research assis-tants, and for overseas researchers working withlocal assistants.

We undertook Vi’s interview in Hà Noiˆ�

,Vietnam in early May 2009, while Chloe’s inter-views, at the end of May 2009, May 2009 werein Zhaoxing village, Gùizhou province, China,where she had worked as an assistant. On bothoccasions, we discussed the purpose of theinterview and the project as a whole before oralinformed consent was granted. Each was givenan opportunity to review or ‘member check’ adraft of the manuscript before publication (seeTurner and Coen, 2008), and both replied withcomments that I have incorporated. I asked bothif they wanted to use their real names in thefinal article or a pseudonym. Vi, in Vietnam,preferred to use a pseudonym that she chose.She stated that this would let her be more openin her comments. Chloe, in China, decidedupon using her ‘Western’ name, which could bethought of perhaps as a semi-pseudonym; onlyWestern researchers and locals familiar with herwork with Westerners know her by this name.

Vi worked in Vietnam with Christine Bonnin,a female graduate student from Canada, foreight months during 2006 and 2007. Their field-work took place in Lào Cai province, a northernmountainous province on the Chinese border,where a large number of ethnic minority peoplelive (see Bonnin, this issue). Vi is of Kinh (major-ity Vietnamese) ethnicity and comes from thelowland province of Nam Ð

�inh, 100 km from

the capital, Hà Noiˆ�

. Nowadays she lives andworks in Hà Noiˆ

�, and when interviewed in

2009 was 25 years old. Chloe worked as aresearch assistant/interpreter with CandiceCornet, also a female Canadian graduatestudent, for four months during 2006 and 2007,after they originally met in 2004. Their field-work took place in Gùizhou province in south-ern China, home to a large Dong ethnicminority population (see Cornet, this issue).Chloe is a Bai (Bái Zú) ethnic minority. She livesin Guìyáng city, the provincial capital ofGùizhou, and was 26 years old in 2009. BothVi and Chloe have university degrees, Vi hasa Bachelor of Arts in English for Technology

Purposes (a degree for interpretation andtranslation), and Chloe has a Masters of Artsin Religion.3

Research assistant/interpreter positionality

Research assistants/interpreters come to thefield with their own preconceptions, values andbelief systems just like any researcher, if onebelieves, as I do, that ‘one’s position within thesocial world influences the way in which yousee it’ (Temple and Young, 2004: 164). Whilethe position of the researcher is sometimesmade visible by authors willing enough todiscuss their positionality and reflexivity, suchas Morton (1995) in her account of fieldworkin Tonga, and Mandel (2003) in Benin, theseelements are just as likely to affect the re-search assistant/interpreter but are consistentlyignored. For the assistants/interpreters at thecore of this story, their positionality is stronglyinfluenced by ethnicity. As is obvious from theother articles in this special issue, in socialistChina, Vietnam and Laos, the state deals withethnic minorities for the most part to ensure thatthe country as a whole moves steadily forwardin its economic progress. As such, minorityoutlooks on concerns such as livelihoods, envi-ronmental sustainability and resource useare frequently overlooked. In the case of theresearch and researchers/assistants involvedhere, these state directives play directly intorelationships forged in the field and into localmajority/minority understandings of the ‘other’.InVietnam, where ethnic minorities are not gen-erally well understood among the lowland Viet-namese majority, the former are commonlydepicted as ‘backwards’ or ‘lazy’ (Hickey, 1993;van de Walle and Gunewardena, 2001; Sower-wine, 2004; World Bank, 2007; Nguyen VanChinh, 2008). These perceptions are shapedby the fact that ‘in a country that invests greatmeasure in recollecting and commemoratingthe past, few minority cultures have indigenousarchives, and are thus categorised as “peopleswithout history” ’ (Turner and Michaud, 2008:160; Scott, 2009). In China, the situation isfairly similar, although with far higher absolutenumbers of ethnic minority populations. In theprovinces where they are the most numerousthey tend to be granted more tolerance bythe state and migrant Han Chinese; however,

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obvious exceptions in politically sensitive areasremain, as in Xınjiang during 2009 (Chiao andTapp, 1989; Gladney, 1994; Baranovitch, 2001;Harrell, 2002).

