In space no one can see you waving your hands: making citizenship meaningful to Deaf worlds

Abstract

This article suggests that there is an underlying social contract that defines relationships between deaf and hearing people and which ultimately influences state provisions as well as society's perception of Deaf people. It is outdated and does not have the consent of Deaf communities. It will be argued that any renegotiation of the social contract needs to take into consideration a number of ‘elements’ that would be the context for that negotiation. Deaf citizens are marginalised in society largely due to a citizenship that assumes an idealised individual as a speaking and hearing citizen, with a social policy constructed and made in the image of hearing culture, that is rooted in a philosophy of favouring by default the instruction of deaf children via oral means in overwhelming mainstream education. These state policies have resulted in an entrenched social exclusion of Deaf people. Citizenship is recognised as an inclusive and momentum concept and therefore this situation is not unchangeable. A renegotiation of the social contract may require a form of group rights which nevertheless recognises the transnational nature of Deaf communities. As part of that process it will be necessary for Deaf people to obtain control over how their communities are run and resources allocated. That would entail the withering away of hearing control in a social policy context within Deaf spheres of influence. The new social contract would aim not for a paternal citizenship, but an empowering and Deaf-led one.

Keywords:

• citizenship
• state
• Deaf community
• social contract
• social policy

Notes

1. The term ‘Deaf’ (with a capital ‘D’) follows the convention to define people who regard themselves as part of a linguistic minority group, and distinguishes from those who use a lower case ‘d’ and consider their deafness to be an audiological condition and who normally choose/prefer to lipread and speak. (The author identifies himself as a Deaf person.)

2. Emery's research consisted of six focus groups, each of which met once, and a research consultation group, which met three times in total. In addition, Emery interviewed one Deaf person who had recently resided in a Scandinavian country, and two other D/deaf people were part of a group of 10 service provider professionals who were interviewed individually. In total, 37 Deaf people were part of this qualitative research project and British Sign Language was the language used to collect empirical evidence on participants' experiences and beliefs on citizenship.

3. Throughout this article reference will be made to the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), an international non-government organisation of Deaf people from 127 countries. The organisation is run by Deaf people and has a democratic structure and consultative status on several bodies within the United Nations. It aims to highlight the social exclusion of Deaf people in society, and campaigns for equal rights, particularly for sign language recognition and sign bilingual education for deaf children. Its website can be found at http://www.wfdeaf.org [last accessed 3 September 2008].

4. The Disabled Peoples' International, for example, supports the integration of disabled children into mainstream schools, and opposes ‘special schools’ (see http://v1.dpi.org/lang-en/resources/details.php?page = 75 [accessed 3 September 2008]), whereas Deaf people are constantly campaigning to prevent their closure (see Ladd 2003).

5. Kymlicka addressed the concept of deaf communities being granted group rights in his 1998 article ‘Can multiculturalism be extended to non-ethnic groups?’; a critique of this writing is contained in Breivik (2005) and Emery (2006).

6. As a random recent example, it was reported by Asian Business News, 12 February 2008, that there has been an increase of 17% in the profits of Cochlear Limited over a six month period to 31 December 2007, bringing a net profit after tax of 51.7 million Australian dollars (or roughly £25 million). Available from: http://www.abnnewswire.net/press/en/48060/Australasian-Investment-Review.html ([accessed 19 February 2008] via the website www.grumpyoldeafies.com).