The experiences of interpreters working in a medium secure forensic mental health unit: and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

People from ethnic minorities are vastly over-represented within forensic mental health services in the UK and Wales. Within one medium secure forensic mental health unit (MSU) in London, 20.48% of patients detained in March 2012 did not speak English. Extensive legislation prescribes that there must be equal access for all to health services. Due to the paucity of bilingual workers, interpreters are a necessity. There are significant gaps in the research literature about the work of interpreters in forensic mental health. The current study set out to explore the experiences and understandings of interpreters who have undertaken interpreting jobs in a MSU. Six interpreters were interviewed using semi-structured interviews, and their accounts analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Five super-ordinate themes were identified: (1) Setting the scene: Medium secure forensic mental health units, (2) Unrecognised professional identity, (3) The MSU interpreters: A superior professional excellence or mere mortals?, (4) ‘Catch-22’ and (5) The MSU interpreter and the MSU patient. The results draw together the participants’ phenomenological experiences of working in a MSU, portraying the uniqueness of the MSU environmental setting; the disparaging ways in which the participants perceive that they are viewed; the grounds on which they argue for their occupation to be perceived as a recognised profession; the resulting paradoxical situation in which they find themselves; and the relationship aspects of interpreting for a patient who is detained in a MSU. The study proposes that a means of overcoming the difficulties and conflicts experienced by interpreters working within this setting would inevitably involve the creation of specific and tailored guidelines for other professionals working with interpreters in a MSU; also, the availability of detailed information booklets for interpreters working in a MSU. Further recommendations for mandatory training for both the service provider and the interpreter, and the compulsory provision of support and supervision for interpreters, are proposed

The Modern Physis of Léonide Massine: Corporeality in a Postwar Era

ABSTRACTThe Modern Physis of Léonide Massine: Corporeality in a Postwar ErabyLauren Elda VallicellaMy dissertation is an attempt to re-examine and re-frame the artistic legacy of Les Ballets Russes choreographer Léonide Massine (1896 – 1979), while simultaneously defining (through choreographic analysis and historical contextualization of Massine’s work) the term “postwar corporeality.” While the innovative achievements of the Russian émigré company Les Ballets Russes have been discussed by many authors—notably Lynn Garafola, Richard Buckle, Juliet Bellow, and Davinia Caddy—the contributions of Massine himself have been vastly overlooked. My dissertation therefore places Massine as a central figure within the creation of Modernism in postwar European dance. Through an analysis of both dancing/performing bodies and French critical reception, my dissertation seeks to understand notions of identity, physicality, and corporeality in late-Industrial Europe, in turn deepening the place of Léonide Massine (and dance history at large) within an interdisciplinary understanding of Modernism. My writing specifically examines Massine’s representations of the body in three ballets from the company’s early postwar seasons: Parade (1917), La Boutique Fantasque (1919), and Pulcinella (1920). While previous accounts of these ballets (primarily Parade and Pulcinella) have placed an emphasis on art historical and musicological aspects, my readings place the body and Massine’s choreography at the center. When viewed together, I argue that Parade, La Boutique Fantasque, and Pulcinella highlight the aesthetics of Massine’s Modernist choreography, revealing his exploration of the unhuman, or antihuman, character. Blending the style of the danseur noble with the comique and grotesque, Massine choreographically synthesized disparate sources (Russian Imperial Ballet, Russian avant-garde theater, Italian Classical Ballet, Romantic French Ballet, American Modern Dance, national dances of Spain, etc.) to craft a postwar vision of the fragmented, displaced body.My writing takes an interdisciplinary approach in considering Massine; my in-depth choreographic analysis is woven together with archival historical research and theoretical texts from the fields of Performance Studies, Literature, and Philosophy. In defining postwar corporeality, I employ Walter Benjamin’s concept of the “modern physis,” a corporeal physicalization of the trauma wrought on the body by technology, urbanization, and World War I. Furthermore, I relate the term corporeality to American modern dance artist Loïe Fuller’s transformation and abstraction of the physical body into something more than or other than human. Thus, I define “corporeality” (specifically in performance) as a Benjaminian aura or Bergsonian élan vital, an ephemeral, yet kinesthetically perceivable representation of the body read symbolically. By taking Massine’s postwar choreography as moving examples of Benjamin’s modern physis, I argue that Massine choreographically formulated an embodied, gestural language of anxiety, fragmentation, and trauma made kinetic: a postwar corporeality