Languages, Cultures, and Health in a Global City

This collection examines how linguistically diverse diaspora communities experienced and translated the COVID-19 pandemic in London, exploring nuances of difference across them to better understand how these communities mediate public health discourses in the globalized city.

Drawing on scholarship from cultural translation and an emic approach, the volume features rich and varied perspectives on the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic from scholars working and living in over a dozen Asian and African language communities in the city. Building on data from online surveys and face-to-face-interviews with almost 200 community members, the book charts how information about the pandemic was disseminated across these different minority communities and in turn, how these communities understood and translated it into their own cultural framework and against prevailing public discourses. The volume also looks forward to the recovery process and the needs of these communities, reinforcing the value of a socio-cultural translation approach in better understanding how to support these communities in the wake of global health crises moving forward.

This book will be of interest not only to scholars in translation studies, intercultural communication, crisis communication, cultural studies, and post-colonial studies, but also to public health practitioners and community leaders.