Historial de revisión
Revisión 1.0-0 Thu Jan 29 2009
FACILITATOR’S NOTES
Community Advisory Boards (CABs) made up of local ‘opinion leaders’ are often a key part of community engagement activities. However, it is important to reflect carefully on the way researchers and people in the community communicate and relate to one another. In this story, CAB members do not readily comprehend the study information, yet the researchers are unaware of this. On a superficial level this is about the language used, but underlying this is a deeper issue of power. In the discussion you may wish to consider how the CAB members see the researchers, and what this might mean for transparency when the two groups interact.
LEARNING
OBJECTIVE
To appreciate the challenges involved in communicating with people of different cultural, linguistic, educational, and socio-economic backgrounds, and to consider how these could be addressed in your contextKEYWORDS
Community engagement Dissemination TranslationCOMMUNITY AND FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS HANDOUT Of course we speak English
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OF COURSE WE SPEAK ENGLISH:
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND DISSEMINATING
INFORMATION
‘UM… I HAVE A QUESTION: WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?’
THE STORY
Community Advisory Board (CAB) made up of local ‘opinion leaders’ is attached to an international research station. The CAB members are chosen on the basis of their standing in different groups in the local community: women, teachers, the local administration, religious leaders, people living with HIV/AIDS, etc. The researchers at the station believe these are people who are respected by others in these groups, and are able to explain the research to them as well as raise any concerns or questions from these communities. A condition of joining the CAB is a ‘basic’ ability to read, write and speak in English.
The research station operates in a part of Africa where there are several languages used: English, a national language, and a tribal ‘mother-tongue’. With so much variation, the
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situation is made more complicated because people who appear to be speaking the same language might have different levels of skill and different styles. A highly educated scientist living in town but able to speak mother-tongue, for example, may not speak what local people call the ‘deep’ mother-tongue used by villagers. Equally, the English used by villagers might notbe thesame as the formal English used in scientific work.
At one particular CAB meeting, several research staff present their new studies to the CAB members. They all use different language combinations, but their PowerPoint slides are written in English. One of the speakers tries to use mother-tongue, but this has to be repeated (or re- translated) by another, more local, staff member as people can’t really understand the first time. The other speakers use English, parts of which are translated. Questions by CAB members are usually asked in English.
The next day, a visiting social scientist – a much younger student from overseas – holds a focus group with the CAB members, asking them what they learnt from the meeting. Out of the four projects discussed, the focus group only remember one. They remember all about the disease, which captured their interest, but not the details of the study. They say that there were too many studies discussed, they weren’t given handouts, and that they were people ‘long out of school’, so they ‘need to be taken more slowly’.
The English-speaking social scientist asks them if they found understanding the English difficult. They were indignant! ‘No, we all speak English, that’s why we were chosen!’ ‘True,’ she says, ‘but there are lots of kinds of English. Did you understand me today, when I welcomed you to this discussion?’
‘Well, no,’ they reply. ‘But Amy [the translator] explained it too.’ The social scientist is horrified. ‘But you didn’t tell me! I talked for a long time, and you were all nodding, looking like you were understanding me.’ ‘Well, yes,’ they say. ‘But you were trying hard. And anyway – we speak English too.’
A discussion in English then starts up among the CAB members. The CAB Chairman rebukes some members for just ‘pretending’ to be ‘learned’, and suggests that these people step down in response to the social scientist’s comments. ‘No,’ the social scientist says, ‘I was telling you I think you should step up, and feel free to say if you don’t understand.’
QUESTIONS
How would you describe what happened here? What are the key ethical issues? Why do you think knowledge of English was a requirement for the CAB? Should it be? Was language the only factor in the CAB members’ not remembering the study facts? What other things might have played a role?
COMMUNITY AND FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS HANDOUT Of course we speak English
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Why do you think the CAB members were reluctant to say during the meeting itself that they were finding it difficult to understand?
How about the focus group – could there be different reasons for why they didn’t say they weren’t understanding the social scientist at the start?
What do you think about the CAB chair’s response to the problem? What could this tell the researchers about the community?
Does the limited comprehension of the CAB members matter? What might it mean for the research, both ethically, and in terms of scientific accuracy?
Moving forward, how could communication between the CAB and the researchers be improved?