Deaf Identities in the Making: Local Lives, Transnational Connections

DEAF IDENTITIES IN THE MAKING

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DEAF IDENTITIES IN THE MAKING Local Lives, Transnational Connections Jan-Kåre Breivik

Gallaudet University Press Washington, D.C.

Gallaudet University Press Washington, D.C. 20002 http://gupress.gallaudet.edu © 2005 by Gallaudet University. All rights reserved Published in 2005 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Breivik, Jan-Kåre. Deaf identities in the making / Jan-Kåre Breivik. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-56368-276-1 (alk. paper) 1. Deaf—Social conditions. 2. Deaf—Psychology. 3. Identity (Psychology) 4. Deaf—Biography. 5. Sociology of disability. I. Title. HV2380.B687 2005 305.9'082—dc22 2005040070 ISBN 1-56368-2076-1 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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INTRODUCTION

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BEING, BECOMING,

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LIMINALITY

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THE HOMELESS MIND—BELONGING LIMBO

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LONGING

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AND

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L O C A L L I V E S , T R A N S N AT I O N A L CONNECTIONS

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W A Y U P : O N D E A F E T H N I F I C AT I O N

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INDIVIDUAL DILEMMAS AND C O L L E C T I V E O B S TA C L E S

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REFERENCES

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INDEX

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In writing this book, I have been guided by many friends and colleagues and helped by a few key institutions and organizations. I am in particular indebted to the deaf people who shared their life stories with me—and hence made this book possible. I am also indebted to numerous other deaf people who I approached during the years of research upon which this book is based (from 1996 and onward). These are my sign language teachers at ODF (Oslo Deaf Club), in particular Keir Evjen, and teachers, staff, and students at Ål Deaf College: Jon Martin Brauti, Ingunn Herland, Ipek Dedeoglu Mehlum, Nora E. Mosand, Per Ove Nybråten, Paal R. Peterson, Mona Skånøy, Helge Svanaasen, Klemmet Våge, Kristin Fuglås Våge, and Rolf Wennersteen. I am also indebted to the staff at Døves Video (the Deaf Video and Broadcasting Unit) and NDF (the National Deaf Association). At NDF I am in particular indebted to Hanne Enerhaugen, Tone Britt Handberg, Sonja M. Holten, Bjørn Kristiansen, and Vidar Sæle. My thanks extends to other deaf people who I have met at different global deaf events. Through some of these events I have gotten in touch with central figures in the Deaf world who have provided me with invaluable insights. One such person is the president of the World Federation of the Deaf, Markku Jokinen. Another is the former president, Liisa Kauppinen.

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Without the insight that these people have provided me with, there would have been no book at all. This is also true with regard to my deaf colleague, Hilde Haualand, who has been my main discussant for many years. Without her insight and knowledge, I would have been quite disoriented. On the hearing side, there is also a long list of people who have provided me with valuable support. Among them, I would first of all like to thank my supervisors Thomas H. Eriksen (from the University of Oslo) and Per Solvang (from the University of Bergen). They have both followed this research with insightful and inspiring critiques. I am also grateful for the presence and support from my academic colleagues and administrative staff at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and at Stein Rokkan Centre for Social Studies at the University of Bergen. I also thank Karl Kerner for language editing and proofreading, and Gallaudet University Press for accepting this manuscript. Finally, thanks to the Norwegian Research Council, The Welfare Program, for the financing of my research.

DEAF IDENTITIES IN THE MAKING

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✥ INTRODUCTION

Who am I? Who are we? Where am I going? Where are we going? What is this life all about?

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hese are all important questions related to identity. 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. 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

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INTRODUCTION

biological roots and the hearing, settled world, and their search for “equals” in distant places. Therefore, the travelogue narrative style predominates in many deaf stories and the “life is a journey” metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) often occurs. The hearing community regularly links equality and sameness to territorial co-presence and given the metaphorical form “similarity is proximity.” By extension, the hearing community has a reversed understanding of distance: “difference is spatial distance” (Lakoff and Johnson 1999, 59). Deaf experiences seldom support this general pattern. More often, there is a fundamental breach with such expectations, because spatial closeness in the shape of a hearing family and neighborhood often confirms the difference of the deaf subject as a child. Spatial distance, on the other hand, often implies sameness and equality, because signing fellows who turn into friends often come from distant places (Schein 1989). Deaf identities should therefore “be concerned with routes rather than roots, as maps for the future rather than trails from the past” (McCrone 1998, 34). This book, thus, is about emerging deaf identities and deaf routes. Deaf identities are always in the making, and if settled, only temporarily so. To capture the identification processes involved, my perspective is a narrative one: identity as temporarily produced through autobiographical accounts or capsule life stories. THE DEAF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LEGACY The cultural traditions of Deaf communities are transmitted to new generations of deaf people through folklore, myths, rituals, capsule life stories, and other artifacts, which both travel and are stored in archives. Signed and written stories both inform and are informed by deaf traditions and are well fit for revealing key obstacles that are extended to contemporary deaf lives. The current fashions in autobiographical “show off ” reflect cultural streams of contemporary life. Performance is put in the foreground, increasingly highlighting the fluidity of identities. There is, however, no reason to doubt the seriousness with which identity seekers engage in their quest. Recognized identities will continue to be scarce resources, especially for those who in no way can take their “given” selves for granted. Oppressed and marginalized people are thus engaged in identification processes where

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the stakes are high. To succeed in their identification endeavors, they are often restricted to a limited number of alternatives. This has also been decisive in the scarcity of deaf autobiography, because literacy has been and still is less than widespread. This is partly because a written language represents most deaf people’s second language. This has also reduced the possible mass of a deaf readership. The early written autobiographies thus have come from exceptionally “well-educated” deaf people (for instance, Earnest E. Carkins 1924 and David Wright 1969), who either have been deafened (that is, are post-lingually deaf ) or are hard of hearing and able to access the national language through aural reception. Their stories often highlight the faculty of reading and writing as a specific trait of their lives and as a means of connecting to or “making it” in the hearing world. Today, the situation is somewhat different, because deaf-born people’s mastery of these skills has increased. At the same time, confidence in using sign language has also increased. The result is that a growing number of deaf autobiographies are being produced in both signed video books and writing. This autobiographical trend is both a global trait of late modern life (Gullestad 1996, Giddens 1991) and reflects the specific transformations within the Deaf worlds. As with other linguistic minorities who lack a widespread written form of language or access to literacy, deaf people transmit narratives and life stories by means of sharing in face-to-face settings, which resembles the oral tradition within hearing minority language groups. However, the establishment of a poetic genre of signed storytelling has been in the making for a long time. This culturally produced genre thus informs the way in which one tells and the metaphors one adopts. This is particularly evident in stories told in sign language, but also in written stories. PUBLIC, SIGNED AUTOBIOGRAPHIES Signed autobiographies are in most cases directed toward a deaf signing “readership,” with the aims of strengthening the cultural values already present and sharing common experiences. In addition, they are also produced to provide examples for Deaf awareness sessions and to be used in Deaf studies and sign language courses. This is the case with the autobiographies published by Sign Enhancers (Bienvenu 1994, Marbury

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1994). The videos aim to strengthen Deaf awareness and provide strong role models. Published in the wake of the successful Deaf President Now campaign (DPN) at Gallaudet University in 1988, they clearly reflect the campaign’s empowering spirit. They clearly focus on sign language as salvation and the collective values that become cherished when one leaves behind a life of pretending. The stories are highly evocative and give a clear message directed at deaf and hearing viewers alike: “It is not bad to be deaf.” The narrators, through their clear messages, provide role models for deaf children who may be struggling with their identities. In Sweden, a video (Jonsson 1997) containing deaf life stories that function in the same way has also been produced. The stories highlight major turning points, such as school entrance and the joy of learning to sign. They also focus on communication obstacles between deaf and hearing people. In Norway, there are few such examples of widely circulated life stories in sign language. Asbjørn’s story is an exception. Asbjørn Midtskogen’s story was launched in the middle of the heated debate about cochlear implants (CI) in the beginning of 1998. He presented his own story on the main Norwegian television channel and later as a separate publication (Midtskogen 1998). This was the first time an autobiography of a deaf adult was shown to a general audience in sign language. The broadcast was triggered by the CI debate and conveys a strong political message in an emotionally charged field. Many deaf Norwegians know Asbjørn and touch upon the topic of CI, but in different ways. Most of them support his courage, even if some strongly oppose his conclusion. Asbjørn’s story is titled “From the Medical to the Cultural,” which points directly at the “revolution” that has empowered Deaf communities during the past thirty years. Asbjørn is himself thirty years old and his story clearly parallels that of the collective empowerment process. We thus can see an interplay of different master narratives and individual experiences recollected and twisted to fit the experiences of a young deaf man who happened to grow up when mainstreaming was in vogue. The tale is then a tale of becoming, of hardship encountered and overcome—and the fragile establishment of new anchorage points for the self.

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ASBJØRN’S STORY: “FROM THE MEDICAL TO THE CULTURAL” The film of Asbjørn’s story is shot in black and white. The following props appear: an armchair, a floor lamp, a swing, a monkey in a cage, a teddy bear in a baby seat wearing earmuffs, a pair of hearing aids, a flute, a pair of children’s shoes, and a kitchen knife. Additional pictures in the video include a psychologist’s report, Asbjørn’s ninth-grade schoolbook, and various photographs from his childhood, adolescence, and adult life. The tale starts with pictures from Asbjørn’s childhood and adolescence. Then, we get a glimpse of a sharp kitchen knife that is moved toward the stomach of the narrator. We witness an attempt at suicide. The scene vanishes, and Asbjørn is sitting in a swing looking directly at the camera. He looks around—at the monkey in the cage and the teddy bear in the baby seat. He positions himself in a comfortable armchair, and starts signing: I was twenty years old, but who? I was reaching the bottom line, mentally. I stayed in bed for two weeks. I couldn’t do a thing. All I wished for was to escape this world. I couldn’t stand thinking about the things I was forced to experience when I grew up. I wanted to die. All I had to do was to walk into the kitchen and fetch the knife and drive it into my stomach the Japanese way. More pictures from his childhood appear on the screen and a pair of children’s shoes hanging on a tiny rope moves in from the right, slowly. He starts telling about his childhood and the family distress that occurred when he received the diagnosis “hard of hearing or hearing impaired.” More childhood experiences are exposed, and a pair of hearing aids on a string appears in front of him. Asbjørn shakes his head in sorrowful dismissal and tells the ways everyone forced him to deal with sound and spoken language: “I was trained in hearing and listening. Everyone said that I was a clever boy.” He was not aware of what he was missing. When he was exposed to signing on one occasion during his schooldays, he reacted with shock and horror. It was “a strange experience” and “very odd” to witness “pupils communicating with their hands. They looked like mentally retarded kids.” Today he asks why he didn’t understand that “the queer way of communication was sign language” and why he was forced to “become normal.”

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MONKEY BUSINESS IN THE EDUCATIONAL ZOO Asbjørn sits down and we can only see his hands between his legs. A flute rolls, and he stretches out his hands to grasp it. Suddenly, he stops short, as if burned by fire. Anxiously, he gets up on his feet, moving his right hand up to his throat, and starts to sing. “We had to give shows for the other normal pupils at the school. Look at us, we are so clever! Today I can sense that we appeared as monkeys in front of them.” His story is full of aping in order to be accepted as normal, but why did he have to be a monkey all the time, he asks furiously. “Why wasn’t I allowed to be deaf? Why does everyone have to be similar? WHY? WHY? WHY?” Later in school, he is increasingly mainstreamed and tells of harassment and a deep sense of loneliness. On his way into adulthood, he starts to linger at an educational crossroads. Continued integration in a hearing school is no longer an option. However, when considering the deaf option, he is shocked again: “The teachers used signs, slowly and nice, so I could understand. However, the students signed with flashing speed. I did not understand.” He chooses this deaf school, however, which rescues him in many ways. But he is still an outsider because his classmates mostly have “been together since first grade in school and had shared each other’s pleasure and pain. At the same time I toiled with my own thoughts, and I became frustrated. Who am I? Why had I lost so many years?” Pictures from his youth appear. He walks behind the cage and looks at the monkey. I had a real crisis in my twenties. I didn’t want to continue life. A social worker at Bjørkåsen helped me, and I was encouraged to visit a psychologist. Gradually, I became stronger and eventually I became part of a deaf social milieu where I could experience myself as a whole person [he turns around, drags the monkey out of the cage, down on the floor]: a deaf human! Before this breakthrough, at age twenty-five, he had fought with a sense of shame of being deaf and a negative perception of deaf people and signing. “But by working my way through my problems, I gradually realized how wrong this was.” The story ends optimistically and the camera zooms in at a picture of a confident young man. He walks contently around the empty

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cage, smiling: “I am Deaf! I am Asbjørn! I am myself! I am not a nice boy that everyone thinks is clever because I can hear, speak, play the flute, or sing. I have not become one that drowns in the mass. I have avoided being a poor copy of hearing people—a monkey.” In the last scene, Asbjørn questions the medical experts’ obsession with normality: “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.” The camera focuses on the teddy bear. Asbjørn moves behind it, takes off the earmuffs, and drops it on the floor. METAPHORS AND NARRATIVES In this evocative story, Asbjørn invites the “reader” to understand his life and the obstacles he has had to face, and to take part in his quest. His way of understanding himself is very much informed by the empowering master narrative that gradually has come to be an integral feature of the Deaf community—in Norway as well. His strategy is to direct the tale from “the medical” to “the cultural” and he gives strong reasons for approaching the CI practice as a backward attempt. His clear message is that by not accepting a deaf child as deaf, you are contributing to the continuation of a normalizing pressure that has proven to be both life threatening (e.g., his suicide attempt) and wrong—producing fake “hearies” that will be monkeys at best. The metaphors that Asbjørn uses in his story are also common property of many deaf people and are strongly connected to their experience of being different. These are metaphors that synthesize and give meaning to experiences within a normalizing cultural regime. Both the monkey and the cage evoke a sense of imprisonment connected to the attempts at mimicry in order to fit in. The nice boy in the shape of a teddy bear is an elaboration of this metaphor, and one which points to a possible self-fulfilling prophecy: being nice to the extent of turning stupid. The turning points are also clearly marked. By letting something happen to the visual metaphors of his previous existence, he tells about a change in perspective and a need for revolt. The monkey is finally thrown out of his cage, and the

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teddy bear ceases to be nice. As such, Asbjørn’s story is an exemplary tale of the impact of the personal tragedy script that haunts many deaf people. It is also an exemplary example of the “overcome” dimension, where, by acquiring a collective sense of difference as a valuable resource, he engages in an identity revolt. THE WRITTEN LEGACY AND THE POLITICS OF SUCCESS STORIES The growing number of written life stories published by Gallaudet University Press (GUP) is worthy of attention. This is emphasized by Gallaudet’s central position within the Deaf world. Jacobs’s (1974) A Deaf Adult Speaks Out is one of the first personal written accounts of what it is like to be deaf in a hearing world. As an early autobiographical presentation by a deaf-born adult, it has come to occupy a specific position in deaf literature. Schrader’s (1987) Silent Alarm is different. That book is about the author’s work as a firefighter and emergency technician in Atlanta. The hardships he encountered through his challenging job constitute the drama that drives the story. The crux is that he was able to do this job, despite his lack of hearing. His accomplishments thus tell a moral tale, namely that a deaf person can succeed in any vocation. As such, the story resembles other success stories from minorities that aim to provide role models, empowerment, and strengthening of self-esteem. Lessons in Laughter: The Autobiography of a Deaf Actor (Bragg 1989) is another one in this genre, showing how far deaf artists can go in the performing arts. When the Phone Rings, My Bed Shakes (Zazove 1993) also fits into this genre. It is simply a life document from one of the very few deaf people who have gone into the medical profession as a doctor. His struggle to get into medical school, to graduate, and to establish a practice is the main storyline, spiced with evocative anecdotes from his service to a Deaf community in dire need of a deaf doctor. I Didn’t Hear the Dragon Roar (Parsons 1988) is a more thoroughly fashioned travelogue and not a life story in the strict sense of the term. It is a travel document, a life travelogue spun around this remarkable deaf woman’s tour of Asia. As a teacher at Gallaudet, she visits China and other Asian countries to visit deaf schools and to enjoy the pleasure of visiting faraway places. She is an ambassador of Total Communication, but that

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doesn’t surface much in this text. The main feature in the book is her travels and the ease in which she engaged in communication with “native” deaf signers abroad. The “life is a journey” metaphor predominates and the sense of belonging that is created when approaching deaf strangers everywhere is characteristic. The travelogue format is also present in the next GUP autobiography, a translated story by a Finnish deaf woman. Voyage to the Island (Nieminen 1990) is a book structured around traveling to the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, where her hearing husband had gotten a job. It is a journey at different levels, which triggers dramatic changes for her. The tale is in diary form and presents a day-to-day struggle of being in a new culture, trying to figure things out through troubled communication, and feeling isolated from the Deaf community and family back home. Both the spoken and signed vernacular is foreign to Raija, but she gradually makes progress by seeking out other deaf people and learning their sign language. One of the most interesting features in this story is the remarkable cross-cultural perspective at which the narrator arrives. With sharpened vision, she explores home values taken for granted within the Deaf community in Finland and the Finnish society in general. Deaf Again (Drolsbaugh 1997) is another story by a deafened person. It is a journey, as the author himself describes it, within and through a remarkable and strange life.1 The author was born hearing into a Deaf world. Both of his parents were deaf and actively involved in the Deaf community, and he moved smoothly both around the Deaf signing world and among hearing people as a young child. When his hearing loss was diagnosed, things suddenly changed. He writes that the medical professionals took an entirely pathological approach, emphasizing hearing aids and speech therapy. He tells about the sad experience of adopting the impression that deafness was bad and in need of a fix, and that he was forced to spend several years on the pretenders’ wagon—trying to pass as a hearing person. His slow move “back home” and becoming deaf again occurred in a series of turning points through which he gradually re-entered

1. This is not a GUP autobiography, but produced by an equally pro-deaf publishing house, Handwave Publications.

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the community and restored his sense of belonging. The most important turning point was triggered by the Gallaudet revolt in 1988. It was an awakening moment for him personally and “you could feel the surge in Deaf pride throughout the world” (115) and “for the first time in my life, I would be a student in a place where I was surrounded by deaf peers. I had waited long enough for an experience like this, and what awaited me was one of the most magical periods of my life” (119). He describes the magic by saying that he felt like he was “in the Deaf Mecca of the world” (126–127). The next deaf female autobiography, The Cry of the Gull (Laborit 1998), is also interesting. It is a success story of a deaf-born actress who, through hardship, achieves her ultimate triumph as the first deaf French actor to win the Moliere Award as the best new talent. It is a story that in this sense parallels Schrader’s, Bragg’s, and Zazove’s by providing deaf signers with role models. However, there are important differences. She begins her autobiography with a simple explanation of the difference sign language made in her life. When she, at age seven, discovered signed communication, the world opened up. She could then start grasping both the surrounding world and herself. Her description of her lack of understanding of chronology before accessing language is of specific interest. She became aware of the fact that deaf adults existed. Deprived of any earlier contact with deaf adults, she had believed she was the only deaf person and that she was going to die young. This is an experience shared by many deaf children growing up in isolation. Her rebellion as a militant Deaf teenager is revealing as well, where she disqualifies her parents and the whole hearing establishment because of their poor understanding and counterproductive actions and recommendations. Laborit’s story is thus a personal testimony of the tragedy of oralism and the need for sign language and a sense of community from early in a child’s development— and an exemplification of the need of a true and embodied language in order to succeed. Her metamorphosis from a deaf child with virtually no access to meaningful language to a young and self-confident deaf woman is certainly an inspirational tale for other young deaf people. There have, however, been few examples of stories that question key truths within the Deaf world. Suppression of minorities within the Deaf world is one such field, because both racism and homophobia are

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and have been present. Another field is the silencing of internal problems that has been imposed upon deaf people in boarding schools, for example, sexual abuse. This is, however, about to change, and there are new and interesting releases of life stories from GUP. Wright (1999) writes about growing up black and deaf in the southern United States. Carroll and Fischer (2001) write about being deaf and turning blind because of Usher syndrome; their book contains reflections about having multiple anchorage points in life—deaf, deaf-blind, Jewish, and Cajun.2 Recently, the first autobiography from a deaf peddler was published (Buck 2000). They all provide glimpses into worlds that have been poorly explored. This is also the case with Bolander’s I Was #87 (2000), which is a strong testimony of a nearly ruined life because of being labeled and treated as retarded. The sad consequences of an installed sense of “own fault” and “personal tragedy” are well demonstrated in addition to the reclaiming of spoiled lives and the undoing of the imprinted discredit. THE MAINSTREAM COUNTERPOINTS—CRITIQUE AND ORAL PRIDE These are thus stories from the margin of the Deaf world that are incorporated into the new focus on diversity within Deaf communities and, as such, recognition of previous neglect. However, this public diversity agenda has limits as well. Readers will not find autobiographies that express strong critiques of the Deaf community and sign language from the publishing house at Gallaudet. Mainstream publishing houses cater to this, and there recently have been a few interesting autobiographies that are worth mentioning in this context. Bertling’s A Child Sacrificed to the Deaf Culture (1994) is one such book. Deaf Tom was raised orally and “sacrificed” to a deaf boarding school at age ten. He tells about being infantilized by being instructed at a level far below his abilities and about a harsh environment that deprived him of personal freedom. His personal experience of being limited by Deaf culture, and the obligation to value

2. Usher syndrome is an inherited condition that results in hearing loss and a progressive loss of vision.

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American Sign Language (ASL), have made him “spoiled” to the extent that he simply had to fight back, it seems. The issues he raises are important, and he is quite right when he calls them silenced aspects of and within the Deaf world. This includes discrimination and harassment of gay students, hazing among older students, and the “prevalence of gossip” (93). He also exposes the fear of humiliation among rape victims within the Deaf community. All this, it seems, is due to the separatist Deaf community and insensitive and militant Deaf leaders. In his attack on ASL, he states that this mode “is English broken down into its simplistic form. It is mostly graphic in form and easily learned, especially for the uneducated or without language formation” (33). In an even more ridiculing way, he describes ASL as “baby talk” (84). However, there are other, calmer, oral success stories available, such as the 1995 Miss America’s Listening with My Heart (Whitestone 1997). Other widely circulated stories in this category are Kisor’s What’s That Pig Outdoors? (1990) and Golan’s Reading Between the Lips (1995). These are very different stories, but they all put value upon their acquired oral skills, which have, they state, made it possible to succeed in “the real world.” Even if they share many of the same experiences as other deaf people regarding “hearing oppression” and “the perils of lip reading,” they take pride in their route toward normality—of being a successful part of the hearing world. They thus show varying degrees of disrespect for sign language and of being part of a Deaf community. STORIES FROM NORWAY The deaf people presented in this book are Norwegian citizens and users of Norwegian Sign Language (NSL). However, this fact is not so important to one of my central arguments, namely that deaf people should be understood beyond a national territorial framework. The translocal and transnational features of deaf lives are well demonstrated by the life narratives in this book and by deaf people’s frequent engagement in transnational events. Deaf people are thus potentially and actually members of a transnational movement that often overrides any local or national loyalty they may additionally possess. It is thus insufficient to understand deaf Norwegians as members of a national subculture.

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It is also insufficient to understand deaf people as disabled. Even if they frequently have to deal with that label, and sometimes embrace it, most deaf people do not see themselves as incomplete and disabled. Through immersion in a signing community, they become members of a linguistic minority. The “ethnic” feature of Deaf communities is thus prominent. Deaf ethno-politics were originally triggered by the gradual recognition of sign languages by linguistic researchers (Stokoe 1978). This process reached one of its peaks in 1988, when a successful campaign led to the election of a deaf president at Gallaudet University in the United States. Gallaudet is the most important transnational spot for deaf intellectuals from all over the world, and the successful Deaf President Now campaign has inspired many on the transnational Deaf scene. There is thus a strong connection between this university and the dissemination of “Deaf consciousness.” In Norway, the Deaf college in Ål serves a similar function, but on a smaller scale. However, there is no guarantee of becoming a member of a deaf network of signers. Internal identification processes and ethnically oriented politics of identity force potential members to demonstrate loyalty and commitment. However, herein lay some difficulties. Mixed loyalties and late entrances tend to flourish and become ingredients of a dubious identity setup. The process of becoming culturally Deaf is thus an identity pathway that engenders ambiguity, alertness, and reflexivity. This is also so because of the continual normalizing pressure that is laid upon deaf people from a phonocentric cultural regime of power. Deaf identities are thus highly contested from both within and outside, and they vary because of the nature of different individual pathways and the relative power of competing identity discourses and master narratives. In this way, deaf people face identity obstacles similar to those faced by many other minority members, in particular gays and lesbians. This will be elaborated upon in the final chapter. THE RESEARCH PROCESS This book is based on anthropological research among deaf Norwegians (Breivik 2001), with a focus upon deaf life stories. Since the start of my work in 1996, it has become obvious to me that the results and perspectives

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I have arrived at have a much wider scope than a national one. I am thus concerned with deafhood and deaf identities in general—globally. This is because of the striking similarities in deaf lives around the globe, in particular those connected to the experiences of being translocal signers and of being subjected to phonocentric oppression. In 1996, I approached the Norwegian Deaf community by asking for life storytellers through the national Deaf magazine, Døves Tidsskrift. The questions I framed were these: “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?” Since then, I gradually recruited deaf storytellers. The resulting written life stories have emerged in different ways. Some of them have been objects of tremendous work on behalf of both the teller and myself and have involved extensive redrafting sessions. I frequently used sign language interpreters. The main objective was to get in-depth accounts of how core questions of identity are approached from different deaf points of view.3 When I started my research, I attended sign language classes at the Oslo Deaf Club. In the autumn of 1998, I had a kind of breakthrough, because I decided to go to the Norwegian Deaf College in Ål. I was allowed to do fieldwork there, and gradually I improved my signing. The transnational and translocal character of the Deaf college, Åfolkehøgskole for døve as well as its paradoxical nature will be explored in the course of this book. This is also the case with other less permanent deaf sites and events I have come to visit as a participant observer. One was the Thirteenth Deaf World Congress that was held in Brisbane, Australia, in August 1999. Another was the Deaf Cultural Festival in Bergen in October 2000, which is an annual Deaf Norwegian celebration of Deaf culture, alternating between cities where there are Deaf clubs. This event attracted about 1,000 deaf people; thus approximately twenty percent of the Deaf community in Norway attended. The mobilizing force of such translocal events is thus impressive. This mobilizing force was also observed at the Nineteenth Deaflympics held in Rome in the summer of 2001, where about 4,000 deaf athletes from

3. There are three male and seven female narrators, their ages ranging from eighteen to forty-three.

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eighty countries from all regions of the world gathered in the pursuit of doing their best in sports and in order to strengthen their social networks. These athletes were further joined by a huge group of supportive staff, together with thousands of deaf supporters and tourists from all over the world. In addition to those actually present at the Games, other parts of the global Deaf community followed the event through Deaf magazines in electronic, video, or paper versions; in different Deaflympics websites; and through e-mails and text messages from friends at the spot. The event thus mobilized a huge proportion of the Deaf world—and the experience of watching Rome’s gradual change into a sign language field and a temporary deaf city was fascinating (Breivik, Haualand, and Solvang 2002). Such events are highly valued in the Deaf world, and more deaf people than ever now attend transnational events in faraway places. Previously, one could say that this was an elite phenomenon; however, today this is not quite so. Even though sign language is not an international language, the possibilities for establishing mutual understanding are numerous. It is possible to quickly establish fairly good communication by adjusting one’s sign language to one another’s and by making use of an established common repertoire of signs, which could be based on International Signs and ASL. In addition, many deaf people share a common horizon of experiences, which strongly contributes to mutual identification. Many members of the Norwegian community are, increasingly, also part of this transnational deaf field, gathering for communication purposes whenever there is an opportunity. CONTEMPORARY STORIES The following ten stories explore ambiguity and a not-yet-fully-achieved sense of selfhood. 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 dialog 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.

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1 BEING, BECOMING, AND LONGING

While deaf people hold experiences in common and Deaf identity is marked by the physical register of sign language, the sense of “citizenship” inheres in a process, in social relations. This citizenship is not a static commodity of deafness or of sign language as a modality: It lies in the social exchange of recognition produced through signing. It is the immersion in the exchange that produces this sense of citizenship that needs no place. The desire of the deaf for immersion in the communication grid as a means of “becoming” resonates with the postmodern experience of information more generally. This communicative “citizenry” may soon represent the only experience of community. (WRIGLEY 1996, 104)

The experiential difference of deafness installs an initial sense of isolation, strangeness, and loneliness in most deaf people—leading to the tremendous challenge of social identification and existential self-awareness. The fact that many deaf life stories take the narrative format of a travelogue is connected to this and to the early, embodied metaphors of “spatial proximity as difference.” Later, this may lead to an embodied realization of “spatial distance as sameness” and an urge to move ahead for communication opportunities that certainly have few fixed or permanent places.

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To state that deaf citizenship “needs no place,” as Wrigley does in this chapter’s epigraph, may be a bit exaggerated. Deaf citizenship, beyond territorial nationalism, will probably be in precarious need of space both in its territorial and social meanings, but not in any resemblance to concepts like “hometown.” However, the translocal and transnational features of Deaf communities are striking to the extent that a signing community might be seen as extremely peripheral within a national framework of understanding. However, in the reverse, the same national communities may, each and every one, be rendered peripheral to the transnational community of signers. This is an observation that sheds further light on the tricky center/periphery binary. Fernandez (2000) explores aspects of this relationship, and he points out the comparative force of peripheral vision/ wisdom as heightened reflexivity: The question may also arise as to whether there is any such a thing as peripheral wisdom, since wisdom is customarily granted to the great centres of human affairs which are the generators of information and knowledge. It also might be argued in just the opposite vein that all wisdom, being perspectival, is peripheral. Objectivity, one might say, presumes peripherality. It might be argued even that the real wisdom, the most percipient and sensitive, like peripheral vision, is peripheral since, unlike central vision, it is necessarily comparative. It can hardly avoid comparing itself to the centre, whereas the centres can and often do ignore the peripheries. (118) This addresses a theme that becomes obvious in the life narratives of Hilde and Anita, whom we meet in this chapter, and also in the stories in the following chapters. Deaf people, as other minority members, live on the edge of traditional society and employ peripheral vision/wisdom to function in the worlds in which they live. As such they have arrived at a highly comparative outlook on life and their self-identities, which are emerging and less than settled. They thus exemplify the late modern outlook that takes no fixed position for granted, and they engage in a pervasive self-reflection. Deaf identities are thus very much in the making and in the process of “becoming.” The two deaf women presented in this chapter both live within the Deaf community in Norway. They share the Norwegian sign language and the joys and challenges of deaf life. Through the medium of sign language, they affiliate with the Deaf community, but this is not all encompassing

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and they seem to seek a certain degree of distance. Both are critical of the “extremist” tendencies in the Deaf world, which they experience as limiting. They have strong connections to both deaf and hearing friends in Norway and abroad. However, their stories are very different. Hilde tells a partially traumatic tale, related to nonacceptance of her deafness. Anita, on the other hand, was immersed into the Deaf world, and deafness was part of regular life. The existential uncertainty is very well reflected in Hilde’s story, primarily because she had no chance to appreciate her own deafness as a child. The phonocentric cultural regime surrounding her made her adopt a negative outlook on deafness, with damaging effects to her selfesteem. Initially, her identity quest was to become someone beyond her reach. The self-destructive aspect of this phase is evocatively demonstrated. For Anita this was different, because she could take her being in the world much more for granted. Her difference (being adopted by a deaf family and diagnosed as hard of hearing, not deaf, in terms of medical audiology) led her toward different identity pathways and other challenges in life. HILDE’S STORY: COMING OUT AS DEAF Hilde is a woman in her early forties, living alone with her three hearing children in a small city in central Norway. She is an active woman, engaged in her children’s schooling and leisure activities and in promoting certain aspects of Deaf culture: I was born deaf, but it was not discovered until I was about one year old. My parents had no suspicion that there was something wrong, before an uncle of mine wondered if I could hear at all. They then took me to a hearing test. To discover that I was deaf was not easy for my parents. You see: I was their firstborn child. Deafness as a malfunction looms large and sets the stage for her sense of self to be experienced as tragically different. Continuing, she tells of a complicated childhood with much frustration and confusion. Part of this confusion was due to her parents’ lack of knowledge of deafness as such and of appropriate communication skills: My mother was able to join a sign language course when I was eight years old, but that was really too late. She was confused

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about the lack of information. The doctors stated the fact that I was deaf, but no more information was given. So my parents had to find out more by themselves. By chance, my mother was informed about a deaf woman living in our town and she literally grabbed her and begged her to teach her how to sign. The woman helped my mother to some extent, and they still have some contact. My communication situation was not good; I only knew a few signs at that time. But it changed later on when I started at a school for deaf children. Her own confusion in childhood clearly relates to her own inability to communicate, and she gives a brief account of how this started to change: I went to an ordinary kindergarten for hearing children in my hometown, without sign language. In fact I was raised orally with lipreading and speaking. When I was six and a half, I started at a residential school for deaf children not very far away. That was a real change. At this school, I gradually learned to sign, and my communicative abilities increased. The Taste of Change This was certainly a change, and as such a potential turning point in life. Much changed for her when she learned sign language and experienced the ease in communication. She was, however, not enrolled in the deaf school as a resident, as many of the other deaf pupils: “I lived at home, but every week I spent one night there. I was very content and happy for these single nights. But my parents didn’t want to let me stay there more permanently.” This is a classic conflict. The parents want to have their deaf child at home, whereas the child probably would benefit from being more thoroughly immersed in a Deaf environment. This parental desire is evident through the widespread embodiment of the “spatial closeness is sameness” metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1999), which, in Norway and other parts of the Western world, says that you belong to the place where your biology roots are. Hilde comments, “I can very well understand that this is a difficult decision to make. It is hard to see the best solution. But now, today, my mother has admitted that it probably would have been wise to let me spend more time at the boarding school.”

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When Hilde was at home for long periods during vacations, her mother now and then sent her away to holiday camps: Three or four summers, I went to Vetlegrenda with other deaf kids. Some of the leaders used sign language; and when we ate breakfast together, I got this good family feeling. I never stayed at these camps for more than two weeks, because my mother wanted me to come home. I attended other camps as well, and once we went to the deaf church. That was a good experience, and I decided that I should attend the deaf church at Christmas every year. The school and some of the holiday camps offered her an environment in which she could communicate with ease. However, her continual moves back and forth between home and school were demanding. She felt divided. Her home environment was still restricted and contained a certain nonacceptance because of the dominant aural/oral mode of communication. It can work very well if the parents have the necessary guts to learn sign language. But it is mostly mothers that try to accommodate. Before, it was like this, but today, the fathers seem to be engaged as well, and I love seeing this happen. Today, both parents have the right to and the opportunity to learn sign language. This was not the case when I grew up. The experience at school did not lead to a thorough revision of her life. She did not yet accept her own deafness, and she was still striving to become “like everybody else,” even if the seeds of change had started to grow. Returning to the Oral Pathway At age twelve, I moved away from that school to a school for the hard of hearing. Many friends and others, me included, have wondered why I made this move. Part of the answer was that my teacher meant that I spoke well and that it would be better for my development to move to this other school. But this change was frightening for me. While the former school was exclusively for deaf signing children, this new one was oral. I was constantly envious of my classmates, because they could understand each other by speaking. But my speech was hardly understandable, so I

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became frustrated and irritated because of the continual misunderstandings. The envy of the “orally successful” students, the pressure toward normalization, and the misguidance from a teacher were among the forces that made her return to and stay in the oral track. She was certainly fooled to believe that she was a good speaker, and when she partly realized this, she simply multiplied her efforts. At this point, her story has a striking resemblance to some of the “oral success stories” discussed in the introduction in which the pride of selfhood resides in one’s degree of success in the hearing world: When I was thirteen, I insisted on getting proper speech training, using thirteen hours extra each week to make myself more understandable. Moving to yet another school, the secondary school, there were two options. I chose the school for the hard of hearing because it was a small school. I didn’t know how hard it was going to be. Most of my friends were at the other school, but I stayed at the school where signing was totally banned. The situation described was paradoxical: staying in an environment banning her from her most effective means of communication with the world. She really had alternatives, but as she continues, the paradox becomes more understandable: I did not accept myself as deaf. My family and 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 heard about deaf persons was almost exclusively negative. The “deaf and dumb” (døv og dum) stereotype was around me and became part of my own perspective. 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 others were speaking about. I was furious all the time, and my family has never understood why. I was considered a difficult child. When I was fifteen I got a hearing boyfriend. I got in touch with him through his deaf sister. Soon after I became pregnant and before I was seventeen I was a mother! Still I hadn’t accepted my deafness, and my husband meant that deaf persons were stupid. I tried to take him with me to deaf friends, but he couldn’t really accept them.

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The Turning Point: Escaping the Blind Alley She realizes that she is never going to pass as a hearing person and she understands that her present pathway is a misguided one: Gradually, I discovered that something was fundamentally wrong, even if I tried hard to integrate in the hearing environment. I was never going to be a hearing person! At the age of eighteen I was left alone with my child, and started to visit the deaf club. Here I also found a new friend. I began to accept my deafness, and gradually I acquired a sense of pride for being deaf. Being able to communicate freely inspired me. I started to enjoy the sensation that others could really understand me. This made me proud of myself and I became more self-confident. I was not ashamed anymore because I realized that I was able to do whatever I liked. So, sign language has really made a difference in my life. Her acceptance of herself as deaf clearly came as a relief and as a sense of rescue, resembling gay and lesbian “out-of-the-closet” experiences. As such, it represents a true turning point in her life, resembling a “born-again” religious conversion: 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. It was an intensive period of my life. It was a pleasure to mingle more freely with other deaf persons. The new experiences made a long-lasting impression on me. But it took too much time, and too much suffering. She was in a way ready for this reorientation. However, she was quite reluctant when it came to practical action, and she didn’t join the club gatherings easily and freely: I was really forced into it. I was seventeen-and-a-half and knew little about the deaf social life. I hadn’t yet accepted my deafness. My mother thought it was terrible that I wouldn’t go, and she begged me to go to the club. At first I refused, telling my mother that I didn’t know anybody. But finally I said OK, went to the

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club gatherings, and realized quickly that old friends from school were there and I started to meet them frequently. Becoming a part of the Deaf community through the Deaf club was rewarding, and she started to join in on a regular basis. The homey atmosphere was one of its prominent features: It was a place for meeting friends. I frequented the place whenever I could in order to gather with them. If I felt lonely, I knew where to go. But nowadays many friends have moved away, have gotten new interests or become occupied with house and children. It is the same with me. Besides, I am not as hungry for this kind of contact as before. But I go to the Deaf Festival each year. The annual cultural festivals are held each autumn, circulating between the cities where the Deaf clubs are located. Because the club activities have declined during the past decades, such events have occupied new centrality. The cultural festivals are more than theater performances and art exhibitions, as I myself came to witness at the festival in Bergen in 2000, where I also met Hilde. She comments, “The most important aspect is the social one. It is so important for most of us to come together and meet with deaf friends from all over the country. Many of us come just to socialize, but some, like me, also come to see the theatres and art exhibitions.” The first time I met Hilde, she was not yet accustomed to world travel and transnational gatherings. This has changed since then, and now she has expanded her horizon and sense of deafhood. To stay in touch with new friends on the transnational scene, she has also recently started to learn written English, established an Internet connection, and bought herself a mobile phone with SMS, a European text-messaging system. LOOKING BACK In her reflections, she wonders why she was so reluctant to make the first move into the Deaf community, and thinks that negative stereotypes about the Deaf community played a major role: “Thinking back, I can see that the influence of being harassed by a man always speaking disapprovingly

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about the deaf played a role. I was too easily influenced by his negative attitudes, as he in fact was dragging me and my deafness down.” This hearing man had a deaf sister. This fact didn’t influence him in any positive way; to the contrary: There was a huge difference between his and my family. My mother tried to learn signs, but in his family nobody wanted to. They also tried to convince his deaf sister that signing was bad. But she couldn’t really care less. She matured well later on and became an excellent signer, with credit in the deaf community but without close links to her family. I was worse off in that respect, because I lingered more. The attitudes that both Hilde’s boyfriend and his mother signaled were, however, aspects of a broader phonocentric climate that had become part of her and thus harder to escape. My state of confusion was also a result of my upbringing and school experiences. Without having accepted my deafness, I didn’t feel at home in the deaf world. Without the ability to hear/speak well enough, I couldn’t manage to be a full part of the hard of hearing milieu either. The hard of hearing persons I met at school also thought bad about deaf persons. As they told me: “The deaf cannot do anything, not even speak!” Of course I was frightened, and would not be identified with such people. But when I was together with deaf persons, I felt more relaxed. However, at the age of thirteen, I was not able to choose the right thing, and I was certainly not going to accept the label “stupid.” Her fear of being regarded as stupid thus contributed to her too-long stay in the “pretenders club,” and in secondary school, she clearly suffered from both boredom and social exclusion: I followed the courses on Commerce and Trade, and I got through. Then I worked at an office for two years, but I didn’t feel comfortable. I was isolated as the only deaf person. I felt sad when I returned home from work every day, and I longed for a workplace where other deaf persons worked as well. But I had the “wrong” education.

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Changing Plans She then realized that her previous choice was a misguided one, as misguided as her identity orientation. With her renewed sense of Deaf identity, she was ready to re-educate in order to find work in a signing environment where she could feel more at ease. The new workplace that she had been thinking of was a nursing home for old deaf people. She therefore started studying at the nursing school to qualify for the position. I had to go to a hearing college, because there is no such education for deaf students. It was really tough. I was the only deaf student in my class. I was often about to give up, but I was stubborn. I wanted the specific job so badly, and because of this, I endured the hardship. At the nursing school they knew nothing about deafness, and they showed no mercy. I had problems in having them accept that I had notes copied from others because it was too much for me to both be watching the interpreter and be writing at the same time. I was denied copies and I felt that I was a burden to them. However, she was far from being servile and she tells about how she regularly quarreled with the teachers. Here she tells about “a funny, but serious” instance: Once, I decided that I didn’t want to listen to the teacher. I told the interpreter to stop, and I just stared into space. The teacher stopped talking, and then he asked what the hell it was all about this time. I reacted with indignation: Everyone else is allowed to disconnect now and then, and to look around philosophizing on own matters. Why couldn’t I? But he demanded that I followed the lecture. He became terribly angry, and I couldn’t understand why. I tried to tell him that the interpreter should not bother him and that the interpreter was an aid for me. However, the teacher was not able to cope with the situation or to see it from her point of view. Her fellow students had similar problems with her. In one of the students’ colloquial sessions, she refused to use the interpreter when five to six students talked at the same time. It was simply impossible to translate such events. Then she tried to tell them what it was

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like to be deaf and about sign language and Deaf culture. It helped a little bit, but she also realized that “it is not easy for them to understand us.” Her college life was thus quite restricted, and her social life was quite hampered: There were a few co-students that I could talk with in the breaks, but very often I was too exhausted. When I had watched the interpreter for seven hours each day, I had little strength left for lip-reading in the breaks. Because of this, I often preferred to be alone, and I guess that many looked upon me as a strange loner. She tolerated the distress for such a long time, however, because of the possibilities of getting a job in a deaf workplace in the future. “Yes, I got the job. I feel very comfortable because I am surrounded by sign language the whole working day. I have deaf colleagues, the patients are deaf, and most people around sign.” Unrestrained signed communication is one of the cherished aspects of Hilde’s life at present, a practice that she fully engages in at work. However, this is not an all-encompassing aspect of life: I cannot fancy living twenty-four hours a day with deaf persons only. This is because I want to develop other aspects of myself. Hearing and deaf people think differently. Hearing persons get more information through the media and deaf persons lose a lot. So I feel that I can mature more by being with hearing persons as well. Besides, I have hearing children and I feel comfortable in keeping up with them and their world. The best thing is to alternate and enjoy the best of both worlds. But I must admit that I identify myself as deaf. That’s where I really feel at home.

Trouble Within: The Sense of Imprisonment Her troublesome route to adult life as a (now) self-defined and proud deaf woman has not led her to isolate herself from the hearing world. Having three hearing children, she constantly engages with this world. Because of this involvement, she has a lot of comments, which often in-

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clude harsh critiques of the hearing majority’s insensitivity toward deaf people. However, on the other side, her experiences in the Deaf environment are not strictly harmonious. Even though she is proud of being deaf and works hard to improve the conditions for deaf people in society, she is critical about what she coins “extremist tendencies” in the deaf struggle: I can’t stand it when someone tells me what to think, what the right answers to certain questions are, and so on. I have experienced this attitude, not only from representatives of the hearing majority, but also from deaf persons. At Ål Deaf College, there are certain persons that seem to be brainwashed or something similar. My own observation of that place and the “Ålings” (“ålingene”), as I call them, is that they are shortsighted and some just keep repeating the phrase: “Be deaf conscious!” This means using the “right” signs, and that hearing persons should behave on the deaf persons’ terms. There was a conflict between one of the teachers at Ål and myself. He told me that my signing was wrong and I reacted. Nobody has the right to say that this is right and that is wrong. “If you had stayed here one year,” he continued, “you would have become deaf conscious.” That is bullshit. She has a lot to tell about this “bullshit,” including the following incident: There was a hearing man staying at Ål in order to learn sign language. We had a long chat where I used my voice. Suddenly a deaf man appears telling us,“Here we shall use the sign language, exclusively!” I thought, “Wow, don’t we live in a free country?” I really want to decide such things for myself. In search of the best way to promote a dialogue, I sometimes prefer to use my voice. I became frustrated and felt imprisoned at Ål after that incident. It felt like being sentenced to use sign language. I tried to discuss the issue at Ål, but this caused a violent argument. People coming from outside Ål had some nuances and understood what I meant, but the “Ålings” were so fixed. Perhaps the reason is that Ål is located high in the mountains in isolation. The phenomenon frightens me, and I cannot even think of living there or in any other isolated deaf environment.

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The college at Ål is one of the few places where deafness is the rule and where sign language has a dominant position. Furthermore, it is an important transnational and translocal deaf gathering spot, and one of the sites for the spread of “Deaf consciousness” and cultural awareness in Norway. These aspects came into focus in the 1980s when sign language was replacing the “old” sign-plus-speech philosophy and a new sense of pride was emerging. All adult members of the Deaf community in Norway relate to this site in emotionally charged but different ways. Some just love the place, whereas others, such as Hilde, have mixed sentiments. Cochlear Implants: Curse or Pragmatic Solution? Until a few years ago, Hilde was also against the use of CI, because she looked upon the option as both a lie that would not deliver what it promised and an attack upon deafness and sign language. She is no longer against it. She explains why she has changed her mind, by means of a little detour: You know, there are persons that choose to get CI, and there are those strongly opposing it. But there have always been different groups of deaf persons, and a division between those going to deaf schools and the integrated ones. The decisions are made by the parents. I have hearing children, but I cannot freely choose to have my kids in a deaf school. I have heard about a deaf mother that wanted her hearing son to attend the deaf school, but she was denied. Today her son is forty, and in his opinion the authorities did the wrong thing. He wanted to go to the deaf school, but he couldn’t. So the topic of integration is a difficult one. I have experienced “integration” myself, and it is no good. You are denied communication. But I can also understand the parents that want to have their child at home. It is a difficult decision to send your child far away to a boarding school. I would recommend a mixed solution: The deaf child goes to a deaf school and stays at home as much as possible. This “compromising spirit” reflects her position. As a mother, she understands the hearing parents’ dilemmas and the deaf child’s needs. The willingness to compromise is also connected to the dangers of “Deaf extremism,”

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which she fears will contribute to the drawing of sharper boundaries between the deaf and the hearing worlds, and as such discourage cooperation and reconciliation within mixed families. This is also why she has changed her mind regarding CI. What is in the best interest of the deaf child is what matters for her, she says. The solution is not only a sign language environment, although that is very important, but also the ability to adjust to hearing society if possible. She is furthermore furious when she witnesses the insensitive arguments against CI, which do not cater to the different individual needs and feelings related to the topic. She was thus embarrassed when the secretary general of the Norwegian Association of the Deaf (NDF) argued against CI in public. What matters is the chance of improving the quality of life within the hearing world. I do not disregard deafness or my identity. I simply want to have access to the whole society. It is not so that I feel impaired and in need of a fix. I belong to the sign language community.

Life at Present Life at present has become quite comfortable for Hilde. She has a job that she loves and a workplace that is perfect for deaf signers. It has been a struggle to come this far, and she is sad when she thinks about all the years in futile search of a hearing identity. There have also been major changes in the field of deafness, which have made life more comfortable and enjoyable. The recent establishment of a professional Sign Language Theatre is symptomatic of these changes, an occurrence that she fully embraces and celebrates. The status of sign language has also improved, both in the schools and in the minds of the hearing majority. Hilde says, “There have been tremendous changes, and now we are fighting to have sign language accepted by law as a separate language, on equal terms with the Saami language.” This improved status and her new pride in using sign language has also influenced family relations. Before, she often got obscure messages that hinted she was limited in her ability to be a good mother for her hearing children whenever there was a school-related problem. Back then, she partly accepted this.

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But today, I can see that these weren’t problems related to me being deaf. They were rather ordinary problems that challenge each and every parent in communication with their teenagers. Today I can see that my children function fluently in both worlds, in sign language and in spoken Norwegian. Other things have changed as well, especially the general attitudes toward the deaf. “The most important thing for me is that people understand us better. I can see that much has changed within a few years in my parents’ neighborhood and within my family as well. I had restricted contact with my family for a few years, but now the relationship is better.” The change partly is due to her family, but most important is her own changed attitude toward herself. Hilde’s account of a recent party is noteworthy: I recently arranged a big party at my place. I wanted to invite everyone, my family and my friends. I told my parents that I would order an interpreter for the occasion. To my surprise they were mildly shocked. Why would you need an interpreter, they asked. I told them frankly that I wanted a party where the communication was on my terms. I was shocked by their reactions. They didn’t see at first that even if they understood me, I was unable to follow them. Well, the party went fine, and the family members had to learn a lesson. Because her parents were accustomed to her as a less active member of the family, it was difficult but not impossible for Hilde to change the agenda. By doing this, Hilde “turned the table” and showed them another aspect of communication barriers that meant that if they were to communicate face-to-face and in-depth with her, they should really engage in signing. Confronting Her Parents with the Past When I completed the first sketch of Hilde’s story and asked her for comments, she told me about an interesting experience. It was with excitement that she read the draft: It was really exciting, and a good opportunity to dig deeper into the past. It was, however, even more exciting to show the text to

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my mother, when I had the chance to ask her about our common past. Several times during her reading, she had to stop and ask, “Is this really you?” I had to say over and over again, “Yes, mother, this is me.” It was so obvious then that we do not live and have never lived in the same world. The opportunity to discuss this with her mother was both a bitter and exciting challenge. However, she felt that they became closer to one another after this. “I also used the opportunity to ask my father a few questions. But he told me little; just that he felt that my mother had been pretty lonely in struggling with me and my deafness: ‘Sign language was certainly not my task,’ he said.” When she asked them if they would have agreed to CI surgery if that had been an option, she got interesting and different answers. Her mother believes she would have done it, whereas her father simply returns the question: “Aren’t you satisfied with the person you are?” Deaf children of deaf parents, on the other hand, have a totally different point of departure than Hilde, Asbjørn, and other deaf children of hearing parents. Hilde recognizes this by stating, “They have a different type of deaf identity than I have, and they are more readily accepted within the deaf community.” This is certainly the case for most deaf people growing up with sign language from day one. They and deaf children of hearing parents who are immersed quickly into the Deaf world certainly have other life trajectories. These are the cherished routes, often highly valued within the Deaf communities. However, they are not uniform and without challenges and surprise. ANITA’S STORY: IN A DIFFERENT “VOICE” Anita is a twenty-year-old woman who lives in Trondheim. Her story differs from Hilde’s in many ways. In the following, she tells about herself and how she became who she is today: I was adopted when I was seven months old. My parents had wanted a child for seven years without success and they decided to adopt a deaf child. The deaf child was me—a little Bolivian child. When this was arranged, my mother suddenly became

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pregnant—so they got two instead of one. Everyone in my family is deaf: my father, mother, aunts and uncles, grandparents and siblings. In fact I grew up as an ordinary member of a deaf family, and had no early experience of being deaf and different; deafness was the normal state and I didn’t have to discover myself as deaf— it was self-evident and totally accepted, actually even wanted. This is really a different point of departure than Hilde’s and most other deaf children’s. The deafness was no shock at all for Anita’s parents and family; it was both welcomed and planned. The brown skin color and black hair from being a child born in Latin America are two of the things that make her different, as seen from a regular Norwegian outlook—but mostly in a unproblematic way.

Trouble Ahead: Discrediting Deafness The big difference between Anita and her family that was revealed after awhile was, however, of a different kind: “After a while it was discovered that I had some residual hearing; that I was hard of hearing—audiologically. That’s when the trouble started.” Growing up in a deaf and content environment, Anita’s new imposed status as hard of hearing caused some trouble. She simply deviated from the expectations in regular family life, but that would not necessarily be a problem because all seeing people are fully capable of being immersed into a deaf and signing socialization process. The problem was caused by the diagnosis, the medical establishment, and the pressure from outside: “The doctors meant that I could develop my speech and the Norwegian language, and that an operation could improve my hearing ability. They also meant that my parents were unable to raise me because of their deafness.” From a deaf point of view, this is humiliating. It shows quite clearly that there are not only two different centers for valuation of deafness, but also that there is a power imbalance—to the extent that a healthy, strong, deaf family is infantilized and regarded as less able to raise children. The discredit resulting from the stigma of deafness is thus more than obvious (Goffman 1963). In this case, however, they managed to resist the pressure. “My mother, who was a Norwegian language teacher, became furi-

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ous because of this. Anyway, I went to a kindergarten for deaf and hard of hearing children. They fancied sign language at that time; the children should learn both signs and speech. But speech got high priority.” She experienced conflicting scripts of behavior, and this caused some problems at home: I can remember that my father felt pity for me, because I sometimes had problems separating “signing and speaking at the same time” from the sign language that we used at home. I brought speech into my communication at home, and my father was angry at the kindergarten because of this. He wanted me to use sign language. I felt some identity problems at that time, because there was so much I couldn’t understand. Anita’s early sense of ambivalence related to her identity was thus produced by a conflict between two competing versions of “her best interest”: the hearing society against the deaf family. Anita also remembers a battle with the phonocentric doctors. I was informed about this later on, that the doctors wanted to operate me. They also wanted me to be raised orally. One of my ears is in fact intact, but clogged. When I was six or seven, the doctors wanted to force an operation on me. I didn’t feel any reason for becoming “better,” so I resisted it. If I should be operated, I wanted to wait. My father refused to let them do anything before I was grown up. Again, she managed to counter the pressure and the not-too-hidden message that deafness was bad. She was more or less able to grow up knowing that she was a whole person, not lacking in anything essential. Today, she is therefore quite content and in no need for healing. Nowadays, I think about being operated only sporadically. I have no problems communicating with my family—because we use our own language. It is of course different in relation to hearing friends and the hearing society. I have a hearing boyfriend and when I communicate with him alone, it is quite OK. But I am going to educate myself as a civil engineer. Maybe I need to hear better to tackle the work situation and society as such. But I don’t know.

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Here she is thus simply reflecting one of her own mottos that she uses both in her e-mail and on her Internet homepage: “There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.” A Free, but Quite Loyal, Rider Anita is clearly part of Deaf society through her family and activities in the association for deaf youths. In describing her attachments to the Deaf community, she is nevertheless in an ambivalent or rather free position. Caring parents that have backed her up have actively supported this position. Her father has been especially important. She says: “My father is perhaps the most important person in my life. I have always been my father’s girl, while my brother has been a mother’s boy. My father has supported me all the time and he has been interested in my development, that I should have the best opportunities and so on.” By being so much accepted within the family and by having a totally accessible language environment ready at home, she has been subjected to a sort of mild envy from deaf peers. She understands them and appreciates the situation she is in. However, she thinks that they also misjudge the situation somehow. It is not necessarily easy to have “everything.” She certainly has challenges in family life even if communication runs smoothly: My deaf friends with hearing parents have always thought that I must be very happy since all my family is deaf and communication barriers are minimal. My friends were happy while visiting us in our home. Of course they are right in one way, but perhaps I am a little bit spoiled, because I have felt that the family gatherings have been and are dead boring. But, of course, when my friends join their family gatherings the hearing members talk and the deaf one has to sit isolated without really being taken into account. When they ask about what they say, nobody can exactly recall the conversations and plots. So I have always been told that I am lucky for being a real part of a family. There are, however, instances that are less favorable to a deaf youth of well-known deaf parents: It is not so great all the time. Everybody in the deaf community knows each other, so I cannot do very much without getting com-

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ments or my parents getting to know about it. For instance, when it is party-time at the annual cultural festival for the deaf, I don’t always enjoy being quickly identified. My friends with hearing parents can more easily freak out and drink whatever they want, without being identified and hence controlled. It is quite embarrassing that everybody knows who I am and who my parents are. The social control that she thus experiences troubles her. This contains both a critique of the smallness of the Deaf community in Norway and a trait that she simply has to live with—at the present stage in life at least. In this, she touches upon strong sentiments also expressed by Hilde about the limiting aspects of the close-knit village life. Anita has, contrary to many other deaf people on the margin, the necessary strength to counter some of the potentially limiting forces that she identifies. Again, with the support of family members: You know, my mother is a very well known woman among the deaf, so a lot of people keep asking me, “Are you going to be like your mother when you grow up?” Once, there was a funny episode after my mother held a lecture on the difference between deaf children of hearing parents and deaf children of deaf parents, followed by an open debate. My mother was surprised when she noticed that the next person to comment was I, her own daughter. I corrected some of the arguments she made in her lecture. But she said it was well done of me to do so. “Do not ever accept too easily what other persons tell you!” was her comment, and she understands very well that I am taking another route in life than her. I am not that interested in deaf history and the linguistic features of sign language. Anita identifies herself as deaf and part of the Deaf community, but she has strong connections to the hearing world as well, with several hearing friends. This is, she states, no problem. Internet: A Social Crossroads It is primarily through the Internet that she has made her first and more lasting connections:

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It really began a few years ago through chatting activities on the Internet. I met my best friend, Trude, on a BBS1— a chat site some years ago. Since then we have been friends. We meet each other regularly on the Net, but also face to face on holidays and computer gatherings. My boyfriend was initially a Net-chatfriend of Trude, and when I met him face-to-face at a computer gathering, we fell in love. My computer activities have really helped me to meet people also outside of the deaf world. My boyfriend has now become very interested in learning sign language so that he can communicate freely with my family and my deaf relatives. The Internet has helped her, she says, to develop a bigger social milieu. Her deep interest in computing has resulted in her spending quite a lot of her spare time at computer gatherings. Internet practice has been relatively weak in the deaf environments until recently, and to reach a level of excellence, she has simply been compelled to go to hearing people. Because of her excellent performance on the Internet, she has also been headhunted by a computer company for short-term work opportunities. Her ability to cope in a hearing environment is thus quite good, and she is able to communicate in spoken Norwegian without much trouble in one-to-one settings. Some hearing friends have also learned some signs. I haven’t been pushing this, but my friend Trude has learned a few signs. But when we meet each other, we usually speak. It is the same with my boyfriend. When we communicate just the two of us, we use spoken Norwegian. But when we are with my family, he is eager to learn more signs. He really wants to communicate with my parents. It is no problem having hearing friends, and it has always been quite OK. My brother and I have a few hearing friends from childhood. They lived in the same area as we did, and they were interested in learning signs from us. But most of the time we just played together. We are not close friends anymore, but whenever we meet, we say hello. 1. BBS is an acronym for bulletin board system. This was one of the first widely used platforms for electronic chatting.

