(E)Health literacy brokering
Bridging Sociolinguistic Gaps at the Welfare Office
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4178013 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ingvild B Valen-Sendstad (0000-0002-5403-9491, University of Oslo, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 2023 |
| Issue | 281 |
| Pages | 187-212 |
| Publication date | 2023-05-25 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of the Sociology of Language (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0165-2516 • E-ISSN: 1613-3668 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/ijsl-2021-0125 |
| OpenAlex | W4367844907 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 33 |
This comparative case study illuminates communicative strategies arising in contact between two migrant clients, 'Maria' and 'Suda', and their caseworker at the Norwegian welfare office. Suda and Maria mobilize bureaucratic, digital, and linguistic abilities as part of their health literacies to manage in-person contact, institutional websites, letters, and digital bureaucracy. Additionally, they collaborate with their Norwegian spouses to navigate the complex communicative situation at the welfare office and actively bring up this brokering strategy to increase their social and linguistic authority vis-à-vis their caseworkers. Combining Bourdieusian symbolic power with epistemic stance, and drawing on observations and interviews, I investigate how power and responsibility are negotiated between the women and their caseworkers. In their interactions, brokering strategies function as social capital in several ways, enabling the women to access institutional services, and reassuring their caseworkers that the women have sufficient literacy resources to gain access. I discuss the dual nature of brokering strategies as capital, but also as a factor that may reproduce structural vulnerability, and argue for better understanding of brokering as a health literacy strategy
Bureaucracy · Cultural capital · Linguistics · Literacy · Multilingualism · Norwegian · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Social capital · Social science · Sociology · Welfare · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy
The Individual Experience of Unemployment
Structural Vulnerability
eHealth Literacy
The stance triangle
Health literacy
Fostering ‘digital citizens’ in Norway
Language is a costly and complicating factor’
Please do not leave any notes for the cleaning lady, as many do not speak English fluently”
Trajectory of a language broker
Intercultural moments in translating and humanising the socio-legal system
Dilemmas and conflicting pressures in social work practice
Genres, Contexts, and Literacy Practices
The Epistemic Engine
Language Brokering among Latino Adolescents
Incorporating language brokering experiences into bilingualism research
Negotiating methodological rich points in the ethnography of language policy
The evolving concept of health literacy
We don't worry that much about language
The economics of linguistic exchanges
In Other Words
"No no no" and Other Types of Multiple Sayings in Social Interaction
| Citations per year | 1.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |