Ep. 10 – TCI: Connected to Self :: Agency

Watch in ASL

Hi. Welcome to the connected interpreter podcast, where we will explore ways of staying connected to ourselves in our work, acknowledging the impact of our practices and continue to grow as practice professionals. I’m Amanda Smith, an interpreter, educator, coach and creative, and I’d love to discuss the puzzles of interpreting the complexities of human interaction and the power we have within ourselves to make a difference. So today’s episode is specifically about connecting with ourselves and both from a personal and a professional standpoint. And so as you go into listening to this, I want you to think about the following reflective prompts. So:

• what if anything is sparking your care for yourself, the work and others?
• Do you feel moved to take any action? And if so, what and when will you do it?
• What questions arise?
• What insights and connections do you see to yourself and your work? So those are the questions to keep in mind.
• I will answer a few of them at the end as well, and let’s go ahead and get started.

Understanding Agency & Self-Determination in Interpreting

Hi. So today I want to talk about this concept of agency, self determination. Maybe it’s this idea of where I have discretion to make decisions about what I do, what I don’t do, how I respond. A common kind of phrase out there in the world is about not being able to control what happens to you in the world, but being able to control your response to what happens to you. And so that’s kind of what I want to talk about, this idea that I am in a place of making a decision, that I have agency, and that can sometimes come across as a kind of stubborn of life. That’s my decision. Or, you know, I get to choose kind of idea with a with a stubborn kind of tone to it, which is sometimes the reality in other situations. However, agency means it’s actually within my scope of practice. It’s actually within my responsibility and areas of responsibility to make a decision, and it’s not at the discretion of others. So interpreting is a profession. Obviously we are there to provide access and to connect consumers who don’t use the same language. So when we think about how Agency presents itself in those situations, I think it actually has to do with connecting with ourselves as individuals and practitioners. So thinking about the idea of, Am I in the maybe I don’t know, decision making seat, this situation is not about me. It is about the consumers, and that is 100% true, and what they say and what they say to each other and how they connect, has to go through me as a fellow meaning maker, which means that I need to know that I’m an active participant in the meaning making process. So let me think of an example.

The Impact of Workplace Culture on Interpreters

Let me think pretty popular to read things or to hear stories about the workplace health, kind of idea, right? You know, the idea that where we work has an impact on us as individuals, just in a general sense, so where we show up as interpreters has an impact on us, right?

And it might be about our relationship to colleagues or relationship to supervisors. There could be environments that are toxic, that drag each other down, or have gossip and, you know, backbiting, all of those kinds of things. So if we think about where interpreters work, we can think of like a VRS call center, for example, and the culture of that particular center is going to be based on who the people are who fill that place, right, as well as the tone and culture of the larger company that has that sponsors that place. Another example might be a school building. Right?

It would, it would depend what the what the kind of culture is of the school system, the hierarchy and oversight, the individuals in that particular building, that sort of thing. And then if we think about like a staff interpreter who goes out to community jobs, we might be talking about the things that happen behind the scenes with a scheduler and with the coworkers in that particular agency, but not on the job while they’re interpreting necessarily.

However, that place where you show up to interpret is going to have an impact, right? So what are the expectations of the consumers who are there? Are they expecting to tell me what to do, for me to tell them what to do, for us to negotiate how things are going to happen? It also depends what their experience is with interpreters, whether they’ve even had any experiences with interpreters. So all of those complex things that occur within an interpreting assignment are all things that impact us as interpreters. But that doesn’t mean that we’re passive.

That doesn’t mean that we’re just at the mercy of whatever occurs.

We’re in a position of agency around the things that are within our scope of practice. I do have decision making power, and that’s an important piece to have. If I relinquish that power, then I’m not connected to myself any longer, nor am I doing my duty as a practitioner, meaning I’m just at the mercy of these people who may or may not know how to work with interpreters, and so I won’t be able to hold good space for them if I haven’t employed my agency. So I think Agency shows up in a couple of different ways. It can show up in our body language, right? So am I showing up confident? Am I? Am I giving an impression that I know what I’m doing, that you can trust me in the ways that I ask questions? Questions or introduce myself, or even the concept of interpreting how we negotiate various things, about where I might stand, what information I get ahead of time, any of those kinds of things.

So how I do all of that is an example of my agency, and whether I’m taking ownership of the parts of the thing, the parts of the job that are mine, or whether I’m relinquishing those because it’s actually my responsibility to employ to use my agency appropriately. There certainly are some interpreters out there who just feel kind of passive and having to accept whatever any consumer throws at them, if they’re mean to the interpreter, if they’re critical of the interpreter, if they’re demeaning that they just have to take it because they are “just” the interpreter. And that, again, looks like a relinquishment of your agency, that you are just at the mercy of everyone around you, as opposed to being a responsible service provider, we are responsible to accept our agency, accept that we have agency, that we have an arena that is ours to make decisions around, that is within our scope of practice.

Balancing Professional Agency and Consumer Expectations

Now, the flip side of that is some people take on too much control and think that they’re in charge of the entire event. And that is also not true. I’m talking about this tiny sliver that is our as an interpreter, scope of practice, things that are within my arena.

And it might mean that my employment of my agency is that I concede to what someone requests of me, or I might make a I might decline a request and give a rationale for that, but that has to do with my professional view and assessment of the entire situation, as well as my needs to do my job well. Employing my agency is not about taking power from others. It’s about having a professional confidence, a grounded sense of who I am, and able to hold space and provide connection in that scenario. So I went on the internet and looked up the definition for agency.

So this is from Miriam Webster, and I will put it in. I will put the quote, the actual quote, in the notes as well, and it talks about agency being a capacity, a condition, and then an actual kind of state in which you can employ or exert power. Now, the concept of power sometimes has a negative connotation. We might feel like, oh, I don’t want to use power, but power is also a an agent of change and connection, right?

It is my responsibility to wield that power in a responsible and professional way, and to know what is mine and what is not mine, and to employ that agency in the service of others and in their interaction with each other. So I’m curious about your experiences with the concept of agency. If it sparks in you a sense of like, Oh no, I don’t want agency. I don’t want power that feels sticky. Or if it’s something that you are familiar with and feel like you have a command of or you overexert, you’re not really sure how to use it. Have a measured sense of it. I am curious what your experience is with this concept of agency.

Conclusion

And again, I want to, I want you to think about anything that might have sparked your care if you feel moved to action questions that arise, what insights and connections you’re making. I’d love to hear from you about those insights ahas and questions. So feel free to reach out to me at arsmithstudios@gmail.com and you can also sign up for my very intermittent newsletter at arsmithstudios.com and click on the newsletter button in the upper right hand corner. So let me go back and answer some of these questions.

Amanda’s Musings on this Episode: The Role of Care and Responsibility in Interpreting

I think the thing that I want to muse upon in these in this place of reflecting on this is care, right? So I am accepting responsibility for my agency because I care, I care about consumers, I can. I care about access. I carry a care about people connecting with one another, and I care about myself as a practitioner and other practitioners. So I can’t just relinquish that sense of agency and that sense of responsibility. I have to take responsibility for my part, and in some situations, I’m the only one who can kind of see the implications of what’s happening, of the decisions that are being made. It means I have a duty, actually, to respond, to employ my agency, to provide services, quality services to consumers that I am working with, it actually requires me to know, learn, observe and become familiar with the places that I work, so that I know how my part fits in with The whole so that care is actually the guiding force for how I employ my agency and how I know how my piece of the pie fits with the rest of the pie, so that I can connect consumers to one another. I think that that agency, or even the concept of. Power can feel like control or like I’m in charge. “You can’t tell me what to do.” And I would, I would argue against that. I think of agency as a little bit more like a duty. So if I think of like the concept of duty to care, duty of care, sorry for like a medical provider who might be out in the world somewhere and someone needs a doctor, they actually have a duty to go and try to help that person, because they have the knowledge and the wisdom and the tools to be able to do that. And so I think agency is kind of similar to that, and can be applied to us as interpreters, and our duty to provide quality services requires our agency.

So those are my thoughts. Curious. What yours are you?

So those are my answers to two of the questions, and I’m super curious to hear yours.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai