Deaf cultures: towards decolonisation of body, disability, and deafness*

Introduction

Disability theories originating in the global North ignored the importance of the colonial expedition as well as the pre-colonial dominant ideologies, like patriarchy, and Brahminism (in India) that have shaped the experiences of disabilities in the global South (Buckingham 2011; Grech 2015). They have intensified the existing inequalities; created ‘neocolonial binaries’ of civilised/uncivilised, developed/underdeveloped, abled/disabled (Grech 2015). Grosfoguel (2011) uses the word ‘coloniality’ to define the ‘colonial solutions’ in which a dominant group keeps exploiting a subordinated group, even with or without the colonial administration. This ‘coloniality’ of the body has ‘normalised’ our ‘gaze’ towards seeing the body, regulating the body in the public sphere, and eradicating the ‘pathologised’ body from public spaces.

It is important to discuss the pre-colonial experiences of disability. I am focusing on India because although the body politics in India resisted the European colonialism, or the dominance of the white male body, it simultaneously invested in creating the ‘idealness’ of the bourgeoisie (Upper Caste) Hindu abled male body over the ‘internal’ Muslim men, Dalit, disabled, women and the queer person’s body (Wakankar 1995). This ‘idealness’ of ‘superior’ Brahmin men, and the stigmatisation of the disabled body, gets legitimacy from the Brahmanical texts. Miles (2002a, 2002b, 2002c, 2002d), who has explored the concept of disabilities in religious texts, argues that Western models of disability are unsuited to studying disability in India. From Manusmriti¹, Dharamasutras to Bhagavad Gita², all the religious texts deny inheritance rights to disabled people; instead, they associate disability as an outcome of poor karmas (deeds). The Bhagavad Gita (with the Santasugatiya and the Angita, translated by Telang 1882) associates the ‘Darkness’ with the ‘disability’. Here the metaphor of ‘darkness’ is used to define the ‘Shudras womb’, the people who commit ‘sin’ born from a ‘Shudra’³ womb, they are born as the ‘deaf’, ‘dumb’, and with many other such ‘dark qualities’. Only by rectifying those past karmas can they free themselves from ‘darkness’ or go beyond the ‘Shudra’s womb’ (ibid., 317–23). Some scholars say inheritance was denied because disabled people were considered unable to perform the Brahmanical rituals either related to last rites, or some other rituals for the family welfare (Derrett and Duncan 1968). Buckingham 2011 argues that the Brahminical texts cannot define the entire disability culture in India, as it is limited to Upper Caste Hindus, and there are many village stories, rituals, and arts that need to be analysed to understand the disabilities in India. I believe that many stories need to be explored in the context of disabilities, but the Brahminical text is not limited to a few people, it defines the nature of (Body) politics of India, and it has regulated the bodies in public spaces. Many-a-times Indian judiciary has used Manusmriti to deliver verdicts (Chakraborty 2020). Overall the vision of ‘Hindu rashtra’ is based on ‘Manusmriti’ (Teltumbde 2006). Further, these texts ‘normalised’ the disability as the people are made to believe that it is their past karmas which are responsible for the disability. Jepson (1991), while doing an ethnographic study on deaf community in India, came across this ‘normalisation’ around hearing loss. He writes that families do fasts and rituals to rectify that past deed, so the deafness can be cured, but in the case of no progress, they choose to live with it by hiding it and ‘normalising’ it. Thus, these ‘normalised’ bodies accommodate themselves as per the demand of the neoliberal market (Grech 2015) or the marriage market (Pandian 2020). I will be discussing it in detail, but before that, we need to understand that while talking of decolonising the disability, we cannot move back to the Brahminical past; instead, it must be an effort towards joining the ‘site of resistance’ against every oppressive structure, or in the words of bell hooks we must ‘decolonise our minds, decolonize our very beings’ (hooks 1990, 342).

