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New Ethnography: The Deaf People – A Forgotten Cultural Minority

Published on April 2, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, culture traditions, globalisation, indigenous people / minorities, language, technology, Us and Them

It is insufficient to understand deaf people as disabled. Most deaf people rather see themselves as members of a cultural and linguistic minority. They are proud of their culture. And they face identity obstacles similar to those faced by many other minority members. Therefore is it important to change the attitudes from the medical definitions and into an understanding of the deaf as a linguistic cultural group. These are some of the main findings in a new book by Norwegian anthropologist Jan-Kåre Breivik called Deaf Identities in the Making. Local Lives, Transnational Connections.

As deaf-activist Asbjørn puts it:

“Why fix healthy deaf children through CI surgery? We do not need that. What we need are more hearing people that want to play on our team – as we are – as Deaf people. we need more people willing to use the key to our culture – the sign language.”

See among others this quote by one of Breiviks informants – it might have been told by Native Indians, black people, Saami people etc:

“I did not accept myself as deaf. My family and the local environment did not give me the means to appreciate that side of my self. I was the only local deaf person and what I head about deaf persons was almost exclusively negative. The “deaf and dumb” stereotype was around me and became part of my own experience. I was constantly trying to be part of my hearing environment, but of course I couldn’t pass as a hearing person. I was constantly frustrated, never getting access to what the others were speaking about.
(…)
At the age of eighteen, (…) I stated to visit the deaf club. Here I also found a new friend. I began to accept my deafness, and gradually I aquired a sense of pride for being deaf.
(…)
I felt as if I had been given a new life, when I began accepting myself as deaf. I got more out of life and the companionship with other deaf persons. We shared the same identity, the same culture, that we were facing the same problems of communication and language in society.

Deaf people’s identity politics also resemble those of other minority groups. To create a collective identity, borders have to be drawn. But where? This is of course an widely debated issue. There is some kind of hierarchy: Some people are regarded as “more deaf” than others according to Breivik:

Within the Deaf signing community, deafened people are often viewed as suspect figures. This is because they are not accepted as being really deaf, and they are often accused of being too willing to pass as hearing people.

An informant says:

“In the United States, there are extremely deaf conscious, and where you must be second- or third-generation deaf to be counted as a real deaf person.”

Many informants fear for sharper boundaries between the deaf and the hearing world. One of them says:

“Deaf Power can be compared to being proud to be from Norway, and be extremely conscious of that. Such self-consciousness can turn into nationalism. This scares me, and I experience this constantly. At each youth camp, there are always some extreme types. Their messages do not differ from other extreme nationalists. It is always us vs. them.”

Many deaf people live transnational lives: They travel a lot in order to meet other deaf people. In contrast to many hearing people, deaf people don’t link equality and sameness, Breivik found out:

One of the key lessons I have learned, as a hearing person who has been immersed in deaf life through my anthropological research, is that the phrase “being at home among strangers” (Schein 1989) goes to the heart of the identity question. This is about deaf people’s frequent departure from biological roots and the hearing, settled world, and their search for “equals” in distant places.

Their language – the sign language is of great help. It is much more suitable for transnational lives than spoken languages. It’s quite easy to learn foreign sign languages. Albertine from Norway tells about her time in the USA:

“I was present one month before school started up, and by that time I was able to make myself understood and I could capture most of what they told me. After three months, I was almost fluent in American Sign Language.”

Japanese, she tells, is totally incomprehensible. Nevertheless she’s convinced that she would have managed Japanese “after a few weeks.”

Deaf people embrace the new communication technologies like internet and email. For many of them, the Net is a window toward the world, several informants met their husbands/wives there. On the internet, they are able to communicate with strangers freely without any consideration of hearing status.

I’m halfway-through the book that actually qualifies to become one of my favorite anthropology books. It describes a – for hearing people – totally unknown world and turns some of our assumptions upside down. The book is also an example for good anthropological writing!

>> more information on the book by the publisher

>> read the first chapter of the book

‘I hoped our baby would be deaf’ Most parents would be distressed to learn that their child had been born unable to hear. But for Paula Garfield and Tomato Lichy, it means daughter Molly can share their special culture (The Guardian, 21.3.06)

UPDATE:

Anthropologist Karen Nakamura is going to publish a new book called Deaf in Japan. It will be out in August 2006.

Grace Keyes: “Hearing has been neglected in studies of enculturation and personality development”

Ladakh: Emmigration is threatening sacred weaving traditions

Published on March 26, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, books, culture traditions, technology

Weaving is a tradition dear to the Rupshupa of Ladakh. But the craft is at the crossroads because many youngsters are leaving in search of a better lifestyle, says anthropologist Monisha Ahmed in The Hindu. “There are very few ethnic communities in the world where both men and women weave, and that’s what makes the Rupshupa special,” she says. She was so intrigued by their weaving tradition that in 1992 she decided to do her doctoral dissertation on the Rupshupa:

In the years since, Ahmed has spent a lot of time roaming and camping in their stark Changthang highlands with the Rupshupa, studying the fabric of their life. She has seen them moving 10 times a year, observed them herding and shearing their livestock, weaving their hair and fleece, playing traditional games, celebrating marriages, mourning the dead and offering worship at their monasteries in Thugje and Korzok, the tiny towns where they have their storehouses.

