1. Who is [bla] and what does [bla] do?
2. What is simultaneous interpretation?
3. Why is simultaneous interpretation important and useful?
4. What are the advantages of simultaneous interpretation?
5. What kind of events does [bla] want to support?
6. What are [bla]’s conditions to support an event?
7. Which technical equipment does [bla] use?
8. For how many people can [bla] provide technical solutions for simultaneous interpretation?
9. What are [bla]’s technical needs to be able to work?
10. Which information do we need from you to know if we can support your event?
11. Why does [bla] ask for money from events?
11.What does [bla] think about security and surveillance?
1. Who is [bla] and what does [bla] do?
The [bla] Collective is an autonomous interpretation-equipment collective providing technical and organisational support for multilingual activist gatherings.
[bla] operates and maintains the equipment needed for simultaneous interpretation and provides it on a donation basis.
The collective is formed and maintained by volunteers living in several European countries who are themselves involved in grassroots activist groups and networks.
[bla] was formed out of the Reclaim the Fields constellation and with inspiration from the Coati collective who provided interpretation equipment throughout several Reclaim the Fields gatherings. We saw the need to create a new interpretation-equipment collective, given the many and different multi-language meetings that take place in the area of Europe.
[bla] is a non-profit interpretation equipment collective with the principles of DIY and open-source. We work in an anti-hierarchical way with consensus decision-making. We want to help fight domination due to language and make it visible.
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2. What is simultaneous interpretation?
If people who participate in the same meeting don’t have a common language, interpretation is needed. Interpretation is live translation of what is being said in a meeting from one language into another. Simultaneous interpretation is a form of interpretation where people doing the translation listen via headsets to what is being said to then translate it with only a very few seconds of delay into another language.
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3.Why is simultaneous interpretation important and useful?
Language is power!
In multilingual meetings, languages like English, Castellano and French dominate because they were brutally imposed by colonialism. Therefore, people who feel comfortable speaking these languages dominate meetings, as they have for centuries. People who speak “minority” languages often don’t feel comfortable to contribute to discussions because they are not sure if they understand everything correctly, or don’t feel confident expressing themselves. Dominant language knowledge is also clearly related to social class as it impacts mobility, intellectual background, learning opportunities, etc.
We can challenge these colonial and discriminative tendencies in our own meetings through making them visible, and by planning and facilitating meetings in ways that makes communication more equal.
Simultaneous interpretation is a way to facilitate horizontality in decision making processes and discussions. It helps to include people and minority languages. People can listen or speak in whatever language they prefer.
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4. What are the advantages of simultaneous translation?
Simultaneous interpretation is faster than consecutive interpretation. The amount of different spoken languages is only limited by the number of interpreters and equipment. When more than 2 languages are spoken, consecutive interpretation becomes hard work, and impossible with more than 3 languages. Simultaneous interpretation allows multiple languages during a meeting. Thus, minority languages are not only ‘target’ languages (towards which there is interpretation from what is said majority languages) but also ‘source’ languages’ (from which there is translation into the other languages used).
The risk of losing content is lower with simultaneous interpretation as the interpreters don’t have to keep in mind what has been said until the moment of translation. Translated content is closer to the original discourse. “Chuchotage,” or whispering translation is tiring for both interpreters and listeners. Additionally, it undermines minority languages.
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5. What kind of events does [bla] want to support?
We do not work with political parties, or multinational and/or profit based companies; since we question the role they play in a globalised capitalist economy, and do not see any potential for change in working with these entities. We do not work with fascist groups.
We want to work with groups and movements who take concrete actions towards creating a more just and fair society that starts today for the people living in it and do not wait for a golden utopia to arrive one day.
We want to work with those who take concrete actions to fight the power systems (based on social categories such as class, race, gender, age, …) that lead to oppression, and privilege.
We mainly work with bottom-up grass-roots activist networks and groups, as many of them envision an alternative to the concurrent way of life, that we share and are a part of.
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6. What are [bla]’s conditions to support an event?
We want to have a short amount of time (approx. 10 minutes) at the very beginning of an event (official opening) to talk about what we are doing, how and why we do it.
If we feel that the need arises, we want the possibility to talk about discrimination and power systems: namely be able to make statements and talk about feminism, colonialism, language, class dominations, etc.
We decide on the event we go to not only by their political agendas, but according to our own capacities, too. We cannot travel far away all the time due to limited financial and time resources.