In this article, I am studying how ‘deafness’ is not just limited to hearing loss, but as James Spradley said, it is shaped by ‘social and cultural conditions’ (Carmel and Monaghan 1991, 411). The medical gaze prevents us from seeing many other aspects of deafness in India. The knowledge production around deafness fails to see the colonial and Brahminical constructions around deafness, and the role of caste, gender, and economy in accessing and using the technologies, or hearing aids (Zhao et al. 2015). Furthermore, the non-Deaf knowledge production on sound cultures is limited to able-bodied perspectives. The understanding of sound is limited to the audist nature of it, and all other forms of listening are ignored in previous research. Scholars did not give major attention to the interaction of deaf people with sound, or with sound technologies (Rosati 2021). The abled body researchers with their work followed the same ‘colonised gaze’ and created ‘the other’ identity of the ‘disabled’. By doing that they have legitimised the epistemological position of global North academicians and the universities (Grech 2015). A few of the academic discourses certainly deconstructed the colonial gaze on deafness; there has not yet been a major contribution from a narrative or ethnographic/participatory perspective.

My research will contribute to this aim. This paper will analyse the colonial and Brahminical construction of body, beauty, disability, and Deafness. It will also explore the aspects related to medical gaze and gender.

The construction of ‘Deaf’ as a disabled identity

The dominant culture, ideology, institutions, and structure in society shape our understanding of everything around us. It can exist in the form of science, religion (Brahminism), colonialism, and capitalism. This dominant model influences our knowledge production, constructs the idea of ‘normalcy’, and most importantly, our understanding of the body, disability, and deafness. To discuss this issue, I shall draw on some of the studies that have been carried out on this topic. In light of these studies, I will analyse the literature based on the theme of the prevalence of the dominant model understanding of disability, the historical context of D/deafness, the social and cultural construction of deafness, the dominance of oralism in Deaf education, the ‘clinical gaze’ on the Deaf body, and the impact of sound production technologies on deaf people.

The concept of ‘the deaf’ generated from the mechanisation of the natural world, to separate the human from animals; to make ‘animals the antithesis of humanity’ (Berman 1990; Branson and Miller 2002; Thomas 1983). Language is something that can separate humans from animals. John Locke emphasised that all knowledge could be gained through the five senses; those who lack it cannot be knowledgeable or sensible (Branson and Miller 2002). Language, only in the speech form, became the symbol of rationality; it is something that can divide primitive society from civilised society, East from the West, normal from the abnormal, able from the disabled (Baynton 1996; Malinowski 1923).

‘How Deaf people think’: oral versus sign languages

There is one image that went viral on Twitter that asks ‘In what language deaf people think in’?

To understand the post we need to understand how the sign languages were subverted, and the oralist pedagogy became synonymous with intellectuality. In capitalism, the ‘thought’ was capitalised, philosophy had to meet the demands of modern or the ‘colonial rationality’, and evolutionists saw the sign languages as ‘the languages of savages’ or unable to achieve any knowledge through them, hence they stigmatised sign languages (Malinowski 1923; Mirzoeff 1995). Evolutionism legitimised the inequalities based on biological determinism (Pernick 1997); Darwin's concept of ‘survival of the fittest’ was employed to justify the doctrine of ‘evolutionism,’ thereby rationalising dominion over women, the working classes, colonies, and the ‘disabled’ (Branson and Miller 2002).

Snyder and Mitchell (2001, 368) wrote that ‘erasures of disabled people have historically been achieved through such cultural “solutions” as institutionalization, isolation, genocide, cure, concealment, segregation, exile, quarantine, and prosthetic masking, among others’. Towards the 19th century, ‘to normalise the society’ or to assimilate the Deaf people into ‘hearing society’, schools were opened for deaf children to educate them using oralist pedagogy, and the use of group hearing aids came into existence. After the Second World War, new technologies came which could check the ability to hear sounds; the concept of deafness was categorised into mild, moderate, and profound hearing loss. ‘Partially hearing’ replaced the concept of deafness; and partially hearing was ‘normalised’ through technologies. The assimilation of Deaf communities into the hearing culture through forced oralist pedagogy is not only the devaluation of sign language but imposing the majoritarian language on them. Bourdieu (1991) defines language as a ‘medium of power’, the majoritarian languages (oral languages) have this ‘symbolic power’ whereas the other (sign) languages lack it.

