Khadeegha Albouezi & Kate Pahl ~ University of Sheffield
Dilemmas of translation and identity: 
ethnographic research in multilingual homes
This presentation will draw on ethnographic research in multilingual settings, and focus on life history work in homes. 
The first study is of women’s life histories and literacy practices at home, drawing on observations and interviews with women from the Yemeni community in Sheffield. The second is a study of a Turkish woman’s written life stories, which forms part of a longer study of the family’s communicative practices at home. 
The presentation will explore how language issues affected the informants’ views of the researchers and presented ethical dilemmas. In one case, the researcher spoke the same language, Arabic, as the informants and was identified as being similar to them. Issues then arose as assumptions were made about what the researcher would implicitly know or not know. The researcher in this case found that sensitive data was implicitly understood by the informants as being unusable for the research study, creating an interpretative challenge. In the case of the Turkish household, translation issues became imperative, as the type of written language used for the life stories needed careful and sensitive understanding, embedded as it was within the life story of the informant and in the end translators agreed that the researcher herself should learn Turkish. In both cases, ethical issues arose as a result of these experiences. 
The focus of the presentation will be on the reflexive space of linguistic ethnography in multilingual homes of women, and how women researchers negotiate that space, and engage with these dilemmas.