Multinational military missions increasingly rely on the recruitment of host nation interpreters. The purpose of this research note is to explore the relationship between the soldiers and these local translators during the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operation in Afghanistan. The findings suggest that more attention to the development of cross-cultural competencies among military personnel and a greater awareness of the precarious dynamics between the two parties may improve the cooperation between the soldiers and the local translators.
Sarah Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue. Inside Afghanistan after the Taliban. ( New York: Penguin Press, 2006), 185.
2.
Andrea van Dijk and Joseph Soeters, ‘‘Language Matters in the Military,’’ in Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution: Sociological Perspectives, ed. Guiseppe Caforio, Gerhard Kuemmel, and Bandana Purkayastha (Bingley: Emerald, 2008), 314-32. Also see Beatrice Pouligny, Peace Operations Seen From Below: UN Missions and Local People. (Sterling: Kumarian Press, 2006), 87 and further. For a more general treatment of the importance of cross-cultural aspects in today’s military operations, see R. A. Rubenstein, ‘‘In Practice. Cross-cultural Considerations in Complex Peace Operations,’’ Negotiation Journal, January 2003, 29-49 and R. A. Rubenstein, Peacekeeping under Fire: Culture and Intervention (Boulder/London, Paradigm, 2008).
3.
The U.S Department of Defence has created innovative venues to increase the linguistic proficiency of the workforce by bringing personnel into the organization, who already possess language skills and regional expertise. The heritage-recruiting plans are revolutionary for the Department has developed comprehensive outreach programs with colleges, universities, and professional and heritage associations to recruit (civilian) key language-skilled individuals. One of the successes that these recruitment programs have brought forth is the 2006 (09L) Interpreter/Translator program in which individuals from heritage Arabic, Dari, and Pasthu communities served in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
4.
Marion Bogers, Andrea van Dijk, and Jacqueline Heeren-Bogers , ‘‘Trust and Control in the Military: Dual or Duelling Forces?’’ in Managing Military Organizations: Theory and Practice, ed. Joseph Soeters, Paul van Fenema, and Robert Beeres (London/NY: Routledge, 2010), 162-73.
5.
Geesje Bos and Joseph Soeters, ‘‘Interpreters at Work: Experiences from Dutch and Belgian Peace Operations,’’International Peacekeeping13, 2 (2006): 261-68.
6.
These hypotheses are inspired by previous work on education and cross-cultural competencies, for instance, D. Matsumoto, J.A. Leroux, Y. Robles, and G. Campos, ‘‘The Intercultural Adjustment Potential Scale (ICAPS) predicts adjustment above and beyond personality and general intelligence,’’International Journal of Intercultural Relations31 ( 2007): 747-59. For the general importance of cross-cultural competencies in the military and current overseas actions, see R.M. Hajjar, ‘‘A New Angle on the U.S. Military’s Emphasis on Developing Cross-cultural Competence: Connecting In-ranks Cultural Diversity to Cross-cultural Competence,’’Armed Forces & Society36, (2) 2010: 247-63 and R.A. Rubenstein, Peacekeeping under Fire (note 2).
7.
See Geesje Bos and Joseph Soeters, ‘‘Interpreters at Work’’ (note 6), and Iris Hoedemaekers and Joseph Soeters, ‘‘Interaction Rituals and Language Mediation during Peace Missions. Experiences from Afghanistan,’’ in Advances in Military Sociology: Essays in Honor of Charles Moskos, Part A , ed. Guiseppe Caforio et al. ( Bingley: Emerald, 2009), 329-52.
8.
For instance, in a recently published, highly interesting sociological portrait of the American soldiers in Iraq, we cannot find the words ‘‘language’’ or ‘‘interpreters’’ in the index; there is an occasional reference to cross-cultural interaction and the use of translators (Morten Ender, American Soldiers in Iraq: McSoldiers or Innovative Professionals (London and New York: Routledge, 2009). In Rubenstein’ work on Peacekeeping under Fire (note 2), we cannot find the words ‘‘language,’’ ‘‘interpreters,’’ or ‘‘translators’’ in the index either. In the volumes of Armed Forces & Society, there is regularly mention of communication issues in multinational missions but seldom one can find reference made to translators and interpreters in communication processes with the host nation people.
9.
The FORCE IT62 questionnaire is a combination of the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) and two subscales pertaining to respect and trust developed by Richard de Ridder. The MPQ is described in K. I. van der Zee and J. P. van Oudenhoven, ‘‘The Multicultural Personality Questionnaire: A Multidimensional Instrument of Multicultural Effectiveness,’’ European Journal of Personality 14 (2000): 291-309 and in K. I. van der Zee and J. P. van Oudenhoven, ‘‘The Multicultural Personality Questionnaire: Reliability and Validity of Self- and Other Ratings of Multicultural Effectiveness,’’ Journal of Research in Personality 35 (2001): 278-88.
10.
We had to delete the cross-cultural competences ‘‘flexibility,’’ ‘‘emotional stability,’’ and ‘‘trust’’ because the alphas of those scales were less than .60.
11.
We think this may be a result of the compressed composition of this sample: the majority of the respondents is young and has a relatively low educational level; hence, the methodological problem of ‘‘restriction of range’’ comes to the fore, generally reducing the size of correlations. See for instance: W.A. Sands, E.F. Alf Jr., N.M. Abrahams, ‘‘Corrections of Validity Coefficients for Direct Restriction in Range Occasioned by Univariate Selection,’’Journal of Applied Psychology63 (1978): 747-50.
12.
See in particular: Iris Hoedemaekers and Joseph Soeters, ‘‘Interaction Rituals.’’ (note 7).
13.
See Bas Rietjens, Myriame Bollen, Massod Khalil, and Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi, ‘‘Enhancing the Local Footprint: Stakeholders in Afghan Reconstruction,’’Parameters, Spring (2009): 22-39.
