The experience of intercultural mediators in the Italian COVID-19 vaccination campaign

This research investigates the experience of intercultural mediators who worked with local health authorities and civil society organizations to disseminate information about COVID-19 vaccines to migrants in two Italian territories. Interviews with intercultural mediators underlined the challenges that they faced when translating on the frontline of the vaccination campaign, including the translation of highly specialized terminology and the handling of vaccine-hesitant narratives circulating among the migrant population. In the context of COVID-19, translation involved not only transmission between languages, but also a negotiation between medical discourse and the hopes, concerns, fears, and desires of a culturally and linguistically diverse population.