Zhuang-speaking village doctors as language and cultural brokers in times of crisis

Offering timely and effective bilingual services is a matter of social justice for linguistic minorities living in low-income contexts. Many previous studies demonstrate that bilingual services at hospitals constitute an important medium to overcome language barriers and create successful health communication between patients and doctors. However, modern health systems seem to overlook the diversity of multilingual patients whose access to public health services has been largely hindered by monolingual medical practices. It is critical to examine how linguistic minorities, particularly those from under-resourced medical contexts, seek their health-related resources in times of crisis. This study was conducted at an ethnic Zhuang-centered township health center between January 2023 and July 2023. Data were collected from field notes, semi-structured interviews with five Zhuang-speaking participants (two doctors, one vice director, one village chief and one patient), video/audio recordings of communication between patients and doctors, and relevant written documents. Findings demonstrate that Zhuang doctors acted as language and cultural brokers facilitating elderly Zhuang people's access to health-related information and bridging their knowledge gap of public health policy. Zhuang doctors' bilingual and affective repertoires provided an agentive space for Zhuang patients to navigate between monolingual medical policy and their linguistically marginalized status. This study contributes to multilingual crisis communication by revealing the complexity of health-seeking experiences of a linguistic minority and addressing the reciprocal responsibilities towards multilingual patients of vulnerable backgrounds. To achieve social justice for linguistic minorities in times of crisis, the study suggests that multilingual crisis communication take into consideration three intertwined dimensions of epistemic solidarity so as to overcome the current monolingual and market-driven healthcare system.