Intercultural mediation at the end of life. Different perceptions of the same process

The aim of this study was to identify the perceptions of palliative care professionals with regards to the management of patients from a different culture, and if there is a need to incorporate an intercultural mediator. To understand the influence of the intercultural mediator as a facilitator in the decision making of the patient and family at the end of life. The methodological approach is centered in pluralism, reinforced by triangulation of data and information. The intercultural mediator is crucial because they can provide light in a multitude of conflict situations caused by lack of knowledge about the patient's culture. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd

Comprender y construir la mediación intercultural = Understanding and developing the intercultural mediation

Ante la relativamente nueva introducción de la denominada mediación intercultural en el escenario del trabajo con la inmigración extranjera en España, se han multiplicado los debates y posiciones sobre la figura profesional que ha de ejercer tal actividad de mediación intercultural. Para contribuir a dichos debates aportamos el resumen de los resultados de un estudio que pretende delimitar el perfil del llamado "mediador o mediadora intercultural". El estudio ha consistido básicamente en hacer un recorrido por tres fuentes de información fundamentales: la formación que se ha proporcionado a mediadores y mediadoras interculturales en diferentes contextos europeos, las características y competencias que se les han atribuido y, por último, las funciones que se dice debe cumplir la mediación. Estos tres ámbitos de información deben dar respuesta adecuada al perfil del mediador o mediadora intercultural, destacando en especial su delimitación profesional, las proximidades y relaciones con otras profesiones y, en especial, el tipo de formación necesario para la capacitación profesional.In the face of the relatively new introduction of the named intercultural mediation in the context of work with foreign immigration in Spain, debates and positions on the professional figure that intercultural mediation has to be wielded have multiplied. In order to contribute to such debates, we provide the summary of the results of a study that aims to delimit the profile of the so called ‘’intercultural mediator’’. The study basically consisted of taking a tour for three fundamental sources of information: The training provided to intercultural mediators in different European contexts, the characteristics and competences attributed to them, and lastly, the functions that are said to be fulfilled by the mediator. These three aspects of information must give an adequate answer to the ’intercultural mediator’ profile, highlighting his professional delimitations, the proximities and relations with other professions, and especially, the type of training required for the vocational training

the role of intercultural mediation

Migration is generally described as a process that is nationally specific and that have features common to several countries. This has been shown by several authors through comparative research that compares the migration process of the same immigrant group to several countries (among others, Engbersen, Snel, & de Boom, 2010) or which scrutinises the migration realities of different countries (Zimmermann, 2005). Most of these studies are about geographically near countries, which are part of the same political system (the EU), and that have an established (albeit differentiated) welfare system. These proximities (geographical, but also political and social) allowed the authors of these studies to conceptualise the existence of several migration models or regimes: the southern European model (Baldwin-Edwards, 2012), the Iberian model of Migration (Malheiros, 2012); the intra-EU mobility regime (Engbersen et al., 2017). These migratory regimes are intertwined by migrant integration models or by different approaches to increasingly diverse populations. Although these are often identified as ‘national models of integration’, they do not fail to integrate the developments that have been recorded in the last decades in the international contexts in which the countries are inserted. Throughout the present text, the Portuguese experience in dealing with immigrant integration is used to reflect on the development of intercultural policies and practices, and on the role of intercultural mediation. The article is structured in the following way: in the introductory section we will review the discussion on interculturalism; in a second section the Portuguese immigration context will be presented; in a third section the integration of immigrants in the country will be analysed, given special attention to the development of policies that support immigrants’ integration process. In the fourth section, the role of intercultural mediation for the integration of immigrants will be considered.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Interface and Interaction Design Patterns for Intercultural Collaboration

This paper reports about on-going research into interaction design patterns in intercultural remote collaboration. It proposes that interaction and interface design patterns help to communicate and generate new design knowledge in supporting intercultural teamwork. It describes methods used to observe and develop design patterns in collocated, remote and blended collaborative learning and design contexts, and reports preliminary findings of interface and interaction design patterns, which support intercultural remote collaboration

Interpreters and cultural mediators – different but complementary roles

This article considers the roles of medical interpreters and cultural mediators and proposes that the two should be seen as separate. In the last six years cultural mediators have been trained in Ireland not to be interpreters but to help immigrants from other countries to access and use healthcare services as well as mediating in situations of conflict between health service providers and patients. Meanwhile, interpreters have been hired to bridge the language gap. Codes of ethics for medical interpreters and competencies of cultural mediators are considered in order to clarify role boundaries and to explore similarities and differences between the two roles

Translation as a mediating activity: the influence of translation metaphors in research, practise and training of community interpreting

Entre las metáforas que muchos autores han utilizado para describir la traducción está la de la mediación. Una ojeada a la bibliografía publicada en las últimas décadas sobre interpretación en los servicios públicos nos permite comprobar hasta qué punto esa visión del intérprete como mediador está presente en muchas de las obras escritas al respecto. La idea de que el papel del intérprete no se reduce únicamente a la de reproductor de enunciados lingüísticos se halla latente en muchos de ellos. En este artículo, pretendemos analizar la influencia de esta metáfora de la mediación en las propuestas realizadas por los investigadores de este ámbito y comprobar cuál ha sido su repercusión en la investigación, la práctica y la docencia.G.I. HUM 767 (ayudas a Grupos de Investigación de la Junta de Andalucía) / Editorial Comares (colección interlingua

Examining the cultural appropriateness of the communicative approach to language teaching in Japan.

The communicative approach has been one of the most successful and widely-used second language teaching approaches in the latter part of the twentieth century and the early stages of the twenty-first century. Yet despite its tremendous influence, some have questioned its universal applicability, particularly in Asian learning contexts. Ellis (1996) is one such critic, who argues that the communicative approach ought to be adjusted to fit what he claims are collectivist, form-focussed Asian learning contexts. This paper aimed to evaluate Ellis’s (1996) claims, particularly in relation to English language teaching in Japan. In doing so, it was shown that the ‘one-size-fitsall’approach adopted by Ellis (1996) in relation to categorising Asian learning contexts is overly simplistic. In fact, despite the prevalence of what he refers to as a contentoriented approach in many formal language learning contexts in Asia, many nonformal learning contexts – such as eikaiwa (English conversation classes) in Japan–successfully utilise the communicative approach. Moreover, this paper demonstrated that the notion of Western English teachers acting as ‘cultural mediators’ in Asian language learning settings is fraught with difficulty. Not only is it problematic trying to isolate what culture or cultures a person is said to represent, but also many Western English teachers teaching in countries such as Japan may not be in a position to truly claim to have an in-depth understanding of the culture in which they find themselves living and working

Interlinguistic and intercultural mediation in healthcare settings

The paper investigates the role of interlingustic intercultural mediators in healthcare settings, where they act both as responders, affiliating with the patient in a two-party interaction, and as translators/coordinators, formulating the affective gist of the mediator-patient conversation for the doctor

Intercultural mediation, intercultural communication and translation

The role of translator as intercultural mediator has received greater attention in translation studies since the ‘cultural turn’ of the 1990s. This paper explores the question of intercultural mediation as an activity in intercultural communication and the ways this applies to translation. It takes as its starting point the idea that mediation is fundamentally an interpretive act, through which meanings that have been created in one language are communicated in another. The paper seeks to understand how the practices of intercultural mediation are realised in translation and argues that mediation is a process that involves aspects that are internal to the translator (mediation for the self) and aspects that are oriented to the reader of the target text (mediation for others), which are, in turn, linked through selective processes of determining what resources are needed to enable a target text reader to understand a source text meaning

The Global People toolbook: managing the life cycle of intercultural partnerships

This Toolbook has been designed for those who are planning and running international projects and who feel a need for guidance. It has its origins in a major educational project, the eChina-UK Programme, that created new collaborations between UK and Chinese Higher Education Institutions around the development of e-learning materials. The rich intercultural learning that emerged from that programme prompted the development of a new and evidence-based set of resources for other individuals and institutions undertaking international collaborative projects. Although the main focus of the work is on intercultural effectiveness in international contexts, we believe that many of the resources have a more general value and are useful for those planning collaboration in any situation of diversity – national, regional, sectoral or institutional