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7. Which technical equipment does [bla] use?
For the simultaneous speaking and listening we use radios and transmitters. Imagine a group of people sitting all with their small radios and headphones attached. Everyone gets their own radio and chooses the frequency on which the spoken language is interpreted into the language they feel comfortable with.
The interpreters are sitting on one side of the room. They wear headphones through which they listen to what a speaker is saying on the other side of the room whilst speaking into the assembly microphone. Every person wanting to contribute to the discussion is able to speak in the language in which they feel most comfortable expressing themselves. Therefore, they have to speak into the microphone, so the interpreters understand everything clearly and are able to interpret the dialogue into other needed languages. The interpreter is also speaking into a microphone from which the signal goes into a transmitter and then to the radios of the people. Each language, (e.g. each interpreters team) has its frequency, which is visibly written on a chart, so newcomers can just grab a radio, tune to the needed frequency, and are able to follow and participate in the discussion.
We do have flexible sets as well, that can be used in an open field because they don’t need external power supply. For example, these may be used for workshops of up to 30 people, or can be handy for spontaneously needed discussions during an action.
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8. For how many people can [bla] provide technical solutions for simultaneous interpretation?
[bla] can provide technical solutions for simultaneous interpretation for up to 600 people in one room, or the same amount of people spread over several rooms.
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9. What are [bla]’s technical needs to be able to work?
We need electricity. If electricity does not come from the grid (generator, solar panels, … ) please let us know beforehand. Especially in order to avoid sound issues, the grounding system has to be functional.
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10. Which information do we need from you to know if we can support your event?
– When and where does the event take place?
–What kind of event is it, what happens during the event? Please give some short explanation and a homepage/blog address (providing duration, its purpose, what kind of activities are practiced)
– How many people do you expect?
– Do you already know how and where to get interpreters?
– Which languages will you need interpretation for (both from and to)? How many language groups will there be?
– How many people are there roughly in any of these language groups?
– Is there one language that will be spoken by a relatively large group of participants or will the language groups be around the same size?
– In what language(s) can we communicate with the people who organise the event?
– Will there be a need for interpretation material in several rooms at the same time? Up to how many rooms? (Rooms means every setting where you want interpretation, if you have 10 workshops, some indoors, some outdoors, that would be 10 rooms.)
– What kind of infrastructure is there in terms of rooms where you want interpretation? Housing or tents or other?
– How far is the distance between these different rooms where you want interpretation? How big are the rooms?
– Is it possible to park close to the venue? (to load and unload the equipment)
– Is electricity available? From what source?
– Can you provide a mixing table, a PA or sound system and the necessary cables with it?
– Do you have issues with us using short-distance radio frequencies to transmit the simultaneous interpretation?
– Can you offer food (vegan!) and accommodation for [bla] members during the event? What kind of accommodation?
– Do you offer to pay at least for traveling costs for [bla] members, equipment, and a sum for the wear of the equipment?
Giving complete answers to every question is not essential to your first reply, but the more you answer the better we can check if we are available to meet your needs.
Please don’t hesitate to ask questions if you need clarification on something, or if you are not sure about the kind of information we exactly need from you.
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11. Why does [bla] ask for money from events?
[bla] is a collective offering technical equipment and the knowledge of how to use it to make simultaneous translation possible in a comfortable and affordable way. Parts of our equipment is bought ready made, parts are built by us from electrical parts. In any case, all the equipment or the parts to build it has to be bought and replaced if broken, and it does get damaged by being used.
There is transport to be paid for the equipment but also for the [bla] members who set it up, take care of it and explain how to use it.
Moreover, we decided that we also want to work with people/organisations/collectives who either can’t pay a lot or at all. We consider supporting financially underprivileged people as part of our political goals. This means that – when possible – we want some money on top of our actual costs for solidarity reasons.
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12. What does [bla] think about security and surveillance?
Governments and states, police and justice systems are surveying political (and also many other) activities to keep control and maintain their positions of power. We think it is important to always have that on mind without letting them hinder us to organise and continue working on our political goals. If you have issues with us using short distance radio waves as a means to provide interpretation: please don’t hesitate telling us. Together, we can see if there are other possible solutions. Nevertheless, police can be sitting amongst us at the plenary whether we are using radio frequencies or not.
Communication through Internet with us is always possible via encrypted email: ask us via email.
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