Episode 7: The role of language in accessing administrative justice

Send us a textIn this episode I share interviewees' accounts from my case studies in Canada, South Africa, Curacao and Sint Maarten on the issue of language, linguistic diversity and literacy when it comes to accessing public services and the justice system. People's experiences in these very different places demonstrate the universality of the problem, when public services and courts cannot be accessed in the languages the people actually speak. Illiteracy, of course, makes it even more difficult to follow an administrative or legal procedure.  See more on the project: https://www.fh-campuswien.ac.at/en/forschung/projekte-und-aktivitaeten/digital-public-services-and-ombuds-role-in-access-to-justice.htmlSee more on my work: https://personen.fh-campuswien.ac.at/julia-dahlvik/

Send us a textIn this episode we discuss some of the experiences people have when they try to get in contact with the public administration. Especially (semi-)automated telephone hotlines create frustration among citizens who want or need to talk to a public agent. Our interviewees from the case study in Quebec, Canada, report about long waiting times and the impossibility of reaching the right person for a certain matter. Importantly, the administration is deemed to shirk its responsibility not only by outsourcing administrative tasks to the citizens but also by appearing as an anonymous entity both on the phone and in email communication. Citizens don't know who they are interacting with, so noone in particular can be held responsible for certain information that was provided or actions that were taken by the agent. See more on the project: https://www.fh-campuswien.ac.at/en/forschung/projekte-und-aktivitaeten/digital-public-services-and-ombuds-role-in-access-to-justice.htmlSee more on my work: https://personen.fh-campuswien.ac.at/julia-dahlvik/

Send us a textIn this episode I have the pleasure of introducing to you two sociologists who live and work in the Caribbean and whom I had the great pleasure to meet during my field research stay in the beginning of 2024. Elly Helings in Curaçao and Raymond Jessurun in Sint Maarten will share with us their perspectives on the digitalization of public services in these two islands, which are both officially autonomous since 2010 but are still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. We will discuss some commonalities and differences between the two islands concerning access to digital public services. And we will talk about challenges, local factors affecting the current situation, and ideas for improvement.See more on the project: https://www.fh-campuswien.ac.at/en/forschung/projekte-und-aktivitaeten/digital-public-services-and-ombuds-role-in-access-to-justice.htmlSee more on my work: https://personen.fh-campuswien.ac.at/julia-dahlvik/

Send us a textIn this episode I share with you some insights from my case studies in Canada, concretely in the Northwest Territories and Quebec. I focus on some of the challenges that Indigenous people are confronted with in the context of public service provision and access and more generally the complex relation of Indigenous peoples and the different orders of government. See more on the project: https://www.fh-campuswien.ac.at/en/forschung/projekte-und-aktivitaeten/digital-public-services-and-ombuds-role-in-access-to-justice.htmlSee more on my work: https://personen.fh-campuswien.ac.at/julia-dahlvik/

Send us a textIn this edpisode I’ll first talk a little about my current issues in methodology and data collection, and then discuss some preliminary findings from the first case study which was in Quebec, the French speaking province of Canada. I talked to staff of the public ombuds institution, to citizens as well as to NGO and government representatives to get an in-depth understanding of the current situation on the challenges of access to and provision of public service. See more on the project: https://www.fh-campuswien.ac.at/en/forschung/projekte-und-aktivitaeten/digital-public-services-and-ombuds-role-in-access-to-justice.htmlSee more on my work: https://personen.fh-campuswien.ac.at/julia-dahlvik/

Send us a textIn this episode I will explain the research design and methodology for this project, which will build primarily on interviews and participatory observation. I will talk about case study selection, my comparative approach, the particularities of doing research in public bodies, and the challenges of gaining access to the research field; that is, first of all access to public ombuds institutions in countries of both the Global South and the Global North, but then also to citizens in the respective places. See more on the project: https://www.fh-campuswien.ac.at/en/forschung/projekte-und-aktivitaeten/digital-public-services-and-ombuds-role-in-access-to-justice.htmlSee more on my work: https://personen.fh-campuswien.ac.at/julia-dahlvik/

Send us a textWelcome to the first episode of this podcast about my research project which started in February 2023. In this introductory episode I will explain my research interest and approach. The study focuses on the digital transformation of public services and two major interlinked challenges that come along with this development: the risk of social groups being excluded from these services (digital inequality) and, as a result, restricted access to justice, which is in itself a fundamental right that is also a prerequisite to exercising other rights. The research project has a comparative approach and is based on multiple case studies in different locations around the world. In this episode I will briefly explain what has happened so far in the project.See more on the project: https://www.fh-campuswien.ac.at/en/forschung/projekte-und-aktivitaeten/digital-public-services-and-ombuds-role-in-access-to-justice.htmlSee more on my work: https://personen.fh-campuswien.ac.at/julia-dahlvik/