soberania_tecnologica_v2/en/content/09coati.md

# COATI: Simultaneous interpreting using radio frequencies

***Colectivo para la Autogestión de las Tecnologías de la Interpretación***

> *“International solidarity and global protest is nothing new. From the
> European-wide revolutions of 1848, through the upheavals of 1917-18
> following the Russian Revolution, to the lightning flashes of resistance
> nearly everywhere in 1968, struggle has always been able to communicate and
> mutually inspire globally. But what is perhaps unique to our times is the
> speed and ease with which we can communicate between struggles and the fact
> that globalisation has meant that many people living in very different
> cultures across the world now share a common enemy.”* – Do or Die, Issue 8,
> 1999

> *“Our resistance is as transnational as capital”*<br/> – Slogan of the global day of action against capitalism, June 18, 1999

As the economy has become increasingly transnational, so too has resistance to
its devastating social and ecological consequences.  International resistance
means coming together from different struggles and cultures to meet, share
ideas and experiences, and coordinate actions.  Crossing borders and cultures
in this way means communicating across language barriers, and language is
about power.

Many international gatherings take place in the more ‘international’
languages, such as English, Spanish, Russian or French.  Many people speak
these languages, but that is because they have long histories of imperialism:
they were forcibly, and in many cases brutally, imposed on people from many
different cultures, devouring local languages and eradicating cultural
diversity.  They can help us communicate, but they are often not people's
first language, and people participating in a foreign language may be unsure
if they have understood everything correctly, or they may lack confidence
about expressing themselves well.  Events are often dominated by people who
feel comfortable with the majority language.  Thus, native speakers of
colonial languages (particularly English) have dominated history and they
continue to dominate our meetings.

If we are committed to diversity, grassroots participation or consensus
decision-making, we must raise awareness of these power dynamics and processes
of inclusion and exclusion.  Increasing the equality of our communication and
creating space for speakers of other languages is an important political
struggle.  One valuable tool for dealing with this is providing interpreting
between languages so that everyone can communicate in a language they are
comfortable with.

Interpreting between two languages is an art as ancient as languages
themselves and requires no technology.  However, for interpreting to be
practical in larger meetings in several languages it must be simultaneous.
Multi-language, simultaneous interpreting cannot happen without technology.

## A history of alternative interpreting technologies

The first attempt to use technology to facilitate this type of interpreting
seems to have been at the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War, using a
system based on the telephone [^1].  Since then, the technology, usually based
on infrared transmission, has developed alongside international organisations
such as the UN and the EU.  It is now very advanced, but extremely expensive
and out of reach for most activist spaces and social movements.  Even if an
event can afford to hire some equipment, the costs soon become astronomical if
you want to work at any kind of scale.

The European and World Social Forums (ESF and WSF) that took place between
2001 and 2010 were international events on a massive scale, with up to 100,000
participants and hundreds of parallel meetings every day.  Initially,
interpretation was very limited, due to costs, but some people quickly
realised the importance of languages to the political process.  Babels, a
network of volunteer interpreters, was born.

Interpreting and interpreting technology became part of the political process.
Interpreting is easiest in large plenary sessions, where a few people speak
and most just listen.  Participatory organising requires working in small
groups, where more people have the opportunity to contribute, but this
multiplies the interpreting resources required, so decisions about
interpreting affect the working dynamics of an event.  The prohibitive cost of
commercial technology and interpreters limits available resources, and there
is no such thing as a purely technical choice.  Even if there is money to pay
for the service, it is a one-off thing: you give it to a commercial company
and it is gone.  The alternative is to "Do it Yourself", invest in people and
equipment and thus increase the capacities and autonomy of the movements.

At the 2003 ESF in Paris, over 1000 volunteers took part in the
interpretation, and every plenary and workshop took place in several
languages.  However, the technology used was commercial, and the costs were
astronomical.  Full-scale, commercial interpreting technology has never been
used again in an event of that size.  This inspired the first experiments in
alternative interpreting technology.  Initially, these were based on
computers, but digitalisation introduced long delays that confused the
interpreters and the audience alike.  At the 2004 WSF in Mumbai, India,
computers were abandoned for more low-tech, analogue solutions, transmitting
through cables and via FM radio.  In Greece, a collective known as ALIS
(ALternative Interpreting Systems) was formed to provide interpreting
technology for the 2006 Athens ESF.  Following the blueprints and building on
the experiences of earlier groups using analogue interpreter consoles and FM
radio transmission, they spent months building enough equipment to cover the
entire event.

Athens was the first (and, for Social Forums, sadly the only) time that a
large political event fully recognised alternative interpreting technology as
a political question in itself and gave it the space and resources necessary
to carry out its mission.  The result was an unprecedented success.  Infrared
receivers are extremely expensive devices, jealously guarded by their
commercial owners who require participants to deposit a passport or credit
card in exchange for their use.  In Athens, interpreting was made available to
anyone with an FM receiver, and versions of that system are still being used
by social movements today, allowing people access to interpreting through any
household radio or smartphone.

