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Towards a migratory interview aesthetic – The interviewer’s bodily discomfort as

aesthetic key moment.

The following paper has developed out of my work as postdoctoral researcher on the

research project ‘Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, the Body, Law and

the State’, a project that is – broadly speaking - concerned with the various ethical,

methodological and aesthetic implications that result from researching in multilingual

contexts, especially when people's bodies and languages are politically and psychologically

'under pressure'.

My first job as postdoc located in what is called the Creative Arts and Translating Cultures

Hub of the Researching Multilingually Project, involved the production of an 11 min., short

promotional film. The film, entitled Speaking your language, was produced as a

promotional, public engagement tool for the research project’s public launch event in May

2014 in Glasgow, UK.

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My focus for this paper is on my feeling of bodily discomfort as the interviewer for this film,

at the moment when I asked interviewees to switch from speaking in English to speaking or

singing in their chosen, spoken language. What insights can be gained from my experience

of discomfort for a multilingual research practice?

In order to answer this question, I organised my paper in three points:

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1. Firstly, I define the theoretical framework for the paper. I explain Mieke Bal's term

'Migratory Aesthetics' and Sarah Ahmed's notion of 'Hearing-as-Touch' and give an

example of these key terms in film interview practice, through Bal’s example of

making the film Lost in Space in 2005.

2. Secondly, I use the key terms migratory aesthetic and hearing-as-touch to frame my

own experience of linguistic incompetence when interviewing for our project film

Speaking your language.

3. In my third and final point I summarise the findings of my paper and explain the

potential of linguistic incompetence for a multilingual research practice.

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The first Key term: Migratory aesthetics

Bal writes, “Migratory aesthetics is a non-concept, a ground for experimentation that opens

up possible relations with the ‘migratory’, rather than pinpointing such relations”.

Migratory aesthetics is not a concept that is an abstraction from the experience of

migration, but is described as a space of experimentation. Within this space of

experimentation, an aesthetic is shaped through the various manifestations of migratory

experiences. Migratory aesthetics collapses the distinction between the act of making an

aesthetic ‘as form’ and the experience of migration ‘as content’. Form, in my case for

example the aesthetic of the film interview, and the content of the interview - people's

relationships to their spoken languages - were interdependent.

Working from a migratory aesthetics in the context of the Speaking your language film

production meant to be open to people’s language practices as manifestations of their

migratory experiences. This included consideration of how their language practice might

shape the aesthetic of the film interview.

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The second Key term: Hearing-as-touch

Sarah Ahmed writes,

“To think of hearing as touch is to consider that being open to hearing might not be a

matter of listening to the other's voice: what moves (between) subjects, and hence

what fails to move, might precisely be that which cannot be presented in the register of

speech.”

Hearing-as-touch is described by Ahmed as a form of hearing between subjects that allows a

questioning of the assumption that communication is about straightforward linguistic

exchange in the first place. Hearing-as-touch draws attention to the fact that

communication can be described in sensory ways other than auditory perception. The

silences, breaks but also the smooth flows in communication might for example manifest as

bodily sensations, as gestures of comfort and feelings of discomfort.

Let me give an example how hearing-as-touch manifests as gesture of comfort during an

interview situation, by the example of Bal's and Entekhabi's film Lost in Space.

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Lost in Space is a 17 min. film that presents statements on the 'triple notion of home,

security and borders' by people who have been themselves geographically and linguistically

displaced.

When interviewing Daryush, a Farsi and Greek speaking, 32 year old man who had been an

asylum seeker for half his life, interviewer Bal struggles to sustain the communication,

despite Daryush's eagerness to speak and be interviewed. Interviewer and interviewee have

no language in common and English as the lingua franca of necessity moves slowly.

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When asked what he most misses about being away from home, Daryush is clearly

frustrated. He has so much to say but speaking English incapacitates him. When Bal

encourages him to speak in Farsi, Daryush bursts into self-expression.

Bal describes her experience of being linguistically out of control when Daryush bursts into

Farsi, as a moment of communicative loss but also as a moment where their communication

was transformed into, what might be described as a hearing-as-touch encounter. Although

Bal can't linguistically decode Daryush's words, she is able to tell from his body language and

facial expressions that he speaks about something deeply meaningful to him. Touched by

the words she can't understand, Bal takes Daryush’s hands and he hugs her with tears in his

eyes. The interviewer’s experience of linguistic incompetence has led to a hearing-as-touch

encounter, in which the loss of a common language has led to a conscious act of re-

establishing communication through a gesture of comfort. Daryush's Farsi outburst as a

mode of multilingual self-expression was ethically more important than the interviewer's

ability to control the interview situation.

The migratory aesthetics of the film interview was shaped by the interviewer's and

interviewee's improvisations of ethical communication in the face of language loss. What

Daryush most missed about home, as Bal's translation later reveals, was speaking his

language. Asserting his right for self-expression in Farsi, and NOT to be translated instantly,

resulted in in a hearing-as-touch-encounter as a gesture of comfort: a hug, tears, the taking

of hands.

This leads me to my second point: Let me now use the key terms, hearing-as-touch as well

as migratory aesthetics to frame my own bodily experience of discomfort when interviewing

for Speaking your language.

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Speaking your language is a 11 min. long, reflective documentary film which explores

people’s personal connection to their spoken languages through interviewees’ multilingual

songs, spoken welcomes and their reflections on notions of home, as well as the sensory

quality of their languages. Interviewees consisted of twenty multilingual staff and students

from across all disciplines at the University of Glasgow. The interviews were conducted

mainly in English, and partly in interviewees’ respective languages. Interviewees reflected

on the relationship to their languages in English first, and then repeated some of these

reflections in their chosen, spoken language. This short excerpt from the unedited film

footage gives you an idea of the multilingual interview dynamic.

(DOUBLE-click into window to show video on slide 9)

Afonso, who you saw in the clip, expressed his joy of being asked to speak in Portuguese in a

verbal as well as non-verbal way. He leans forward and repositions comfortably on his chair

before starting to speak in Portuguese –as if getting ready for a significant performance.

Other interviewees sang in their languages. Words, as bell hooks says, 'hurtled, flew and

sang' through the room in a way that had a physical, discomforting effect on me as the

interviewer. When exposed to those new language rhythms out of my already linguistically

limited comfort zone, my body literally stiffened.

I am a bilingual German-English speaker and trained as a language teacher. I value language

learning as a deeply enriching, human activity and am normally not afraid of facing my own

linguistic incompetence or making a fool of myself when trying to learn new words. In the

face of this multilingual interview situation however, my values and knowledge didn’t seem

to easily translate into a form of bodily comfort. As the interviewer in the room, I felt out of

control. I couldn’t interview people in their own language. I wasn't able to steer the

conversation. In my role as interviewer, a role normally imbued with power over the

conversational flows of the interview situation, I had lost control.

Unable to fully connect to the unfamiliar words that ‘hurtled’ towards me, although they

sometimes only constituted a repetition of things that were already said in English, I was

rigid in my seat and feeling physically uncomfortable. I was not able to linguistically tune in.

My linguistic loss was mirrored in my feeling of bodily discomfort; it produced the physical

manifestation of a rigid body posture. Hearing new language sounds had become a form of

hearing-as-touch that I was able to internally locate in my body. My tummy felt squeezy, my

body felt awkward.

I uncomfortably sat in my seat, smiling, probably awkwardly, at interviewees. What had

linguistically ‘failed to move’ between myself and my interviewees manifested instead in a

bodily sensation.

My discomfort, although caused by language loss, was however not the endpoint of

communication. It required my conscious decision to accept being linguistically incompetent

and out of control of the interview situation. And it required the decision to listen beyond

the register of speech.

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This physical experience of discomfort points towards the ways in which language loss might

touch a person. My discomfort forced me to face my linguistic loss and make a conscious

decision to listen beyond the register of speech, as an act of valuing interviewees’

multilingual self-expression.

What decisions resulted from facing my bodily discomfort and the linguistic incompetence

that was underlying it? Firstly, I made a practical and an ethical decision. I had to consciously

relax my body and accept being linguistically out of control. Rather than feeling threatened

by my linguistic loss I decided to reconsider the interview situation not as an act of straight

linguistic transfer in which I could hold the linguistic reins. I had to adapt my listening habit

to hear as a form of touch instead. This involved a focus on the embodied flows of

communication: rhythms, melodies, intonations, body postures and facial expressions. My

body started to relax and I was able to open myself again to the here and now of the

interview encounter.