Given this context, Vi, as a lowland Viet-namese, grew up with cultural television pro-grammes that displayed the material cultureaspects of ethnic minorities, but not muchelse. She had travelled to Sa Pa town in theuplands once before starting employment as anassistant/interpreter there, and rememberedfrom that trip: ‘I didn’t talk to them [the ethnicminorities]. I just looked at them, that’s all . . . Icould not recognise who was Hmong, Yao, likethat . . . Maybe only the Hmong people I couldrecognise because they are on the televisionmany times’. When asked what she thought ofthe different ethnic minority groups she encoun-tered during that first visit, she added, ‘at thattime I had no idea about those people. I had nointent to talk with them, or to find out if they areinteresting or not . . . Of course I still feel thatthey are dirty, even after I meet them and knowthem very well, I still think that they are dirty[laughs]’.

For Chloe, an ethnic minority herself, the situ-ation is clearly different. In our conversationsshe emphasised carefully that she believes it iswrong that some cultures are considered morebackwards than others in China; rather ‘manycultures are just different’. She recounted how,as a school pupil, her Han (majority ethnicChinese) teachers would tell her class that theshaoshu minzu (ethnic minorities) are ‘ “back-wards in production” and very different; theywould stress the difference’. She continuedto explain, ‘I never really believed the teacherbut you were never allowed to say anything.Only at university could you ever speak inclass’. Later she added that perhaps other teach-ers were not so strict and she thought that thesituation might have changed in more recentyears. Chloe had not been to the Dong ethnicminority village where she worked withCandice before they travelled there together in2006. Her first impressions were of ‘a very bigvillage, and beautiful. It hadn’t been des-troyed so much by modernisation. Local peopleseemed simple – pure hearted and friendly’.

Such introductory comments already illus-trate divergent inter-ethnic power relations atplay. While Vi’s knowledge of and interactions

with ethnic minorities increased significantlyover the course of the time she spent in the fieldwith Christine, she retained very specific under-standings of how these groups are different fromlowland Vietnamese. Chloe, on the other hand,appeared more attuned to how state discourseon ethnic minorities is reiterated through dailypractices at the local level. While these inter-pretations are part and parcel of the assistants’daily lives and positionalities, they can becomeeven more accentuated during fieldwork pro-cesses and interactions. If researchers do notreflect upon such elements of their assistant’ssituatedness, the consequences will remainmasked and the rigour of our fieldwork poten-tially compromised.

Alongside ethnicity, a broad spectrum ofother positioning factors are at play in thefield for the research assistant/interpreter. Forexample, it is not necessarily easy for a youngwoman in Vietnam or China (nor in many otherparts of the world) to face up to a governmentofficial and try to elicit information, or perhapseven more stressful, obtain research permissionsfor their employer, an overseas researcher.Research assistants have their own approachesto dealing with such negotiations that theyusually have to devise themselves, on-the-spot,because, at least at the outset of the fieldwork, itis unlikely that the overseas researcher com-prehends a number of the intricacies involvedin these negotiations and relationships. Or, asRobson (1994: 47) puts it, ‘it is common for theresearcher on entering the research environ-ment to find him/herself in the role of naïveidiot’.

Chloe was adamant that the most difficultpeople to try to interview were government offi-cials in the provincial capital city of Guìyáng,and indeed she had never managed to inter-view any. She noted that ‘government officialsseemed indifferent to the [research] project. Wewould call them for information but they wouldsay “no, we’re busy, and you can see all theinformation on the internet” and then theywould hang up’. She added that, in comparison,‘scholars and academics in Guìyáng were moreeasy going, they are people who can relate towhat we are doing and they are doing similarresearch projects’. Similarly, Vi in Vietnamobserved that the most difficult intervieweeswere ‘the men who work for the People’s



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Committee.4 It’s very difficult to get exact infor-mation from them’, adding that this was thecase regardless of the level of governmentadministration, from the provincial to thecommune level.

In China, Chloe observed that it was alwayseasier for Candice and herself to talk withpeople in Zhaoxing village rather than inLípíng (the county level administrative city) orGuìyáng, the provincial capital. She noted thatpeople in the village ‘like talking with others’.When I asked whether gender made a differ-ence to the ease with which they could under-take interviews, she replied, referring to Dongethnic minority interviewees,

men here [in Zhaoxing village] are usuallyeducated so they know the Chinese language,so that makes it easier . . . Men will talk a lot,while women will also talk, but less. Womenwill say, “you should talk to my husband”. . . The older women don’t speak Chinese sothat makes it difficult. This is also about tradi-tional rules . . . it’s normal that men arethe spokesperson for things ‘outside’, whilewomen are ‘about the house’.

