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 7:10
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Being, Becoming, and Longing
Profiles of Ten Norwegian Deaf People and Their
Life Stories
Who am I? Who are we? Where am I going? Where are we going? What is this life
all about? “These are all important questions related to identity,” writes
Jan-Kåre Breivik, author of
Deaf
Identities in the Making: Local Lives, Transnational Connections.
“However, identity is a tricky concept. It connotes sameness and is used to
differentiate oneself from others, natives from foreigners, deaf people from
hearing people, and so forth. At an individual level, sameness is connected to
the process of becoming and creating oneself. At a collective level, it is about
group formations and the process of becoming a member by achieving recognition
as an equal to other members in certain ways. This also implies a negation: I
am, and we are, not the same as members of other groups. The identification
process, therefore, calls for recognition of being different. These processes
are never easy.”
Deaf Identities in the Making is based on anthropological research among
deaf Norwegians, with a focus upon deaf life stories. Approaching the Norwegian
Deaf community by asking for life storytellers through a national Deaf magazine,
Breivik posed the following questions: “Have you ever thought about why your
life has become what it is today? Which events have influenced you the most?
Did you ever consider writing your life story?” The resulting ten profiles
presented in Deaf Identities in the Making “explore ambiguity and a
not-yet-fully-achieved sense of selfhood,” explains Breivik. “These stories
originate mostly from deaf people who would like a stronger link to the Deaf
world and get credit for more than one anchorage point in life. The emerging
attitude among many deaf youngsters is that they take their cultural Deafness
for granted, while at the same time engaging in a critical dialogue on the
problems of a monocultural tendency within Deaf identity politics. This new
attitude is reflected in several of the following life stories and is also
brought into the discussion on collective challenges in the final chapter of
this book.”
Read chapter 1 “Being,
Becoming, and Longing,” and
order
Deaf Identities in the Making: Local Lives, Transnational Connections at
your exclusive subscriber discount rate of 20% off the regular price.
 A review from
History: Reviews of New Books offers accolades for
Edmund Booth:
Deaf Pioneer by Harry G. Lang, stating, “Gallaudet University Press produces
beautiful books, and this clearly written volume is no exception, with plentiful
crisp illustrations and tasteful organizational markers. It is accessible to a
general audience, and would be useful as supplementary reading in a
college-level U.S. history course or deaf history course.” In Edmund Booth:
Deaf Pioneer, Lang follows in fascinating detail the amazing career of
Edmund Booth and his equally amazing wife, Mary Ann Walworth Booth. He describes
Booth as a “Renaissance man, a farm boy who grew up to distinguish himself as a
journalist, educator, and founder of schools and organizations. [Booth] was also
profoundly deaf, as well as blind in one eye, and he possessed ‘the soul of a
pioneer and a spirit restless for freedom and independence.’” Learn more about
this American original and the pioneer days as seen through Deaf eyes in chapter
5
“The Making of a
Forty-Niner,” and
order Edmund Booth.
 In
Disability
Protests: Contentious Politics, 1970-1999, Sharon Barnartt, coauthor of
Deaf President Now!, and
Richard Scotch trace thirty years of protests, organizations, and legislative
victories within the deaf and disabled populations. The authors analyze what
constitutes “contentious” politics and what distinguishes a sustained social
movement. They also consider the pressing question of exactly who is “deaf
enough” or “disabled enough” to adequately represent their constituencies. A
review from Disability Studies Quarterly
provides a ringing endorsement for Disability Protests: “In the
professional opinion of this reviewer,” notes Mitchell A. Kaplan, Beth Israel
Medical Center, NY, “Disability Protests: Contentious Politics
1970-1999 is an excellent book that makes a significant contribution to the
social understanding of major issues that are important to the disability
community. I would strongly recommend that the book be placed on the reading of
list of university faculty who teach graduate level courses in Sociology,
History and Disability Studies.” Read chapter 2
“Collective
Consciousness and a Profile of Issues,” and
order Disability Protests.
 The
upcoming Revolutions in Sign Language Studies: Linguistics, Literature,
Literacy conference, which takes place on March 22-24, 2006, promises to
be an insightful discussion about the latest research on linguistics, sociolinguistics,
literature, literacy and Deaf people, and all other aspects of the study of sign
languages. Keynote speakers include Dan Slobin, Professor Emeritus,
Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA; Ben Bahan,
Professor and Chair, Department of American Sign Language and Deaf Studies,
Gallaudet University, Washington, DC; and Marlon Kuntze, Post-Doctoral Fellow,
University of California, Berkeley, CA. For more information and to register by the
deadline date of December 15, 2005, go to
http://gupress.gallaudet.edu/gupiconference/index.html.
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