The difficulties of hearing have been linked to intellectuality as well. In a documentary on YouTube, ‘Deaf Community in India’, by Carol Duffy Clay (2016), a person said that the employers ‘didn’t think that I could come up with creative ideas, they asked me to do some menial work’. Deaf people are thought of as lacking any intellectual capabilities. Any person communicating in sign language cannot have intellectual, cultural, social, and political space. Christine Sun Kim (2015), in a TED interview, asserts there are a ‘million cultures around spoken languages’, and if a person does not express themselves in the verbal language, it is considered they need help, they are disabled. Titchkosky (2000) writes that disabled people are rejected in academia simply on the grounds that they may require some ‘reasonable accommodation’. The intellectual capabilities are associated with spoken languages/speech, and sign languages are already ‘stigmatised’ (Branson and Miller 2002). The colonial perspective on the body was deeply entwined with the establishment of a binary division between savages and the civilised. The bodies of the savages or colonised populations were perceived as robust and well-suited for laborious tasks. In contrast, the coloniser's body was often characterised as possessing intellectual prowess. Consequently, the colonisers undertook the mission of educating, primarily through spoken languages, and “civilising” the bodies of other racial groups (Grech 2015). Similarly, Brahminism has also invested in making the ‘theoretical’ superior savarnas and ‘empirical’ inferior Dalit body (Guru 2002). The same colonial and Brahminical understanding is about the Deaf body, which has influenced the hiring and promotion of people in any knowledge production jobs.

Demand of the market, and the deafness

Constructing the identity of ‘the deaf’ was also the demand of the market. Frank Mondelli (2022) writes that we cannot understand sound cultures without understanding the connection between technologies and deafness. The social actors use disability as a pretense to convert assistive technology into other uses. Oralist pedagogy became intertwined with the notion of the beauty of life, the advertisement focused on how the music, and made people believe that music (hearing aids) can help deaf people to come out of isolation, and become a part of ‘normalised society’. Some hearing aid manufacturers saw hearing aids as a means to conquer the broader electrics and sound hardware. Jonathan Sterne (2003) writes that social and cultural conditions gave rise to the sound reproduction technology that has maintained a stigma against deafness, but used it in the development of the technology. Alexander Graham Bell developed visible speech technology for deaf people, like the other eugenists of his time, he saw deafness as a human disability to overcome and was against deaf people marrying one another (Sterne 2003). The coming of these technologies, using oralist pedagogies, has suppressed the cultural rights of Deaf bodies. It helped only in the construction of the deaf people as ‘other’ and ‘disabled’ (Branson and Miller 2002; Mondelli 2022). Personal hearing aids are very expensive, and cannot cure deafness completely, Jaipreet Virdi wrote in her book Hearing Happiness: ‘It only matters that [a cure exists] and that it can deliver. If it fails to do so, then it’s not the cure’s fault. It’s yours.’ (Virdi 2020, 34) The ideological constructs around disability need to be questioned, and Deaf people must have their own space where they can live without any symbolic violence of hearing culture.