Nevertheless, despite the success of Athens, the experience of working with
the Social Forums was generally that the best efforts of interpreters and
technicians were rendered completely ineffective by inadequate political and
technical support at the events.  Furthermore, there was no support at all
between events, when equipment had to be bought or built, stored, transported,
tested and repaired.  Unlike commercial equipment which you rent for the
duration of an event, self-managed equipment remains with you between
meetings, and in greater amounts than any particular event may need.  People
have to be trained in how it works, logistical issues need to be solved and
there are administrative loads to bear, all of which requires resources and
dedication.  The Social Forum process refused to learn that lesson, but other
movements have taken it on board.

## COATI: The Collective for Autonomy in Interpreting Technology

COATI was founded in Barcelona in 2009, bringing together people who had
participated in anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation movements.  We had
supported the peasant farmers of Via Campesina in the creation of the movement
for Food Sovereignty.  We had volunteered as interpreters – sometimes in very
precarious conditions – and seen the value of good alternative technology.  We
had learnt to organise horizontally and by consensus in the Do-It-Yourself
culture of anarchist and anti-capitalist social centres all over Europe.  We
had built an understanding of technology in the squatted hacklabs and free
software communities.  We learnt about sound systems running hardcore punk
festivals, street parties and independent, community-based radio stations.  It
was those experiences – and the values of those communities – that inspired
the project.

We invited someone from the original ALIS collective to come to Barcelona and
train us in how their equipment worked, and we began to track down as much of
the old alternative technology as we could find (most of it was piled up in
warehouses, or in forgotten boxes in campaign offices, gathering dust).  Our
commitment was to increasing linguistic diversity and our plan was to acquire
and manage the equipment, so that each event didn't have to solve its
technology problems from scratch.  However, we quickly learnt that increasing
access to interpreting technology was going to require more than just
administering the equipment and reducing the costs.

### Making alternative technology work for people

The first challenge was to overcome resistance to using alternative
technologies, often born of bad experiences people had had with the equipment
in the past.  Designed within the social movements, the system did not match
the quality of commercial equipment.  It was built with the aim of drastically
reducing costs, using cheap material not specifically designed for audio.  The
interpreters and the audience alike could be plagued with an electronic
buzzing noise that was exhausting to listen to for any length of time.

An important part of the solution was simply treating the technology as an
important issue.  We trained ourselves.  Wherever our equipment went, there
was always a dedicated person responsible for operating it.  Many of the
problems of the past were caused by alternative technology being treated as an
afterthought so that no one had time to ensure it was working well.  We learnt
as we went along.  We devoted a lot of time to identifying the causes of
problems and modifying the equipment, adding small circuits to filter and
boost signals, and improve the quality of the sound.

The material built by the Greek collective came with no schematics, which was
made this considerably harder.  Hours of reverse engineering were required
before we could make modifications.  Now the equipment is almost 10 years old
and we are beginning to face the challenge of designing and building new,
open-source consoles from scratch.  We are very aware of the value of
open-source design, and all of the electronic work we have done is fully
documented and available online [^2].

### Making people work with alternative technology

Overcoming technological problems was not the only challenge we faced.  Some
of the most difficult issues stemmed from the political and organising
cultures of the movements themselves.  Many groups are based on relatively
informal organising and people can be resistant to the discipline simultaneous
interpreting requires: people must speak slowly and clearly; use microphones
so that the signal reaches the interpreters; and people cannot interrupt each
other.  Larger networks and NGOs may have more experience of working with
interpreters, but they tend to treat it as a mere technical service that
should be invisible and not as an important part of the political process.
They get frustrated with the demands of solidarity interpreting and
alternative technologies for enabling participation and political involvement.
However smoothly the technology is working, just having interpreting does not
automatically eradicate the power dynamics created by language, and it must be
everybody's responsibility to create space for more minority languages.

Another important part of the work done by COATI has therefore been working to
promote the political culture that alternative interpreting technology needs
to really work.

### Volunteer interpreting

Alternative technology can be used by commercial interpreters, and volunteer
interpreters can work in commercial booths.  However, in practice the two
processes have developed very closely, side by side, and a key element of
organising an event is often finding volunteers with the necessary skills to
meet the language needs.  You can deal with this by finding professional
interpreters who are willing to work for free, either out of solidarity, or
simply because they need work experience, or because travel and expenses will
be covered to exotic places.  However, this relationship risks becoming one of
cheap service provision, with volunteers having little interest in the
political issues being discussed; and the resulting expenses can be high even
if the work is done for free.

A large part of our work is therefore helping movements to build the capacity
for simultaneous interpreting within their own grassroots environment.  The
larger an event is, the more complex this process becomes and a whole article
could be written just on the political and technical questions involved.
Suffice to say that it is a very important issue.  We have developed a two-day
training for activists with language skills, and we always try to incorporate
skill sharing in the interpreting teams we coordinate, putting experienced
interpreters together with new activist volunteers in our booths.