She remarked that, in contrast, interviewingmen and women of younger generationsinvolved the same levels of difficulty.

In Vietnam, Vi also found that men wereeasier to interview, although intriguingly thereasoning was quite different, and she reliedon her charm to help get the job done. Sheexplained,

it was easiest for me as a female to interviewthe [Vietnamese] male. They are very interestedin talking. If I’m a female, if I’m interviewing aman, even if he works for the market manage-ment, or People’s Committee they are veryinterested in me, except for the ones alreadymarried. The free men . . . Because they think Iam from Hà Noiˆ

�, so I must have interesting

information and a lovely way to talk . . .Being female is a plus . . . You must be inter-esting, you must have a lot of informationabout the world outside, so if you are a girl it isa plus for them to talk.

I explored whether this had led the men to flirtwith her or ask her out on a date, to which Vireplied:

No, never. Because if I make the signal, thenthey think ‘ok this girl is very easy I can go outwith her’. But I do not, I just come here, andI try to be friendly but not too close tothem . . . But if we are friendly with them,then they will give us priority and goodinformation.

Interestingly then, for quite different reasons,both research assistants found cross-genderinterviewing easier. This is not always intuitivefor researchers from the West entering a newresearch field, and a common assumption isthat female assistants will be more comfortableinterviewing females; likewise male assistantsinterviewing men. Research tactics differedregarding how the assistants tried to draw infor-mation from participants, based in part ongender dynamics. As such, their agency influ-enced how the production of data was a socialprocess, shaped by a multitude of identityfactors (see Pratt, 2010). Such findings signal theimportance of discussing interview dynamicswith assistants/interpreters before, during andafter the fieldwork process. This can shed lighton erroneous assumptions and lead to new,potentially more rewarding approaches in thefield. It can also result in far more nuancedunderstanding of local gender dynamics.

The task at hand

‘Speech is like the wind, and if you don’trecord something straight away then you’llforget’ (Vi, 14/5/09).

I asked both Vi and Chloe to define the jobthat they had held in their own words. Chloereplied, ‘before Candice arrived she alreadysent me a plan of her research so I knew what itwas about, and what she wanted to do. Then wedo interviews, observations, “free talking” andwe discuss a little bit. I helped Candice to inter-view people and talk with them, ask themquestions, translate answers to Candice’. Shecontinued to describe the tasks in more detail:

I would also contact people in the village,book the hotels for her, book airline tickets forher, call bureau directors that Candice wants tointerview. I would explain Candice’s researchtopic to the people that I rang, such as: “I amco-operating with a foreigner who is a PhD

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student, her main topic is related to minorityculture and tourism, can you help us?” Nor-mally people will co-operate with us, but con-tacting people wasn’t so easy . . . people don’tknow what it is we do, I have to explain a lot.It was easier in the village because if someonewas busy then we could come back the nextday.

Chloe then continued to note the difficultiesinvolved in her position,

my job as RA was very difficult. I had to inter-view, then we [Chloe and Candice] would goover the tape together, and translate to Englishas we listen. I then would also transcribe thetape later in the evening to Chinese. . . . OftenI would work from 9am to 9pm . . . And ifCandice didn’t understand something duringthe interview, I would have to translate duringit, and then often the person being interviewedwanted to also know what Candice was saying. . .

Vi likewise described both interpreter andresearch assistant aspects of her employment,and the multi-tasking this involved,

the job is mainly interpreter, and sometimesI work as, like, co-ordinator . . . I mean I haveto arrange the interview between the otherpeople and Christine . . . in advance . . . I haveto ask them, maybe with the ones in Si Ma Caifor example [market management people,hotel owner, people in market], we tell themwhen we will arrive next time. So I have tokeep in touch with them, to make sure thatnext time they will receive us. I try to text themto say ‘how are you’ and ‘thank you’ . . . blah,blah, blah . . . it’s like keeping in touch.

Vi continued to clarify the parts of her role shefelt were important: ‘I try to remember abouttheir [interviewees] history, about their life, sonext time I remember and ask, so that they think“oh this girl she’s considerate about our lives,she remembers what we talked about before” soit’s easier to talk with them’.

Vi also illustrated the difficulties of her jobwhen interviewing,

in the interview, I have to ‘break the ice’. AndI have to make the questions in my way.Because sometimes you [the researcher] askthis, but I do not directly ask that question

because based on my knowledge it’s toostraight to that person or it’s too difficult forthem to answer . . . Too straight into theirlife . . . It’s that saying ‘if you go to Rome, actlike in Rome’.

Such comments point to the vital cultural brokerrole played by research assistants and theircentral part in allowing the researcher’s work toproceed smoothly. Again, because much of thisoccurs in the language of the people being inter-viewed, it is not always immediately obviousto Western researchers that careful negotiationsand social positioning are being undertaken byresearch assistants, as well as the potential stressand anxiety that this can cause. More reflec-tion by researchers upon these dynamics couldpotentially lead to reduced faux pas in the field,and a more positive work relationship betweenresearcher and research assistant. Yet, at thesame time, it is naïve to think that one’sresearch assistant is likely to voice concerns oranxieties over interviewing style or their roleopenly, especially if they are dependent onthe researcher for immediate employment,advancement in their (state) career or a letter ofrecommendation. Researchers must ascertaindiscreetly and diplomatically how the researchassistant is viewing fieldwork and any concernshe or she might have.

Eliciting emotions

I ran through a series of emotions with both Viand Chloe to elicit spontaneous reflections ofspecific events in the field that had left lastingimpressions on them. These included when theyhad felt happy, sad, angry, anxious and frus-trated. The time when Vi, in Vietnam, had feltthe happiest ( hanh

�phúc) was not directly

linked to her employment as a researchassistant/interpreter but was an event that hadoccurred while she was ‘off duty’ in the field.She had been able to assist a young, illiterateHmong woman in obtaining a passport, byhelping her complete the paperwork. Vi statedthis was her happiest field moment ‘becauseafter a while I understand their life and I thinkthat I cannot give them money, so I can dosomething else for them’. She continued to notethat ‘their life is not as good as our life, and also,some girls are still very small, and they deserve



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to know more about the world, not just Sa Pa’.In contrast, Chloe, in a comment that was morefocused on the research task at hand, noted thatshe felt the happiest (kuài lè) ‘if we interviewedsomeone and he or she told us somethinginteresting, that was very helpful to Candice’sresearch, and if it was a new thing for me too’.

When I asked if she had felt sad (buon� ) whileworking as a research assistant/interpreter, Vireplied with a smile that she thought she hadbeen bored more often than sad, observing that‘sometimes I felt it was very boring to be aninterpreter there. No friends to talk with, and ofcourse because I have to speak English all day,so it’s like I live in a foreign country’. However,elements of both sadness and anxiety enteredthe conversation as she then remarked, ‘Imissed home. And I think maybe this job is notfor women . . . it’s like a temporary job, so Ithink about when I come back [to Hà Noiˆ

�],

what will I do’, clarifying that she had beenworried about her future after this position.Chloe was less inclined to discuss this emotion,only noting that she felt sad (sháng xin) ‘if I worka lot . . . (laughing) . . . if I’m too tired’.

Vi described the time when she had been themost angry ( tu c�´ gianˆ

�) in what appeared to be

very restrained terms (compared with whatI had already heard from her companionresearcher, Christine). Vi remembered that ‘Inever feel very angry, except for one time, Ithink it was so crazy. In Si Ma Cai market, a manthere tried to force me to drink and he touchedme [on my side] and I was very angry. And Ithink “I cannot do this any more!” . . . he was aKinh person, he was not polite’. In contrast,Christine’s version of the event, detailed to mewith a great deal of concern, was that the manhad slapped Vi on the face. Vi’s toned downcomment might have been for my benefit, or amove to try to put the experience behind her.Regardless of motive, of her own accord, shehad a very different interpretation of the event ayear later from her researcher-employer, a pointthat I return to later.

Vi noted that meeting new people did notmake her anxious (lo âu), and because she feltfairly confident in such situations, that did notconcern her. She commented instead that it wasthe long distances that they had had to travel onmountainous roads that had made her verynervous (and car sick), clearly adding another

layer of fatigue to the process. Talking throughsuch anxieties also reminded me of previousVietnamese research assistants who werenervous working in the uplands because of themalevolent spirits and ghosts they believedresided there (see Scott et al., 2006). This begsthe question, how many Western academicswho are going to work in a foreign context thinkto ask their research assistants if there are badspirits and ghosts where they will be working,and whether the assistant will be comfortablewith the situation?