Decolonising the ‘audistic’ perspective of sound

The dominant history and the works on the soundscape have just focused on the hearing people’s engagement with the sound; it has perpetuated the dominant ideologies of audism and ableism through sound (Eppley 2021). Sterne (2003) shows that sound studies itself is an outcome of Deaf studies, and both Deaf and soundscape cannot be separated. It is the market which has exploited or stigmatised the Deaf people for their market purposes, like Jaipreet Virdi in Hearing Happiness writes that the advertisements for hearing aids made deafness visible so that it can be rendered invisible again through technologies, and the Completely In Canal (CIC)⁴ made that deafness invisible, and can restore the perfect idea of beauty (Adams 2021). The work of Christine Sun Kim (2016) decolonises these ‘audistic’ properties of sound; her research focuses on subverting the ableist gaze of listening, perpetuated by hearing society, and emphasises the empathetic nature of listening which is beyond the audist properties of sound. Kim, in ‘The Enchanting Music of Sign Languages’ (Kim 2015), describes how society made Deaf people think that sound has nothing to do with them, it’s ‘a hearing person thing’, but her own experiences of engaging with the sound explained that listening is not about the sound, it has more emotional and sensory properties than the sonic, ‘sound is a social currency’ and the ableist ideologies have controlled that currency for themselves, for the functioning of their own dominant ideologies. Her research focused on the listening experience of the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing people. Eppley writes that

Kim’s works, such as (LISTEN), portray the complexity of Deaf life and Deaf culture in and beyond society’s ableist sonic infrastructures and ideologies, envisioning encounters with listening through memory, affect, and non-acoustical perceptual modes that integrate sight, touch, taste, and smell. (Eppley 2021, 108)

Apart from the problematic exclusion of Deaf people in the soundscape, the listening practices always remained colonial and produced the dominant narratives. For example, in ethnographic research, the researcher uses a recorder without the consent of the participants, and tries to ‘appropriate’ or ‘civilise’ the sounds; this listening culture is itself rooted in colonialism (Rosati 2021). We need the empathetic, participatory nature of listening which is beyond any dominant narrative of ableism and colonialism.

Methodological consideration and data collection

The study was conducted using qualitative research methodology. To collect the data, I used autoethnography, interviews, and non-participating observation in real and virtual spaces. Autoethnography emerged from ethnography. In autoethnography researchers focused on self-experience, narrative, and personal diaries; this self-observation is used to interpret the broader social structure. Heewon Chang (2016) said autoethnography is ‘cultural analysis and interpretation with narrative details’, thus the narrative must be told in understanding the broader social-cultural context. Autoethnography is not merely about the self but studying society through the self; it requires having a cultural understanding of the self and others (Chang 2016). Here, with the experiences of my own self of being part of both hearing and Deaf society, I explored the social and cultural construction of deafness, the ‘stigmatised’ and the ‘sympathised’ gaze of people on me, my desire of passing as a ‘normal’, unsolicited advice (often which is dehumanising in nature) of the people to restore my ‘lost humanity’. The participants of my study faced similar experiences. In my informal interviews with women, they shared their experiences of wearing hearing aids. They explained that if people see their hearing aids, they are often asked many intrusive questions. Sometimes it is very exhausting for them to tell their medical history. One of my participants told me that she chose not to talk about it as, if the people would get to know her in society, it may create some problems in her marriage. In my analysis, I will be discussing this desire for passing as ‘normal’ among deaf women. I collected my data by visiting three Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) centres during my own treatment. In all the clinics, I observed doctors, deaf ‘patients’, deaf children and their ‘hearing’ parents, and speech therapists. I observed myself and other ‘patients’ at the time of the audiometric test and other hearing tests.

I initiated some informal conversations with the young people who are using hearing aids about the medical ‘problem’ they are facing, when they are using hearing aids, if there is any surgery that the doctor has suggested, and how their family, society, and their working place treats them. In my case, one doctor has suggested surgery to me, so the possibility of wearing hearing aids for a lifetime could be removed, though a few other doctors suggested it would not help me much even after surgery. For the doctor who suggested surgery to me, her concern was that I am too young to maintain hearing aids, and I have a long life (basically presumed to be after marriage) to live in which wearing hearing aids would not be acceptable as part of married life.