She has learned their songs and understood their prayers. Her first book, Living Fabric: Weaving among the Nomads of Ladakh, Himalaya, won the Textile Society of America’s Shep Award in 2003 for best book in the field of ethnic textile studies.

>> read the whole story in The Hindu

Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge – conference papers in fulltext

Published on February 19, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, culture traditions, indigenous people / minorities, journal articles / papers, websites

For some reason, information on what is going on on anthropology conferences is difficult to obtain. Accidentally, I stumbled upon the website on a conference by the Association of Social Anthropologists on Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge that was held six years ago. Strangely enough, all papers are published in full text.

From the introduction:

Anthropology’s enduring interest in people’s knowledge systems has recently attracted the attention of development policymakers and practitioners. ‘Indigenous knowledge’ has emerged with the focus on popular participation and planning-from-below. It has opened up opportunities for anthropology to engage practically as never before. How might it further contribute to, and learn from this current burgeoning of interest, which has taken it somewhat by surprise?

>> overview over all papers

SEE ALSO:

“Aboriginal knowledge is science”

Who owns native culture?

“A Season in Mecca” – New book about real participant observation as a mecca pilgrim

Published on February 8, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, culture traditions, Middle East, religion cosmology

Priceton University presents a new book which might be an example for good anthropological writing. It’s a book about the Hajj-pilgrimage to Mecca by anthropologist Abdellah Hammoudi:

Written in the first person, “A Season in Mecca” reads like a novel and is filled with descriptions and personal reflections. It follows a narrative structure, starting with journal entries Hammoudi wrote at his Princeton home before embarking for North Africa and the Middle East, and ending with his departure from Saudi Arabia, which is where Mecca and other sites central to the hajj are located.

Approximately 2 million Muslims travel to Mecca annually. The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam — along with profession of faith, prayer, fasting and alms giving. It is obligatory for every Muslim man or woman, who has the means, to do once in a lifetime. “According to Muslim tradition, the hajj purifies you from sin, puts you on the right path, and brings the mercy of God in you for a good life here and in the hereafter”, says anthropologist Abdella Hammoudi, author of the book which became available in English in January.

Hammoudi grew up in Morocco and moved later to France. He says, he knew that the project would be “problematic” for him because of the tension he felt arose from his dual education (both religious and secular). But, and this is interesting, “it was precisely this cultural and educational hybridity that he saw as integral to his study of the hajj”.

“I would not have done this [project] as an anthropologist without that sense of existential risk-taking. I went as a cultural Muslim with empathy, and also with distance. I went also with the openness to take the risk to revise everything I had lived with until now.”

>> read the whole story

>> read an excerpt of the book (OpenDemocracy)

>> Review of the book in the Christian Science Monitor: He traveled to Mecca in search of himself

Priceton University presents a new book which might be an example for good anthropological writing. It's a book about the Hajj-pilgrimage to Mecca by anthropologist Abdellah Hammoudi:

Written in the first person, “A Season in Mecca” reads like a novel and…

Book review: Claiming the Stones, Naming the Bones: Cultural Property and the Negotiation of Identity

Published on February 7, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, culture traditions, indigenous people / minorities, Us and Them

It’s “a strong volume and potentially an excellent teaching text for those interested in exploring case studies in cultural heritage and representation”, anthropologist Jamie Brandon concludes in his review of the book Claiming the Stones, Naming the Bones: Cultural Property and the Negotiation of National and Ethic Identity by Barkan, Elazar and Ronald Bush .

He writes that the book attempts to cross-cut multiple disciplines (including archaeology, physical anthropology, literature, cultural studies, ethnomusicology and museum studies) and offer perspectives regarding disputes over the definition and ownership of cultural properties.

This part of the review caught my eye

In the United States, Ross tells us, “to belong to a particular race is to possess copyright in that race; the right to turn a profit—or not—on the reputation credited to that race; the right to image the race in particular ways; the right to hold property, invest in, and profit from one’s racial “stock” (p. 260). Ross charts the struggle over these rights through efforts of African-Americans to challenge and control popular images of blackness.

>> read the whole review on the blog “Farther Along”

Indigenousness and the Politics of Spirituality: “Cultural ownership may lead directly to essentialization and racism”

It's "a strong volume and potentially an excellent teaching text for those interested in exploring case studies in cultural heritage and representation", anthropologist Jamie Brandon concludes in his review of the book Claiming the Stones, Naming the Bones: Cultural Property…