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My own strategy towards the hearing world has been to tell freely about my hearing problems, in order to avoid unnecessary communication problems. But even if I can hear better than most other deaf persons, there are a lot of problematic situations. It can be very difficult to get the right information at public places; for instance at the metro stations where important messages are only given through the low quality loudspeaker systems, when interesting TV programs are without text, and when I meet hearing friends talking quickly and abruptly. Self-Confident Orientations When Anita tells more about herself, her deaf identity could be seen as downplayed, but only if we envisage that being deaf is to be restricted into certain ways and activities. Anita is a young deaf person who seems to be part of the general youth culture, living her life fully by combining all identity bits that are available to her. It is a position where little is self-evident as part of a tradition. She is in a position where much can be actively chosen, which is well demonstrated when it comes to politics and religion: You know, we have our own deaf church, but I only go there sporadically and when I have to, and I guess I am in the same position as other so-called Christian Norwegians. I am a member of the state church, but do not feel too comfortable with that. I am not exactly a “born-again Christian,” and do not think it is right to say that our God is the only right God. There are so many versions of Christianity, and there are other interesting religions as well. The religion I feel most for right now is Buddhism. Her main point is that she feels free to do what she likes and that she reflects from a position that is less predetermined and disciplined. Tradition is thus not something she feels she has inherited but something she can choose. This is more difficult in politics: When it comes to politics, I am not so certain any more. A few years ago, I was about to join the youth group of the Maoist Workers Party (AKP), but not now. Now I have realized that every political party has something interesting, so I am trying to find out which one I agree most with or do not disagree too

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much with. I am going to vote this year for my first time, and now I find the Conservative Party (Høyre) quite interesting. But at the same time they are too old fashioned on some issues. Her switching between the Maoists and the Conservatives is interesting. One could say that this points to her relatively immature understanding of politics. This is, however, not necessarily the case, because the distinction between the political parties has become less clear-cut in the past decades. Her lingering could further reflect a late modern rejection of whole packages of meanings presented by the political parties through ideological wrappings. She has, in any event, retained an interestingly strong faith in the political system, a system that she clearly sees as belonging to her as well. She is, for one, devoted to using her right to vote and engaging in the political democracy of the Norwegian nation. She has thus been subjected to a rare socialization process within minorities, where she feels competent and potentially politically efficient in both hearing and Deaf worlds. She also escaped the fake hearing traps to which oral deaf people are often subjected and which seem to lead them to a less politically efficient and self-directed understanding of self and society (Roots 1999). At the same time, she escapes the marginalization trap into which many deaf signers seem to fall, where they shun national politics as hearing politics (Roots 1999). Through her multiple positioning as deaf, hard of hearing, deaf of deaf parents, adopted, a fluent signer, and highly competent in written and spoken Norwegian, she has reached a level of self-reflection that is quite extraordinary. Her understanding of difference as both selfevident and rewarding has made her aware of injustices. Regarding her own position as being adopted, she says: My deaf friends and others in the deaf community know that I am adopted and do not make a great deal out of that. Many hearing persons don’t know about it. When I tell them they usually say, “Oh—so you are adopted. Have you really lived here all your life—but what about your foreign accent?” It is not so easy to make them understand that it is due to my deafness. Another funny incident happened when I celebrated Christmas together with my other “ethnic” Norwegian friends. I was the only one looking different. We went to a place with a

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lot of Latinos. They looked curiously at me and wondered why I was together with “them.” I just told them they were my friends. Searching for her biological origin is thus not an acute concern, but she admits that she sometimes has wondered and been curious. I really don’t think very much about my biological origin—as I know other adopted children do, because I feel that my family is here and I do not know anything about my biological parents and their culture. Earlier I thought I should find out who my parents were and then visit them, but the adoption papers told me nothing. I also thought about learning Spanish, but the last years my interest has faded. But, of course, it could be interesting to visit the country, but I have no interest now in searching for my biological parents. My father told me that he would support me if I really want to find them. That is good to know, but he puts no pressure on me. The search for one’s identity and supposed roots can be an obsessive endeavor. This has not been so for Anita, and her appraisal of differences is thus of an anti-essential nature. The Pressure to Pass or Fake Hearing Anita is not very bombastic when it comes to conflicts within the Deaf milieu. In her pragmatic mode, she explains this: Oh yes, there are a lot of conflicts in the Deaf community. The CI discussion is, for instance, a hot topic. I myself do not really know what the right answer is, even though I personally am not very in for it. Perhaps it can be helpful for some, but to be put under pressure for CI operation is wrong. I think parents try to do what is best for their children, and sometimes an operation can be the best thing. But you should in any case give the child a chance and accept it as it is. This resonates well with her own experiences in childhood, when she and her family were subjected to pressure after doctors discovered that she was

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hard of hearing and could “benefit” from surgery. This clearly informs her decision to not accept CI unquestioningly: There are examples of CI operated children who want to remove the implants later on because hearing is seldom restored and the person will anyway remain hearing impaired. The parents should know what they do, and not treat their children with hearing problems as if they can hear. For instance, to send their child to a regular school if there is an alternative, can be wrong. I think the whole question has to do with acceptance, and that the person (deaf or hard of hearing) is given the opportunity to accept his or her own situation. Thus, if there is no initial acceptance of a child’s deafness, CI surgery will not help him or her. Anita’s own strategy toward the hearing world has, as we have seen, been rather relaxed. She is thus, through her position as a crossover, also at odds with some people and milieus in the Deaf world that exaggerate the difference between the hearing and the Deaf worlds and describe them both as being too homogenous and closed. However, she does not give any overt critique of such positions, because she certainly knows the reasons behind them: In the United States, there are some that are extremely deaf conscious, and where you must be second- or third-generation deaf to be counted as a real deaf person. They also refuse to adjust to the surrounding society, by refusing to use their voice in shops. In ASL (American Sign Language) they don’t use much mouthing either: it is more bodily. But even though there are extremists, that doesn’t mean that this is the rule. Often the most extreme features are presented in the media. Here, as in other contexts, she doesn’t fancy people who “say they are right and cannot take any critique.” In this, she comes close to Hilde’s point of view, but from a different position. TRANSCENDING BOUNDARIES Anita’s story is in many respects different from Hilde’s. Even though her audiological condition is defined as not deaf but hard of hearing, she has since

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early childhood taken her cultural Deafness for granted. There was no outof-the-closet experience for her as there was for Hilde. Anita’s account is also interesting because of her experience of practically being in the borderland, the zone between the hearing and the Deaf worlds. As a young girl with high competence in communication technologies, interestingly she has been able to bridge some of the gap that exists between the seemingly incompatible worlds. At a personal level, this is evident. From a position of fully accepting herself as a deaf person and hence as a person with her own individual potential to be developed and stimulated, she has had an opportunity to follow or create her own route in life more freely. Her “inbetween-ness” is also marked by her age and her position as ambivalently deaf. Hence, she is not a prominent fighter in the Deaf struggle, but rather a fruit of the struggle of the deaf before her and of her position as a member of a deaf family. As a free individual, choosing her own route, she comes into conflict with both the hearing majority stereotype of a deaf person and the minority stereotype of a good deaf person. The freedom to choose is clearly articulated in Anita’s story as a potential freedom to grow beyond your origins. In her insistence on this and with her important transnational experiences from the Internet, she clearly points to a transcending social and personal identity—and the transnational character of the Deaf community. Hilde’s story, on the other hand, is more like a tightrope walker’s: focused on the art of balancing (cf. Bauman 1993) as a struggle in different steps. First was the troublesome period of frustration related to problems of communication and then was a period of denial of her own deafness. After a period of great ambivalence, she experiences a kind of out-of-closet relief related to her acceptance of her deafness and her growing sense of pride. Later, in her adult life, she established a strong attachment to a pluralist Deaf community, which gives the individual opportunities, not strict guidelines. Hilde’s and Anita’s stories are evocative and defiant in different ways. Hilde shares many of the same metaphors as Asbjørn does (in the Introduction), and the monkey and the cage loom large. Hilde finds a way out of the tragic existence of “fake hearing” and engages in escaping the normalizing forces of a phonocentric cultural regime, in ways similar to those of Asbjørn. Both stories are exemplary tales about the effect of the “personal tragedy” (Oliver 1990) script, but also the transgressive dimension of “overcoming.” However, they also differ, especially when Hilde extends

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the cage or prison metaphors into her critique of the “straitjacket” aspects of collective forces within the Deaf community. Through this she does not really arrive safely in a communal sense of belonging, even if the signed companionship is highly cherished and, beyond a doubt, a sacred possession. This is thus a position, which, in this respect, equals Anita’s. Both of them, although differently, have established marginal positions within the deaf environment as well as toward the hearing world. This marginality further may be a central feature of any deaf position because the establishment of settled and stable points of view is endemically impossible. Deaf culture and positions within it can thus be seen as permanently unstable or only temporarily and situationally settled. These and other deaf stories thus contain remarkable testimonies of continual challenges to achieve the safety and stability that others may take for granted—except for minority members that share similarities with these existential conditions. PERIPHERAL VISIONS AND MARGINAL POWER However, Anita and Hilde are not representative, and by using their stories, I have certainly not captured any typical features of deaf identity management. However, they both offer good side-stage views of what it might mean to be deaf, Norwegian, and a world citizen. One could also argue that the “peripheral vision” (Cohen 2000) these deaf people exhibit illuminates focal values and metaphors that contribute to a better understanding of the social life of deaf people around the globe. Their different kinds of marginality contribute to a heightened awareness of key topics and the taken-for-granted aspects of life within the hearing and Deaf worlds and also the messy space in between. The concepts of periphery and center are not clear-cut or easily defined. In the “established” understanding of the process nature of group identities, Barth (1969) and others highlight both the cross-boundary interaction and internal conflicts within groups as determinants of the provisional outcome of identity. One problematic assumption underpinning such approaches is that the power of the periphery is misinterpreted and rendered less important. Besides, modern changes can also blur the whole distinction between margins and cores, centers and peripheries:

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It is also arguable that the globalizing process, with its intense inter-communication in virtually boundless cyberspace, will effectively abolish centres and peripheries, replacing that dynamic with the difference between being in the loop or out of it. But that of course is itself a centre/periphery phenomenon, although taking place in a less geographic medium. I will argue that the centre/periphery phenomenon is perpetual in human experience, if only because it is an inevitable projection of crucial corporeal experiences of vital centres of the body and useful but less vital appendages, a corporeal experience which is then projected into spatial concomitants of greater or lesser vitality—or greater or lesser power. (Fernandez 2000, 118) In this chapter, we had a few glimpses into the meaning of the new communication technologies for deaf people, especially in Anita’s narrative. Her engagement with the world through the Internet has broadened the scope of her social world and made it easier to enter into relationships with hearing people. The sharp division between hearing people and deaf people is thus under attack, and the problem of boundaries and identity thus becomes messy. Furthermore, the messiness is of a multiple nature, because there are both rewards and confusing strings attached. The fear of being subjected to relations that are biased in favor of sound and hearing is still present for many and thus limits the scope of such relations. There is, however, a growing segment of the Deaf community that has acquired both sufficient selfconfidence and practice to both expect and demand equality of status. The fear is thus weakening, even if the reasons to be alert are all but vanishing. Granted that the concept of center/periphery is an inevitable trait of human cognition and understanding and is connected to corporeal experiences, most deaf people will benefit from the established social centrality of vision. The visual language that embodies their thoughts and ways of acting in and on the world is thus important. In the next chapter, this will be explored from the perspectives of three deafened people. The actual loss of hearing is central in each of the stories, as an aspect of important turning points in life. Becoming deaf in adult life is a challenge both to those facing this as a loss and to the Deaf communities that, with great ambiguity, welcome them.

