Informal interpreters and cultural mediators: Improving the construction safety of multi-national workforces.

Migrant workers fill the construction skills gap as part of the diverse workforce who build (and will continue to build) our cities. As national debates on immigration, skills-shortages and construction sector performance rage concurrently in the UK and Denmark, it is remarkable that the employment routes and practices of working interpreters in construction are unformalised and so little understood. This doctoral project will develop a research agenda to better understand the changing (and sometimes controversial) practices of these front-line workers, which are falling under the radar. It will develop a multidisciplinary approach to the study of communication practices in the transient and dynamic environment of construction sites.

Particular site roles, such as foreman, gangers, and supervisors, have taken on functions as informal interpreters and translators to bridge the gap between English-speaking staff and low/non-English speaking workers (Tutt et al., 2013). Yet their role can present risks in terms of the communication of critical health and safety onsite.

An adaptable, innovative ethnographic methodology will be designed to account for both the specificities of the contexts to which these informal mediatory practices relate, and the collaborative environments and interactions through which they unfold. It will include periods of fieldwork in South East England and/or Copenhagen, with support by colleagues at Aarhus University. The methodological flexibility of the ethnographic process (through which theory is developed on the basis of empirical data collected), will be closely supported by the supervisory team.