When asked if she had become frustratedwhile on the job, Vi replied:

I’m not sure about that, but sometimesit’s more like I get confused [khòng bietˆ làmthe naò]. Like sometimes I cannot understandChristine with her questions! She repeats thequestions! Why? She doesn’t understand me?Sometimes she asks the question and I ask theother [person], and maybe it’s not clear andshe ask another question on it. But I thinkit’s already clear enough to answer all herquestions.

Vi continued to explain that after a while shecame to understand Christine’s motives – tryingto gain clarification on a specific point, or makecertain that the question had been fully under-stood by the interviewee – yet Vi consideredsuch repetition unhelpful. ‘To Vietnamese if weask the same question but in a different way,they will think we are very silly. Then they arenot very interested in answering the questions’.Vi raises important points here regarding first,the importance for Western researchers to makesure their interpreter/research assistant under-stands the specific types of information beingsearched for, and that second, research assis-tants themselves are often better placed to iden-tify the most appropriate way to conduct aninterview.

Chloe’s frustration (bú nài fán) was, one mightsay, the other side of the coin, as she com-mented that she felt the most frustrated when‘we are interviewing someone and they don’treally understand what we’re getting at; theyanswer but it’s not what we want [to get at]’. Shecontinued to note that it was also frustratingwhen some people in the village did not want tocooperate with them. She gave an example of alocal hotel owner whom Candice and Chloe

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had known for over three years; when theyreturned in 2009 to ask him a few questions, hestated (while hung over), ‘I have nothing to tellyou’. Chloe explained ‘such a time makes usfeel awkward and embarrassed’.

The different emotions revealed here arosefrom a diverse range of circumstances to whichthe assistants brought their own locally appro-priate coping mechanisms. The complexity ofthe multiple tasks they undertook is revealed inthe nuanced reflections upon their positionality.Giving voice to these assistants allows us todelve more deeply into the ‘triple subjectivity’that is ongoing in the fieldwork process. Itis clear that their responses are not thosethat outside researchers would automaticallyassume, again highlighting the importanceof keeping communication channels openbetween researcher and assistant. Cross-culturalempathy is as important with research assistantsas it is with interviewees.

Practical advice from the professionals

Undoubtedly, Vi and Chloe are well placedto provide us with sound advice as to howone might best cope as a research assistant/interpreter working with an overseas researcher,and how researchers can help make theworking relationship succeed. The following area few of their key suggestions.

Skill requirements for researchassistants/interpreters

I asked both research assistants which qualitiesor skills they thought were required to helpthem complete their role. In China, Chloereplied that the research assistant’s relationshipwith the researcher was of utmost importance.She explained, ‘you have to get on really wellwith the person you’re going to be workingwith. And if you can’t get on really well withthem as a friend, at least you have to try to workvery well together’.

Additionally, Chloe observed that the rela-tionships that the assistant develops in the fieldwith local people were essential to the field-work proceeding smoothly, explaining that ‘youhave to learn about the local people and bewilling to interact with them. You have to learnabout their way of life and be willing to sit and

chat with them’. In Vietnam, Vi also remarkedupon the importance of being able to empathisewith interviewees and adapt the interviewprocess to meet interviewees’ abilities andexpectations. She clarified,

if you go to talk to a simple, poor person,you have to act like you are simple too. Youshouldn’t be ‘high thinking’. But with thepeople that work for the People’s Committeeyou have to be very strong, very educated, likevery professional. . . . But the other before, ifyou act like you are powerful, then they will beafraid of you, and think “oh, is that right, or isthat wrong?” For them you have to use softvoice and ask short questions. But for the Peo-ple’s Committee, or with a leader of some-thing, you have to be very confident.

Vi’s first priority regarding the skills a researchassistant needed, however, was that one hasto be strong and healthy. She explained thatthis was so that ‘they would not be exhaustedwhen making interviews. Because if you areexhausted you cannot do it properly. Forexample, if I am exhausted, I know the ques-tions, but I do not care much about the questionor answer. So that’s not good enough’. Vi alsonoted, in a comment that links back to the frus-trations that she had felt during her field period,that the assistant and researcher have to be onthe same page with regard to the questionsbeing asked, and what sort of information theresearcher is trying to elicit:

If you [the interpreter] do not understand thequestion of the researcher, you have to ask. . . Because sometimes maybe you think thatyou know, but the actual content, the informa-tion that they want to get is not similar, so Ithink it’s better that you know the questionwell. For example, if you ask me “do you likeit?” – but I do not understand – “do you like itin what way”?

Don’t be arrogant: Advice for newresearchers to the field

Vi and Chloe both thought carefully about theiradvice for new graduate students or researchersarriving from overseas to work in their respec-tive countries. Chloe remarked,



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you have to get on with the research assistant.You [the researcher] can’t be arrogant and youhave to be natural. Try to be friendly with theassistant. But when you are working you mustalso be serious, so that the research assistantunderstands that there’s an important job tobe done. If you always joke around then theresearch assistant will too – but there’s time forthat after the work is done each day.

She continued to add, ‘Try to learn about thelocal culture and be friendly with the localpeople and also try to learn a little Chinesein advance, to make it easier for the researchassistant’.

In Vietnam, Vi also stressed the importanceof researchers being friendly with their assistant/interpreter, while adding a cultural nuance toher reply:

To be honest, if you want to work with Viet-namese it’s kind of difficult . . . Because we donot work because we have to work, sometimeswe work based on our feeling. So if you actlike the boss of the interpreter you will not geta good result. So if you are friendly with theinterpreter, you say that you need their help,and you have to discuss before the work.Because the interpreter, like me for the firsttime with Christine, I was so nervous, becausethis is my first time, and “oh this is a PhDresearch this is very big, and I haven’t evenfinished my BA degree so how can I help her?”So you have to encourage the interpreter . . .

Vi continued that a researcher has to be ‘halfboss, half friend. I think it’s very difficult.Because if the interpreter likes you, she or hedoesn’t mind to do anything, anything. But if Idon’t like you, even if you pay me the money,then I do it, but it’s not as good as you expectit’.

In comparison, in one of the few previousarticles to mention researcher–research assistantrelationships, Robson (1994: 47) notes that as agraduate researcher she worked hard not tobecome too friendly with her assistants. Sheexplained, ‘keeping some distance was neces-sary for the maintenance of our good workingrelationships’. Similarly, Chloe and Vi point tothe very careful balancing act required betweenfriendship, professionalism and avoiding theappearance of arrogance.

Conclusion: Researchers and assistantstogether make for successful fieldwork

Research assistants/interpreters are individualswho are part and parcel of the knowledgeproduction process, and as such we should beobliged to write them into our understandings ofour field experiences and the results that weproduce. We need to stop ignoring the position-ality and subjectivity of research assistants/interpreters in social science qualitativefieldwork, as these factors influence numerousrelationships, negotiations and differentialaccess to interviewees and resources.

Yet perhaps this article has raised morequestions than answers regarding the nuancesof research assistant positionalities and thetriple subjectivity among local researchassistants/interpreters, foreign researchers andinterviewees. For example, what are the levelsof complexity added when working with inter-viewees for whom the language of the inter-view is the interviewee’s second language,such as ethnic minorities? In both the Dongvillage in China and in Hmong communitiesin Vietnam, Chloe and Vi were using the lan-guage of the dominant ethnic group in thecountry (Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese) toconverse with interviewees who had an ethnicminority language as their mother tongue.Numerous differential power relations andpolitics are at play in these circumstances thatshould be investigated more fully (see Alcoff,1991). While the obvious solution is for theoverseas researcher to spend a very long timein the field learning ethnic minority lan-guage(s) and local dialects, often the practi-calities of fieldwork and researchers’ access tothese locales means that this solution is unten-able. This is frequently the case in socialistChina, Vietnam and Laos.

Furthermore, the comments that Vi madewhen she was ‘touched’ (her words) or ‘slapped’(the researcher’s words) by a Vietnamese manduring an interview in a rural market raise thequestion as to whether both research assistant/interpreter and researcher should be inter-viewed concerning specific fieldwork events tocompare situated knowledges. When I sent adraft of this article back to Vi for member check-ing, she reflected further on my comments here,adding, ‘for me, it is because of the culture, and

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the place we were in’ (11/9/09). Consequently,if details of such events are going to be writteninto a researcher’s work, whose report is themost accurate? The person to whom the eventoccurred with the greater awareness and under-standing of her own culture and its norms, orthe culturally out-of-place researcher writing upthe account? How should this knowledge beconstructed? And who should decide?