2 LIMINALITY

Read any book on deafened people and the lack of self confidence and the poor self image of the deafened person is discussed. But without exception, all see this as being a product of inability to hear, of faults in the ears and not of society which does not value us. We are stuck with these pathological models and medical definitions of who we are, when in reality we are not sick or ill people. We are people who are socially, psychologically and politically oppressed. (WOOLLEY 1991)

Deafened people are also pathologized from yet another angle. Within the Deaf signing communities as well, 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. Deafened people seldom learn sign language fluently. Because fluency is a marker of loyalty and common experience, many deafened people do not feel welcomed as full members of the Deaf community. This promotes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the signing community’s hesitation prevents many deafened people from entering in the first place. From a purist position, born-deaf people have difficulty handling the impurity associated with deafened people—because deafened people often prefer to use spoken

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language, plus signs as support. For some, this is a mixed mode that jeopardizes sign language proper. How it really feels to be deafened resides, however, in the eyes and hearts of those concerned. In the three stories below, we will get glimpses into this. But first, I would like to present an illustrative episode at the Deaf College in Ål. IDENTITY, AMBIVALENCE, AND CONFRONTATION: ÅL, NOVEMBER 1998 While conducting my short-term fieldwork at Ål, I happened to be present at one event that developed quite dramatically. As one of the few empowered permanent places in the Norwegian Deaf world, the school, in cooperation with its connected enterprises, hosts a lot of different individuals and groups for short and long periods. Numerous courses are arranged in addition to the regular one-year courses at the Deaf College, such as courses for hearing parents of deaf children, for deaf retired people, and so forth. There are also courses for deafened people and their next of kin. In November 1998, one such course was held. One of the students at the Deaf College, Siri, who had turned deaf quite recently, had for a long time felt that neither the hearing students nor her deaf, signing costudents understood her and other deafened people’s situation. They could not grasp the ambivalence, the uncertainty, the lost capacity for communication, the loneliness, and frustration both she and others experienced, she told me. Siri took advantage of the presence of the mentioned course and arranged an open meeting in the conference hall. Everyone was invited and the hall was full. Siri introduced the two speakers. One of them was Tove, who had turned deaf as an adult. The other was Alf, a hearing husband of a deafened woman. They were both to tell about their experiences and their lives, the latter about how to live with a deafened spouse. The “performance” was well done, as long as Tove was speaking. She spoke both clearly and at the right speed for the interpreter. She was polite, but she had an intriguing appeal to the Deaf community. She asked them to be patient, because it takes time to readjust and learn a new language. She spoke further about the loss she had experienced by being bereft of

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her hearing. She especially still missed long, spoken conversations with loved ones and music. She explained how this loss of something that was cherished fostered a long period of grief and work for self-reconciliation. It takes time to learn sign language and to become an “insider,” but she was eager to state that both the language and the Deaf community were cherished possessions for her. Her appeal was further directed at previous friends and other hearing acquaintances, because they tended to become either indifferent or simply disappeared. Then it was Alf ’s turn. He started in a similar sober mode, developed a picture of the loss he and his wife had experienced, and painted a strongly romantic picture of “the hearing culture.” Then, quite suddenly, his tale turned into a defense of CI, which his wife had recently gotten, and a major attack on the Deaf culture as being both inferior and narrowminded. It was a breathtaking provocation that shocked most of the people present, and the meeting was about to collapse. As with the public debate on CI, this one equally took on the characteristics of an “argument is war” metaphoric type of discourse (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). The deafened student who had initiated the meeting was anything but content, and she told me that she was more frustrated than ever by standing in the middle of the crossfire. In my attempt to understand the responses to Alf ’s rude attack that triggered the tension, I observed different types of attitudes and modes of reaction. First of all, and most visibly, I witnessed the fury and rage that the attack evoked and provoked, especially among the young deaf students. They were intimidated and moved into a strong defensive position. Second, I observed a demonstratively relaxed and seemingly uninterested reaction from some of the experienced deaf teachers and staff. The sign for boring, an approximation of a yawn, was frequently applied. Being the legitimate “land holders” they demonstrated their power and right to ignore. Finally, I could sense an awkward uncertainty among the deafened and hearing people present, myself included, leading to some rather impotent attempts at softening the conflict on the spot. The event, and subsequent reactions, made me aware of Ål’s highly paradoxical nature. By housing potentially ignorant hearing and deafened guests and participants, Ål allowed a constant source of normalizing pressure to be present. This causes specific problems, because Ål is among the very few places in

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Norway where deaf is the rule and communication is expected to be on deaf terms. The instability of this setting causes identity related stress for almost everyone. The guardians of the boundaries of Deaf culture seem to become rigidified under such circumstances, and accusations of not showing the right attitudes escalate. The Deaf community is equally accused of being narrow-minded, fanatic, and disabled. Each attack seems further to reinforce the rigidity of the other side. There is, however, more to the picture than meets the eye. The response of particular deafened people to the exposed dilemmas contains variation and ambiguity beyond any simple schema. The three people presented below have been at Ål, but none were present at this dramatic event. All three expose positions that challenge any stereotypic understanding of what a deafened person is and should be. In the first story, Trygve shows that a deafened subject can pass as a deaf one—and arrive at an accepted position within the Deaf culture. The second story, by Ragnhild, offers glimpses into other, less clear-cut routes toward a selfhood that moves toward a temporary arrival of tolerable limbo. The story by Håkon reveals yet another route: a flexible position within the Deaf world as a part-time engagement. TRYGVE: DEAFENED AND DEAF Trygve was born as a hearing person, but because his father and a few other family members are deaf, he grew up in a bilingual environment. His deafness evolved gradually, and his story is partly about how this gradual loss of hearing has influenced him and his way of understanding himself. The fact that his father was a central figure in the Deaf community has also greatly influenced him, for the most part positively: Because of him and other deaf family members, I was in a way part of the deaf community before I lost my hearing. So, I was immersed in deaf culture from early childhood. As a hearing person with hearing family members, I became bilingual almost from day one. Well, my first signing was more of a sign plus speech type, more than sign language proper. But my sign language use increased when my hearing decreased. My father’s prominent position has been problematic, but I have certainly been given an

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easy and free entrance. I am referring to travels and meetings both within the Nordic borders and further abroad. But it has been difficult to tackle critique of my father. Even if I can agree with some of the critics, I often become passive, as for instance in the last CI debate. I simply withdraw. He certainly had a low profile in public, but he is far from being “muted.” He describes his gradual entrance into the Deaf community in this way: I gradually started to lose my hearing late in primary school and then the process escalated. When this process started, I was at first a hearing person without hearing, but when my knowledge and recognition of the deaf community increased, I became more Deaf. Now, I can get just as much out of both worlds. When I go to see a movie, it is an activity that involves both portions of me.

Double Identification, Mixtures, and Pretending This double aspect of life is for Trygve “mostly an advantage,” and he sees parallels to other comparable positions, such as Pakistani children growing up in Norway. However, there is a difference between the deaf and other bicultural people that is connected to differential power relations. There are thus problems in establishing mixtures of identity that are functional on deaf terms. There are some mixtures or bicultural practices that are unsuccessful, and Trygve is pointing out some of them when telling about overt fake hearing sessions, such as folk-dance performances and other music-related practices performed by deaf people. When I ask him about the band “18 Hands” from Denmark, and how their mixture can be understood, he starts exploring a complex and touchy theme: Yes, I have experienced them myself and I have also witnessed a deaf music group here in Norway. In the beginning I was very skeptical, but in the case of 18 Hands this is not the case. The band came to life through a wish from deaf individuals, and cooperation with hearing persons with deaf siblings or parents. But my first reaction was “This is on hearing terms . . .” but then the deaf persons involved seemed to really be enjoying it themselves.

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Well, then it’s OK. They use a heavy bass-line that makes you feel the rhythm. But such attempts are not always that good. During the opening ceremony at the Deaf world congress in Vienna in 1995, deaf dancers from Tyrol performed. It was no good. It was not on deaf terms. But if the mixture is good and something new is created, and not only a mimic, ape-like thing, then it’s good. The problem of imitation is a central theme in Trygve’s story, which is connected to living an incomplete life on other’s terms with a lot of pretending. This is pretending to understand, pretending that everything is OK, and being a nice guy, not a troublesome one. Trygve’s story parallels Asbjørn’s, elaborating upon the monkey and teddy bear metaphors. These metaphors evoke a drama, which is something they have in common. As such, they serve the needs of both self-understanding and social critique. In Trygve’s story the dramas of mimicry were present at certain key stages, connected to his changes of identity. I was born in Bergen and we moved to Ål when my father’s job was moved there. Later, when we moved to Oslo, it was mostly because of me and my siblings, and our school attendance. I believe I grew up mostly as a hearing person with connections to the hearing world. In Oslo I got more actively involved in a deaf environment. So it was a marked change for me, to move to Oslo. It also coincided with my shift of type of school—from a regular school to Briskeby School for the hard of hearing. I was at Briskeby for three years before attending the University. I managed pretty well. I could follow the progression, but socially, I started having harder times. I was a kind of social center in the beginning, but when my hearing faded, I became less social. I continued participating in sports, both handball and soccer, but at parties and gatherings, I functioned poorly. When I lost my hearing, I lost my social contacts. I do not blame the others for this. When you lose about ninety-five percent of the content, let’s say of jokes, it is better to do something different than pretending. I often like to say that the transition was kind of OK, but it wasn’t. It doesn’t feel good when I meet old acquaintances praising my speech, and they seem to know me as “Trygve, the one with a hearing problem” and nothing more. I am fed up with that. So I use to give them my “it’s OK with me,” and it’s pretty true, most of the time.

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In this double travelogue sequence, there are many interesting things to notice. First of all, he tells about the loss of a central position in his social milieu that accompanies the hearing loss. This is important, because the Norwegian concept of belonging is literally “to hear together” (å høre sammen) and the majority of metaphors that reveal or signify social connectedness are sound metaphors (Haualand 2001a). And, literally again, Trygve is hearing progressively less together with his former hearing friends and acquaintances. This is furthermore a social process that pushes him onto the sidelines and toward the periphery of his social world—and gradually leads him to experience a different way of being. One of the reasons why “it’s OK” with Trygve most of the time could be connected to this: He had an alternative frame of reference to activate when things changed as drastically as they did. He was thus more ready to appreciate this than most other deafened people. Sign language was no foreign language to him either: “It must have been easier for me than for many others, since I both knew the deaf community in advance and I already mastered sign language.” When I ask him why he chose Briskeby, an oral school, instead of Sandaker, which has a signing environment, Trygve replies with reference to his unresolved identity at that time: Briskeby was the only school I felt fitted my needs. My impression was that this was the only school with an academic level equal to hearing schools. I had no reason to believe this, but I did. So it was quite accidental. At that time I was more hard of hearing than deaf, in terms of identity. It was a kind of middle position, and the map in my brain didn’t fit the realities on the ground. At Ål I had gradually developed a hard of hearing identity that mostly circled around what I could master and what I couldn’t. It was a practical-technical attitude towards life—in order to avoid too many defeats. This attitude was further reinforced at Briskeby. This technical management of my hearing problems was in the fore but I needed a new dimension in my life. The deaf are more positively oriented. The hard of hearings tend to have a technical/medical self-understanding. The practical and technical management of identity is hence one of the central aspects of Trygve’s life as a hard of hearing person. His own

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awareness of an alternative route and his growing sense of dissatisfaction made his adult entry into the Deaf world desirable. Revolting Against the Technical Management of Identity However, Trygve’s revolt started quite early at Briskeby:1 I wanted to use signs at school, but there were a lot of hindrances. In class, there was no use of signs or sign language. The Norwegian language was celebrated and sign language degraded. This was a difficult issue for me. It was OK at Briskeby in other respects, but they had really bad attitudes toward sign language. But I learned to distinguish between persons and their opinions. The first year, I was involved in heavy discussions on this topic, but I calmed down a bit the next years. But I must admit that it was a relief to attend classes in a hard of hearing environment, after my experiences that last period at the hearing school. I was still able to hear more than I do now. After Briskeby, Trygve attended a university. He has by now completed his master’s degree in social sciences. For a period, he combined his studies with teaching both at a deaf school and at Ål and as an actor at the new professional sign language theater. He describes his experiences at the university as mixed: “In the beginning, I made three good deaf friends on campus. But they moved, and I suddenly felt lost and lonely. I was not prepared for that. But of course, we stay in touch through letters and e-mail and we meet each other face to face once or twice a year.” After this, he was more or less the only deaf person in the courses he attended. His relationship with other hearing students was ambiguous: I have an ambiguous relationship with my co-students. There is a nice atmosphere, but I cannot say we have come to know each other. It’s an artificial relationship. If there are more than two persons present, it often turns into a monologue from my side. In order to keep up their interest, I come up with quick and witty 1. The sign for Briskeby is “smashing hands against each other,” indicating their ban on sign language.