The key moment for the migratory aesthetics of the film interview was the sensory shift

from an internal experience of discomfort to an external focus onto the embodied and

‘artful’ aspects of people’s spoken languages. This involved the acknowledgement that

these embodied elements have the power to carry communication beyond linguistic loss,

thereby valuing the interviewees’ multilingual self-expression and transforming the

interviewer’s bodily discomfort into a renewed communicative connection.

This leads me to my third and final point of the paper. What insights can be gained from the

interviewer’s experiences of hearing-as-touch as gestures of comfort and feelings of

discomfort for a multilingual research praxis?

Giving the example of Mieke Bal’s as well as my film interview practice, I have shown how

linguistic loss during multilingual interviews can manifest in hearing-as-touch encounters as

external gestures of comfort as well as internal feelings of discomfort. Hearing-as-touch

encounters as comforts and discomforts question the assumption that communication is

about transparency of meaning in the first place. Instead, it asserts the value of

interviewees’ multilingual self-expression and the value of establishing of human connection

beyond the register of speech, over the interviewer’s need for instant linguistic clarification

and control over the communicative flows.

By the example of my own interview practice, I also described how linguistic loss can

manifest internally, in a form of bodily discomfort which required my ethical and practical

decisions during interview. These decisions involved the acceptance of being linguistically

incompetent and the decision to listen as form of touch beyond my internal discomfort.

A focus on the artful and embodied aspects of the multilingual interview situation –

rhythms, melodies, non-verbal expressions – allowed me to transition into a stance of bodily

comfort where I could open myself again to the here and now of the interview situation.

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Let me pinpoint my findings. What did I concretely learn from these multilingual interview

situations?

I learned that as a multilingual researcher I need to allow the multilingual interview space to

become a space of migratory aesthetics in which people’s language practice can shape the

interview aesthetic. I learned that by prioritising people’s multilingual self-expression over

my need for linguistic control, I enter into hearing-as-touch encounters. I open myself to

encounters that can indeed make me feel linguistically out of control and even physically

uncomfortable. But within my personal experience of incompetence and discomfort lies the

potential for recognising that multilingual communication, and with that filmmaking and

research itself, might not be about straight linguistic transfer and instant transparency of

meaning in the first place. Learning from Bal, Ahmed and my own experience, I venture that

multilingually-oriented research and filmmaking is about facing up to the ethical and

reflective potentialities of language loss. And it is about practicing forms of communication

beyond the register of speech and in the face of language loss. These forms of

communication might be described as hearing-as-touch encounters that manifest as

external gestures of comfort (a hug, tears, the taking of hands) and also as reflections on our

internal experiences of discomfort. Moments of comforts and discomforts that might

become key moments for shaping a migratory interview aesthetic.

Bibliography

Film

Lost in Space. 2005. Color video, 17 min. Produced by: Bal, M. & Entekhabi, S.

Speaking your language. 2014. Color video, 11 min. Produced by: Bishopp, S. &

Frimberger, K. Retrieved at: http://vimeo.com/96840216

Books & Journals

Ahmed, S. 2000. Strange encounters – embodied others in post-coloniality. London:

Routledge.

Bal, M. 2007a. Lost in Space, Lost in the Library. In: Durrant, S. & Lord, C. M. (2007).

Essays in Migratory Aesthetics: Cultural practices between Migration and Art-

making. Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi.

Bal, M 2007b. Translating translation. In: Journal of Visual Culture April 2007 vol. 6

no. 1 109-124.Doi: 10.1177/1470412907075072

hooks, b. 1994.Teaching to Transgress – Education as the Practice of Freedom. New

York, London: Routledge.

Phipps, A. 2013. Linguistic incompetence: Giving an account of researching

multilingually. In: International Journal of Applied Linguistics, Special Issue:

Researching Multilingually, Volume 23, Issue 3, pages 329–341.

Website

Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, the Body, Law and the State/ Project

website: http://researching-multilingually-at-borders.com/