Part of the data was collected through participant and non-participant observation. I observed my and other patients’ interactions with the doctors to find out how the ‘professional’ advice of the doctors is influenced by the colonial and the Brahmanised lens. I also talked with the two mothers who keep fasts and perform rituals for their deaf child. They endeavoured to seek remedies, exploring not only medical solutions but also delving into rituals. These discussions with the women centred around their fasting practices, worship methods, and their deeply held beliefs.

The other research material I collected was from social media and digital media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Quora, and YouTube. There is content shared by the deaf people, their lived experience, their challenges, and their own reason for performing ‘normal’ in professional spaces, and how the ‘normal’ people react to meeting them. There are documentaries about mothers who performed rituals for curing the deafness of their children, and the reaction of hearing parents to their deaf children. I joined a deaf marriage group on Facebook. Virtual non-participant observation is a covert affair as the researcher lurks around the blogs and social networking sites and videos (Murthy 2008).

Few ethical concerns need to be avoided while studying the ‘disabled’ spaces. One is that many of the ‘able-bodied’ researchers while studying disability either knowingly or unknowingly dehumanise the disabled body. They commodified the pain and emotional labour of the ‘disabled’ community and located the ‘problem’ in the body itself, even the sociologist able-bodied researchers do the same (Titchkosky 2000; Tremain 1993). These studies have engendered a societal stigma, particularly among disabled people, by fostering a motivation to conform to conventional norms of normalcy. In recent years, I myself have been observed in the ‘medical gaze’ and have been making constant efforts to pass as a ‘normal’ in the public and academic sphere. The abled or even the disabled researchers while collecting the data must be aware of the power relations between them and the participant; and they should not apply any methodology or collect any data that can further contribute to this stigmatising gaze, without breaking the construction around disability.

My data collection process raises a few ethical concerns. Firstly, the autoethnographic data and interviews with hearing aid users that I conducted originated from individuals who had experienced hearing loss over time and relied on hearing aids. While I discussed the concept of a ‘hearing society’ constructed to restore humanity and societal stability, I am cautious about generalising these experiences to those who were born deaf. Secondly, my data collection had limitations in incorporating voices from marginalised caste/religion backgrounds and their intersectional experiences with deafness. Two factors contributed to this limitation. Firstly, I gathered a significant portion of my data by visiting ENT hospitals and speaking with patients, most of whom (except a few) were from Delhi and belonged to ‘privileged’ castes. I made an effort to connect with individuals through NGOs. However, due to time limitations, my outreach was limited to only a small number of individuals. To address this constraint, I attempted to overcome it by tapping into existing shared experiences available in documentaries and on various platforms. Secondly, despite sharing a ‘disabled’ identity, I acknowledge that my own privileged caste position could potentially lead to the exploitation of emotional labour and the dehumanisation of individuals at the bottom of marginalisation, thus further contributing to their marginalisation.

Medical gaze: curing health problems to restoring normality

In Loknayak hospital, I was told by a doctor to go for surgery, as ‘you are too young to wear hearing aids for the rest of your life’. In other private clinics, I was told to buy hearing aids, but not Behind The Ear (BTE),⁵ as they will be ‘visible’ to people. Though the audiometric test decides which hearing aids we can go for, in mild to moderate severe hearing loss CIC are suggested, as they are more expensive than the BTE. It was suggested that I use hearing aids not just to restore my hearing loss, but somehow to retain that ‘desired humanity’ that does not create any disorder to the ‘norms’ of ideal society.

In a documentary titled ‘deaf Free Villages India’ (Smiling Crocodile 2022), a seven-year-old girl received a cochlear implant with the assistance of NGOs on a mission to ensure that everyone has the ability to hear. Many children are compelled to assimilate into the hearing culture to be considered part of a ‘normal society’ and experience a ‘normal childhood’. However, this often leads to a dehumanising experience when they are frequently asked, ‘Can you hear?’

I observed a five-year-old child in the clinic who was born deaf but was using hearing aids. The parents, perhaps out of a desire for their child to participate in ‘normal’ activities, did not encourage the child to learn sign language, nor did the doctor recommend it. However, the child's facial expressions revealed fear, a fear of missing words and a sense of confusion. I personally experienced something similar, which led me to perceive this situation in that way. This process of ‘dehumanisation’ that brings us into the fold of ‘normal’ society is rooted in colonial, capitalistic, and Brahminical notions of the body.

In the documentary, a doctor stated, ‘Once we empower them with normal hearing, they will have their own lives to lead, and they are going to be very potential citizens.’ The term ‘potential citizens’ refers to those who are considered ‘normal’ and ‘able-bodied’. Doctors prioritise restoring ‘normality’ rather than focusing on a cure. Foucault (1973), in ‘The Birth of the Clinic’, writes that by the 18th century, the focus of medicine was ‘health’, to restore the health challenges that a being is facing. With the coming of the 19th century, the clinical gaze shifted from ‘health’ to ‘normality’. The regular functionality of the five senses dominated 19th-century medicine history. The body is now seen in the ‘medical bipolarity of the normal and the pathological’ (ibid., 35) and the pathological body needs to be fixed and accommodated as it may create the disorder in the ‘natural’ classification done by the modern science, whose purpose is to serve the capitalistic power. As I discussed above, the oralist pedagogy, hearing society, and eugenic movement all came to maintain the order or the ‘normality’ of the society.

Passing as a ‘normal’

There is desire among deaf patients too to fit into this ‘normal’ structure. While talking to one another young deaf woman, I asked how she views her deafness, she said ‘Problems arise if you keep thinking you are deaf and unable to communicate with the ‘normal’ people, often people can’t even identify that I’m profoundly deaf; I am good at reading lips, then why I should keep thinking of that.’ deaf people have a constant desire to be ‘normal’. In my own experiences, many times I prefer not to tell people and want to pass as a ‘normal’ person. The invention of technology (CIC in my case) enabled us to pass as ‘normal’. Milana Todoroff and Tanya Lewis (1992) write on the phenomenon of ‘passing’ as the normal. The authors interviewed seven women with disabilities, they concluded that appearing ‘normal’ is a ‘healthy survival technique’. The other reason for passing as normal is because of the ‘stigma’ that is associated with deafness and disabled bodies. There is always much discomfort, guilt, fear, and shame among the ‘deaf patients’. Goffman (1961) said the stigma is generated through interaction, it is induced to mark the difference between the hearing bodied and the deaf-bodied, it is constructed to locate the ‘problems’ in the body itself. This ‘stigma’ in every sphere of life forces people to pass as a ‘normal’ and maintain the ‘normalcy of the institution’.

The desire for ‘normalisation’ is also one of the requirements of the market. In colonial times, the abled strong slave body had more market value than any other disabled body; often the traders used to hide any impairment in the slave body, but the visible impairment was difficult to hide, and often those visibly ‘disabled’ bodies were rejected. The empire has made a clear desire for the able, strong-bodied body, the similar preferences of this colonial ‘normalised’ body is seen in the neoliberal economy (Grech 2015), hence our desire of passing as a ‘normal’ is also a (capitalistic) market demand. I discus below how it is associated with the demand of the marriage market.

