Writing down our happiness and dreams: essay contest and the statist narratives of deaf identity in China

Abstract

Identities are not pre-given but are socially constructed with performative power. Taking a critical discursive approach, this study explores how the cultural understandings of deafness and the deaf community become intertwined with ideas of the ‘state-home’ (guo jia) in contemporary China. The paper analyzes forty award-winning biographical essays written by Chinese citizens with hearing disabilities in a 2016 national essay contest. The paper argues that the paradigmatic narratives from the essay contest correspond to the disability policy framework of the Chinese government in the market-reform era. The implications of these statist narratives of deaf identity need to be critically reflected as the human body becomes a central site of governance and governmentality in China during this stage.

Points of interest

• This study looks at autobiographical essays written by deaf people in China

• Essay contests organized for deaf people in China have opened up possibilities of expressing and sharing deaf experiences, but such events need to be analyzed critically.

• In China, the government plays an important role in orienting the disabled peoples’ organization

• The individual’s development and national development are inseparable in China’s disability advocacy

Keywords:

• Cultural representation
• deafness
• narrative identity
• disabled persons’ organization
• state-society relations
• China

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.