### Speaking for interpreters

Another important part of changing the political culture has been to raise the
profile of language diversity among participants in international events.
Wherever we work we try to give a political and practical introduction to the
equipment, and provide written guidelines on how to speak in multi-lingual
meetings [^3].  We encourage people to actively think about the language they
use.  For example, we ask participants not to speak the majority language
during the meeting, even if they could, because it marginalises those who have
to rely on the interpreting, leaving them feeling embarrassed, uncultured, and
consequently, less inclined to take part.  We have experimented with
subverting the invisible interpreting model, placing the booths centre-stage
and having speakers speak from the floor, thus making everyone aware of the
processes involved.

### Designing flexible solutions to meet political needs

Interpreting inevitably does impose limitations on what a meeting or gathering
can do, and simultaneous interpreting is best suited to quite hierarchical
forms of organising such as the traditional conference model.  However, we are
committed to non-hierarchical organising.  We make it a priority to understand
a group's methodologies, needs and resources in order to match them to the
technological possibilities.

There are two main parts of this process.  One is to work closely with event
organisers to understand their political aims and help them to understand
interpreting and interpreting technology and how they interact with different
kinds of facilitation techniques and meeting dynamics.  The other is to take a
creative approach to the equipment, building little hacks using mixers and
splitters, and wiring (or sometimes gaffer-taping) devices together in
unconventional ways to make them do what we need.

We have built up a wealth of experience of pushing the boundaries of what can
be done to break the mould of the typical meeting format, even in quite
extreme circumstances.  At the Second Nyeleni Europe gathering in Cluj-Napoca,
Romania in 2016 we organised interpreters and equipment to work with
experimental participatory methodologies with over 400 participants in more
than nine languages.  We are now working on a technical and political guide to
facilitation with multiple languages.

### The biggest challenge: Decentralisation

Over the past seven years we have worked with many groups and movements to
help solve the language requirements of their international events.  Very
often this means us providing all the necessary technology and technicians, as
well as coordinating the volunteer interpreters for the event.  However, we
also collaborate in mixed solutions, and help organizations to develop or
acquire their own equipment, and to build capacity to meet their interpreting
needs.  We believe that real technological sovereignty means that groups don't
have to rely on 'experts', but become empowered to meet their own
technological needs.  One of our biggest projects has therefore been the
development of simple, easy to use, build-your-own open-source hardware.

## The Spider: An open-source hardware project

The simplest form of interpreting technology is probably the “Spider”: a small
box you plug a microphone into, with sockets for headphones to take the
interpreting to the audience via cables, making it look like a big, lanky
spider!

Compared to FM radio or other wireless transmissions, Spiders are cheap and
very easy to operate.  Spiders are a small-scale device, only really suitable
for smaller meetings, although in extreme situations we have used them at
events with hundreds of participants!  The real scalability of the project
lies in the fact that any organisation can have a few, making them completely
autonomous for many of their interpreting needs.

Years of experience went into developing and producing our own open-source
version of the Spider, with many improvements, such as modular extensions you
can use to add listeners in groups of up to twelve.

We build our Spiders by hand, for our own use and for sale.  We also sell
make-your-own kits at cost price.  All the schematics, parts references and
complete building instructions are published online [^2] under the GNU General
Public License.

## Training new tech collectives

Since the Spider project went online, we have run a number of electronics
workshops, training people to build their own spiders.  We also know of at
least one group, in Ukraine, that has built Spiders without any contact with
us.  We invite technicians from other groups to join us at large events and
see how the technology works in the field.  We have taken part in a number of
skill-sharing weekends, helping new groups to get started.  We have
participated in the creation of new collectives using Spiders and inventing
their own interpreting solutions in Romania [^4] and Poland [^5], as well as
an international collective, Bla [^6], which has Spiders and small radio kits
that travel to different events around Europe.

## Conclusions

Sovereignty in interpreting technology has come to mean many things to us.  In
the first instance, in order to extend access to interpreting technologies to
resistance movements, it was necessary to reduce the costs, and develop
high-quality alternative solutions that really work and are sustainable in the
long-term.  However, that was not the only challenge.  A lot of political work
still needs to be done to overcome people's resistance to using interpreting
technology to open our meetings and gatherings up for speakers of other
languages to participate on an equal footing.  There is a need to share skills
and knowledge about the technical aspects of interpreting and how those can
interact with different kinds of facilitation dynamics.  Open-source research
and development that aims to maximise technological sovereignty must be
accompanied by capacity building and political mobilisation, in order to
increase people's awareness of why and how they should use the technology, as
well as to empower them to really control and create their own solutions.

***For more information about COATI and the work we do please see:***
https://coati.pimienta.org

[^1]: http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-29/how-do-all-those-leaders-un-communicate-all-those-languages

[^2]: All the modifications and schematics we use can be seen here: https://coati.pimienta.org/electronics

[^3]: Our written guidelines can be consulted here: https://coati.pimienta.org/documents/

[^4]: Grai Collective, Romania: grai@riseup.net

[^5]: Klekta Collective, Poland: klekta@riseup.net

[^6]: Bla Collective (international): https://bla.potager.org