Marriage market, beauty, normality, and the deaf women

During informal conversations with a deaf woman about marriage and family, she shared her concern that it is difficult for her parents to communicate about her deafness with the prospective groom and his family ‘ladke walon ko kya bolenge’ (What will we say to the boy’s side?),⁶ as it may create some issues in marriages, therefore she chooses not to talk about her ‘disability’ in front of her society; my mother discussed a similar ‘concern’ with me. My doctor told me ‘You are unmarried, and no husband wants his wife to wear hearing aids, you should buy only Complete in the Canal [CIC] [to hide your disability].’ The doctor’s suggestion and the attitudes of the people towards hearing need to be understood from Brahminical and colonial constructions around beauty and body, and the requirement of the ‘perfect body’ in the ‘pure’ endogamous marriages. The Hindu religious text, The Institutes of Vishnu, translated by Julius Jolly (1880), says that men should not ‘marry a woman with disease, or impairment of body or conduct’. The question is why? First, the beauty norms rooted in the Brahmanical system enforced women with certain beauty expectations, like fair skin (a colonialist expectation too). The family hierarchy could be maintained by setting this beauty expectation, the ‘disciplined’, ‘self-controlled’, ‘youthful’, ‘elegant’, ‘perfect’ woman’s body helps in attaining or maintaining the ‘cultural capital’ in the Brahmanical patriarchy. Brahminism can maintain its supremacy only through the ‘pure’, ‘non-defective’ bodies of the women, hence it invests in ‘normalising’ the beauty standards, and the women’s body (Pandian 2020). The cultural construction around the disabled body always influences science and the medical gaze. The central focus of this cultural perspective lies in achieving normalisation, identifying signs of potential abnormality, and taking measures to prevent it. Consequently, women find themselves subjected to ongoing medical scrutiny and surveillance, compelling them to engage continuously in self-monitoring to protect themselves (Findlay 1992). Zhao et al. (2015) explain this in the ‘theory of planned behaviour’ that people predict the reaction of society members according to the existing ‘social norms’ and this affects their intentions to wear hearing aids. The prediction about how a husband should react comes from the existing Brahminical expectations of a ‘perfect’ body and beauty. Pandian (2020, 122) says that ‘normalisation’ is not done through science, but religion, literature, and culture too; ‘this disciplining of women’s bodies in Indian society echoes the colonial ideologies of the Hindu state and views femininity as an object to be disciplined by its patriarchal power structure’.

The other cures: rituals, karma, the body, and the deafness

Madan Vasishta (2006), in his memoir Deaf in Delhi, writes how his family’s search for a cure for his deafness took him to not only medical specialists but to as many ‘sadhus and mahatmas’ (holy men and saints). He writes how his ‘Bhua [Aunt] Parvati strongly believed that my deafness was caused by my lack of respect for various gods.’ The mothers I met, including mine, tried to search for cures not just medically but through rituals too. One such ritual that my mother asked me to follow is to offer water to Shiva in the month of Shravan, and apply it on my ear, so it could restore my hearing power. The mother of a five-year-old kid who is born deaf and using hearing aids has fasted for an entire month, so it could help her daughter. These mothers are ‘guilty’ of what they believe is negative karma from their previous lives, which has punished their children. YouTube hosts several videos in which healing can allegedly be achieved through the execution of certain rituals aimed at ameliorating the consequences of past life transgressions. Jill Jepson (1991) did an ethnographic study in India and the author said people’s sense of deafness is attributed to some supernatural causes or some punishment, therefore they tried to find ‘cures’ to do some rituals. In one of the videos, one acharya (spiritual teacher) said the only way to know the suffering is through the ‘law of karma’. Urshula Sharma (1973) said the ancient texts of Hinduism teach about karma and influence the beliefs of the people about disability, and the ‘theory of karma’ extends beyond the consequences of an individual’s actions solely for themselves; it also encompasses the actions of those connected to them, consequently, these mothers believe that their past deeds have resulted in ‘misfortunes’ for their children. These misfortunes stem from breaking caste rules or not worshipping a deity in a particular manner, therefore mothers endeavour to adhere to all rules, and rectify those karmas for fortune. Sharma draws upon Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion to assert that religion has not addressed the needs of the oppressed, hence it provides a positive evaluation to their sufferings. Pramila Balasundaram (2007, 20) writes, ‘For the Hindu mother, her belief in Karma left her in a paradoxical situation. Since it was her Karma, she could not blame God for it.’