Such telling comments by research assistantsalso demonstrate that we must be doubly sen-sitive to the emotions and concerns of thosewhom we work alongside, even if we believewe are already. While undertaking fieldwork –and for graduate students this can be theirfirst time undertaking long-term fieldworkaway from family and friends – how oftendo we carefully reflect upon the feelings ofour employees? While research assistants/interpreters may be in their own country, do wemake assumptions that the task is easier forthem than it actually is? Evidently, they toomight be in a very foreign, unfamiliar situationand physical location for the first time, awayfrom family and friends, and coping with anumber of uncertainties, anxieties and mixedemotions. Keeping the communication chan-nels open is therefore vital for the emotionalwell-being of one’s assistant, a positive relation-ship between researcher and assistant, and forproblems to be resolved more quickly.

More broadly, to what degree should researchassistants be part of the data interpretationprocess? Time and cost are unmistakable factorsin this regard. Such an inclusive approachis dependent on the length of time one hasto work with a specific research assistant/interpreter, on funding, and for graduate stu-dents, on other degree requirements. This alsodepends on the interpreter/research assistant’swillingness to be further engaged with theresearch project at hand.

Perhaps one of the most revealing take-homepoints I learnt from these interviews came whenI asked Vi, at the end of our interview, if she hadany other comments that she wanted to add or,given her skills at asking interview questions, ifthere was a question I should have asked her.She replied:

If you ask me a question about the future of theresearch assistant, if they want to work like this

for their whole life . . . to me it’s no. Because atfirst we have to go far away from the family,and if we get married we cannot do it. And alsothe ones who want to get promoted they wouldnever do it. So mostly the research assistantswho assist the students like yours, they wouldnever do it again, like when we get the job likeme now [assistant manager in a Western oper-ated firm].

Vi continued to note that now she would preferto work in Hà Noiˆ

�rather than travelling far

away, such as to upland areas, and that ‘even ifyou paid me a lot, [the answer is] no. So usuallyyou get the ones who have just graduated whoare very young and are willing to move faraway’. This, in itself, undoubtedly raises anumber of concerns for researchers who maywant to continue to work with a specific inter-preter or translator over a long period, espe-cially if they feel that they have invested a lot oftime, energy and funds into the training of anassistant. All told, we have to remember thatthese assistants are not just here to assist; theyare individuals with their own socio-culturalpositioning and their own life goals and dreams.Continuing to assist us might not be part ofthat dream.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Chloe and Vi for theirgenerosity in time, not only in completing theinterviews for this article, but also in providingfurther insights and feedback on an earlier draft.Many thanks also go to Stephane Gros, CatrinaMacKenzie, Lynne Milgram and Steffanie Scottfor their comments, and to Laura Schoenbergerfor research assistance.

Notes

1 There is of course a whole linguistic sub-branch ofanthropology, as well as literary criticism, regarding theconstruction and discourses of texts, but that movesaway from my central concern here about the actualpeople who undertake these roles.

2 Back translation, also called double translation, is aprocess whereby one interpreter translates either spokenor written English into a second language, that version isthen translated back by a second interpreter, and the twoversions are compared (Werner and Campbell, 1973;Edwards, 1998). The process can be used either in deter-mining the skills of potential interpreter or to add rigour



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to the actual research process (see also Marin andMarin, 1991). In my experience, it would be rare to havethe opportunity to hire interpreters/research assistants insuch a manner when undertaking fieldwork in China,Vietnam or Laos, given the relative lack of available,keen, skilled applicants.

3 On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being fluent, at the timewhen they were working together, in Vietnam I wouldrank Vi’s spoken English as about 6, improving over theresearch period to 8, and the graduate student for whomshe worked having Vietnamese fluency ranked 2–3 atthat time. In China, Chloe’s spoken English was 5, whilethe graduate student’s Chinese was 6–7; hence therewere different variations in language skills between eachresearcher–assistant team, adding further nuances totheir relationships.

4 The People’s Committee is the executive branch of theVietnamese Government. It operates at each bureau-cratic level, namely national, provincial, district andcommune.

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Research Note: The silenced assistant. Reflections of invisible interpreters and research assistants

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