Conclusion

In conclusion, the paper provides a comprehensive exploration of how ‘Deafness’ has been constructed as a ‘disabled’ category, and how sign languages were subverted drawing upon evolutionary and capitalist perspectives. It has navigated the colonial and Brahmanical constructs of disability, shedding light on the limitations of Western epistemologies when applied to understanding disability in the South Asian context. Central to this analysis is the recognition that the concept of ‘normalcy’ has often been wielded as a weapon, resulting in discrimination against ‘disabled’ people. This paper has discussed the phenomenon of deaf individuals concealing their identity to assimilate into the ‘normal’ fabric of public life, viewing it as a survival strategy. This highlights the pervasive influence of societal expectations and underscores the pressing need to challenge and reshape these expectations.

Notably, the paper champions an argument against the prevailing pathological and biologically defective view of deafness. Instead, it eloquently calls for a profound decolonisation of the gaze upon the human body. Its emphasis on decolonising the audistic nature of sound is to challenge and transform the deeply ingrained biases and hierarchies associated with the perception and valuation of sound within society. Audism involves discrimination and prejudice against individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as the prioritisation of hearing and spoken language as the norm. In sum, it is needed to steer disability studies away from perpetuating ‘othering’ and towards a more inclusive recognition that every human body has the potential to experience disability. This paper challenges the conventional notions of ability and disability, and advocates for a more compassionate and understanding approach to the rich diversity of human experiences and bodies.

This study primarily centred its investigation on the sociocultural dimensions of the Deaf experience, critically examined the medical paradigm’s gaze on the Deaf body, and undertook an epistemological deconstruction of Western methodologies employed in the study of disability. However, it is imperative to acknowledge the limited generalisability of the findings to other facets of the deaf experience, such as those within war-affected regions or communities residing in proximity to industrial areas where higher instances of hearing loss may be prevalent. Future research endeavours should thus consider delving into these distinct contexts. Furthermore, there exists a compelling opportunity for future research to scrutinise the linguistic variations within Deaf communities, specifically pertaining to the variance observed in sign languages employed by these communities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shreeti Shubham

Shreeti Shubham is an independent researcher with a focus on exploring sound technology through a sociocultural lens. Prior to that, she worked as a Research Assistant at the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad, India. She holds a Master’s degree in Media Governance from Jamia Millia Islamia. Postal address: care of the G&D editorial office. Email: [email protected]

Notes

* Deaf with a capital ‘D’ signifies individuals who view their Deafness as a vital aspect of their cultural identity, possessing access to networks and linguistic resources. In contrast, ‘deaf’ with a lowercase ‘d’ denotes those who may lack such accessibility or perceive deafness as a disability.

1 Manusmriti is referred to as ‘laws of Manu’. It is a Brahminic legal text, which came in between 200 BCE and 200 CE. The text is organised into 12 chapters, each presenting the norms and regulations to govern the social, religious, and domestic life of ‘Hindu’ community. It advocates the Varna division of society, and the secondary status of women.

2 Bhagavad Gita is an integral part of the Indian epic, Mahabharata. It presents the conversation that takes place between Arjuna, a Pandava prince, and his charioteer Krishna. It contains 18 chapters. The text was authored by Brahmins to counter challenges to their dominant position mounted by Buddhist and Jains. For further context, read Bailey and Oddie (2017) and Kosambi (1961).

3 The word ‘Shudra’ is used as it is mentioned in the original text Bhagavad Gita, not to dehumanise any community. Shudra is placed at the bottom of the Hindu Varna system, on which various sub-castes are classified. The exact origins of the caste system are a subject of debate, but it can be traced somewhere in the four Varnas in the Purusha Sukta of the Rigveda, an ancient collection of vedic hymns. These four Varnas are Brahmin (Priest), Kshatriya (warrior), Vaisya (Traders), and Shudra (labourers). Dalits – Scheduled Caste and Adivasis – Scheduled Tribes are outside this Varna system.

4 Completely In Canal hearing aids.

5 Behind The Ear hearing aids.

6 This phrase is often used in the context of discussions or negotiations related to endogamous marriages in South Asia, where both the bride’s and groom’s families have conversations and make arrangements.