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lines. I believe they see a person with a sense of humor, but equally someone they really don’t know. They believe I hear more than I do. But even if many of the students know who I am since I always sit on the front row during lectures, I really don’t know them. Occasionally some of them are “kind” and try to involve me. I have also been to some parties. This is quite OK if the music is loud. Then I am on equal footing with everyone else, because of the general difficulties with following conversations in noisy environments. But most of the time I sit alone. If the volume is suddenly turned down, the situation can become embarrassing because of the poor control I have of my own voice. Trygve has no plans to stick to only the Deaf community as a refuge. First of all, he believes he benefits from connections with the hearing society, to which he still feels attached. Second, he views the Deaf community as being too small, even if it provides good compensation, socially. The limited size of the deaf community is a huge drawback. We have a limited number of choices, at least compared to hearing people. In the small deaf community, it is really difficult to find someone you can share interests with. But, of course, there are positive things about having such a small community with a strong feeling of togetherness. It is almost like a small parish where everyone knows each other. It is a local community, which is not localized physically. My social environment is hence not a geographical place, but the deaf community. That implies a lot of localities. It would help to have a bigger deaf community. Trygve touches here upon the transnational trait of potential deaf bonding. As a person who has traveled widely, he has often dreamt of moving his studies to places with a more varied Deaf community, such as Stockholm, Copenhagen, or Washington, D.C. “I have never been at Gallaudet myself, but I have friends that have been there, or to other places in the States. It seems to be easier there. I have considered moving there myself, but so far I haven’t been able to give myself the necessary kick in the ass.” Trygve is also a frequent e-mail user but is not dependent on the Internet for personal contacts. The personal contacts he has abroad have occurred through direct encounters during holidays:

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In the last years, I have often used my holidays to meet deaf persons abroad, at conferences and camps. I attended the Deaf Olympics in Denmark in 1997, I was at the WFD (World Federation of the Deaf ) congress in Vienna in 1995, and I have attended various deaf youth camps. It is such a relief to attend such events and make friends with so many people. The Real Deaf, Deaf Power, and Ambivalence Trygve encompasses a Deaf cultural-identity position, but he is troubled by the strong internal pressure to conform. “It is difficult to gain acceptance for diversity within the Deaf community, and so much energy is wasted on separating the real ones from the others. It is the ‘real’ ones that count; everyone else has no right to interfere. These persons are extremely nationalistic.” This “nationalism” is strongly connected to the transnational resistance movement coined Deaf Power or Deaf Consciousness: 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. Messages like this flourish: “Everyone using hearing aids has been fooled by the doctors.” I cannot buy that message. It is equal to saying that the doctors are enemies whatsoever and that no repair is good. It is as if you are born blind, you shall never consider surgery. This comparison, about denying blind people surgery, points to several things. The CI controversy is, of course, one, but also the criticism of any narrow definition of what it means to be deaf. Trygve especially touches upon one central criterion, “to have attended a deaf school,” that has been put to the fore as a key component in being Deaf for real: The deaf schools are, of course, important, but it is not necessary to have been there in order to feel as a whole deaf individual. If one insists on that, it is comparable to any labeling practice where one trait, let’s say a physical deficit, defines the person. The main thing is, rather, to be willing to learn from others and to respect

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core deaf experiences. In this respect, the deaf schools are important. When it comes to the question of deafness as a disability, Trygve is clear and provides nuances: It is important to change the attitudes from the medical definitions and into an understanding of the deaf as a linguistic cultural group. There is a huge difference between, for instance, wheelchair users and the deaf. A staircase will always be a hindrance for wheelchair users. For the deaf, language is the staircase, but when 100 deaf persons gather, the stairs disappear. If society had accepted us as a linguistic minority, much could have been accomplished. But today we are disabled. For instance, a Vietnamese can learn Norwegian, but a deaf person has a physical disadvantage that prevents him/her from learning Norwegian totally. When it comes to the widely known CI controversy, Trygve has his clear opinions, even if he doesn’t take part in the public debate. However, he feels a certain need to defend his father, because many of the things that reach the public are presented rather extremely. In some of the media coverage, one could almost read Trygve’s father’s messages about CI as a new form of ethnic cleansing. My father is not that extreme, quite to the contrary. I do not agree with what he said, but he didn’t really mean it the way it was framed. If CI-surgery gives you total hearing, who could possibly be against it? What the comparison was all about was to show how the Norwegian assimilation politics and normalizing endeavors towards the Saami population had similarities to the way the deaf have been treated, and, that there are no reasons to say poor creatures because we are deaf. Trygve has acquired a content outlook on his position in the Deaf community and his relations within the hearing world. His self-confident attitude is also reflected in his determination to define what deaf identity means to him personally. His attempt at crafting his own position within a Deaf world is remarkable, he explains his position well, and he argues strongly for his “own way of being Deaf.” He is, however, in a rare position

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to do so, because of his abilities and opportunities to acquire competency as a native signer. He is simply able to pass as Deaf. This is less so with Ragnhild and Håkon, whose stories now follow. RAGNHILD: BETWEEN HEARING AND DEAF WORLDS In contrast to Trygve, Ragnhild did not grow up in a deaf environment and was exposed relatively late in life to sign language and the signing community. Her identity and sense of belonging have thus been directed much more toward the hearing world. This fact, together with the aforementioned skepticism in the Deaf communities toward this kind of newcomer, has contributed to her strong sense of ambiguity. She thus emerges as a typical “unclean” figure because of her unclear “mixed loyalties” (Douglas 1975). Her position can be described as a passage or a liminal phase (Van Gennep 1961, Turner 1974). In contrast to the more classical and guided rite de passage, she was neither prepared for her change of status nor was she given any clear recommendations that could guide her way. Her transition seems only vaguely guided by her sense of becoming more deaf as time passes. Her neither–nor position, accompanied by a sense of being “matter out of place” (Douglas 1975), further makes her vulnerable to the politics of pity from both medical and deaf parties. Hence, learning to “live with ambivalence” (Bauman 1993) and accept provisional traits of life are integral to her identity project. A Story of Loss, Compulsion, and Uncertainty? Ragnhild was born near Oslo around 1970, and starts her tale by summing up her life: “If I shall summarize my life, there are two central things that have left marks. First of all, the loss of my parents, and secondly, my hearing loss.” Losses of parents and hearing are thus central elements in Ragnhild’s self-understanding, and she has been thrown into a new and ambiguous situation. “Sign language is not my language. I felt forced to learn it. I looked upon it as a necessary tool I had to acquire in order to continue my studies. After a while, a social dimension was added as well. Today sign language has become my social language.”

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The language question will be further discussed, but first she describes how she experienced the process of becoming deaf: My parents discovered my poor hearing while I was in primary school, second grade. They sent me from one specialist to the other. I hadn’t had any illness that could cause deafness, and I wondered if there could have been some hereditary reason because my grandmother was hard of hearing. Her own hearing gradually faded, but during the final years at primary school, this didn’t hamper her too much: I was doing well at school together with hearing peers. The teachers were alert, and made some extra arrangements to make things easier for me. The class sat in a horseshoe formation so that I could see what was being said. The lighting was also improved. I had two friends, one on my right and one on my left side that helped. With my small but close circle of friends, I had a good time in school, socially. Ragnhild’s parents participated at that time in the parent association for hearing impaired children, and they visited social gatherings where she made friends. The hearing friends she has now are mainly among those she knew from primary school. New relationships with hearing people are rare and mostly with those who master some sign language: I experience that many of the hearing persons I meet are unable to move beyond my hearing loss. When someone starts with “oh, you’re so good at lip reading,” I often take this as a bad sign. I will perhaps be a little too quick in regarding this person as someone who will never understand. For a long time I resisted making a division between my hearing and my deaf friends, but it is relevant even if I think the division is stupid. However, it is more tiring to be with hearing persons. It may sound cynical but I think it is more about being practical. This is one of the reasons why I know just a few of my fellow students. They certainly look at me as odd. When people take contact through the interpreter, they do not necessarily talk to me. Once a fellow student asked the interpreter, “Hey you, is she able to talk?” But it is not like that all the time.

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The difference she here refers to is experienced as something negatively forced upon her as a shortage that defines her. Via repeated disappointments in encounters with hearing people, she has developed a strategy of avoidance and puts energy into contact with people who match her needs. In a cultivated form, this approach would function as an effective buffer against new contacts with hearing people and an exclusive channeling of attention toward sign language users. However, her social practice is more complex. Because Ragnhild’s deafness was acquired gradually, she considered herself for a long time as hard of hearing and she chose, like Trygve, to attend Briskeby. It was a functional school for her with small classes, where she managed to establish lasting social bonds with fellow students: “Those I befriended at Briskeby are still among those I have enduring contacts with. They are mostly from my class and a few others from the school. Some of them are hard of hearing; others are more sign language oriented.” Those she seems to have problems staying in touch with are the hard of hearing individuals who “pretend [to be hearing] even when they are together with us that are deaf or deafened.” This practice of aping and pretending, which was previously elaborated upon, is thus well known to Ragnhild. She describes the period at Briskeby like this: At Briskeby we did not use any signs. There were other students who knew and used sign language, but in my class most of us did not. I did not at that time feel encouraged to learn sign language. My class was not that socially oriented outside our own circles. We were the snobbish ones, in the others’ eyes. This changed, however, in the long run. During the first year we stuck together most of the time, and three of us wanted to attend courses the school didn’t offer. But we argued well and they accepted our request. We were a close homogenous group: ambitious, clever and determined to go further towards university studies. The fact that we fought the same battle and made it our way, fused us extra well together. This ambitiousness was also at least partly backed by a good learning environment in the school with a few “excellent teachers.” Briskeby was not a traditional boarding school, but a large proportion of the student body came “down from the hills” and lived in private lodgings. There were clear

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disadvantages to this, and Ragnhild mentions both loneliness and lack of supervision as actual consequences. The Need for Sign Language After Briskeby she felt a stronger need to learn sign language: “I started at the entrance course at the University of Oslo, but I quickly realized that I had to use sign language in order to catch up. So I traveled to Ål in order to stay there for four months at the sign language course for deafened people. After that, I returned to the university.” The Deaf College, a place and institution that is both cherished and paradoxical, arranges these courses. Several months at Ål have made important imprints on the minds of many. For some, it has become the turning point in life where chaos turns into order and one’s “real” self emerges. One could thus imagine the course for the deafened to be a major ingredient in a rite of passage where the neophytes are made ready to change and to re-enter society. This could be done through a transformation of status where participation in the Deaf world through mastery of a new language and outlook on life, engendered a recrafting of the identification process. This is, however, not the case, for many reasons. First of all, the deafened are seldom ready for such a shift, and second, the Deaf community is not always ready to accept their possible conversion. The result might hence be that the liminal aspect of being deafened can be reinforced, and conflicts might escalate. For Ragnhild, it was at least a very mixed experience: “Most of the others in my class had lost their hearing late in life compared to me. Most of them were also older than I was. I found our life situations were quite different.” For Ragnhild, the course was therefore not a place to develop social bonds with equals. This must also be understood in relation to her own way of being and her different interests. She describes the course itself as “lazy” and “with few intellectual challenges,” a critique that corresponds with her general level of ambition. The social contact with deaf people at Ål was not very extensive, but she managed to acquire the basics in signed communication before she left. Back at the university, she experienced new challenges. The first period, however, she describes as a very good one. At the entrance course, she joined a group of deaf and hard of hearing students:

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This period was good, and we had lecturers that didn’t just read their manuscripts, but performed them well and with compassion. The group discussions with people from both Sandaker and Briskeby functioned pretty well. In this period, I felt like a real student that was engaged in late night conversations with red wine. . . . It was a good environment where we could talk science, live science. There were a lot of these experiences before people started to get serious sweethearts and later, children. In the coming years, “everyone” became pregnant and family-oriented. The next passage was thus a more difficult one, and the close group of fellow students was split. Coming back from Ål, she was the only deaf student in her department, and the numbers of potential signing lunch companions had diminished. In addition, she experienced the hazards of being at the mercy of an interpreter. Some terms she had access to interpretation, at others times not. It was always hard to find interpreters when she needed them. This was the main reason why she had to use twice as much time to pass the exams. As the only deaf student, she was also rather isolated from her fellow students’ social life at campus. She chose partial withdrawal as a strategy: “I wanted to give a functional impression, so I kept staying away from difficult situations. Before I started using interpreters, I was more used to lip-reading. But lip-reading is hard, tiring work. Nowadays I am less inclined to be nodding, smiling and pretending.” Until she was fifteen or sixteen years old, she was more liable to pretend, but she seems to have grown more confident year by year. Her use of voice has also been reduced in this process, but not because of Deafrelated political reasons: I have a small problem with monitoring the force of my voice. Once quite recently I was at an event with loud music. I spoke with force and didn’t notice, before it was too late, that there was a silent period after someone on stage had demanded attention. It was embarrassing. Such small cracks in my public facade are a defeat. I am a bit snobbish as well, because I really want to pronounce the words well. But maybe these things are not that important. If I feel that people want to talk to me, communication becomes the main issue. I was in New Orleans some time ago, and sat reading a book in the hotel lounge when a man sat down beside

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me. He started to talk, and I had to say it was difficult for me to understand him due to my deafness. But instead of just leaving, he pulled out his notebook and started writing. We had a nice conversation, even if it was probably terrible to listen to me speaking English. It made me happy to see that there are at least some people who’ll just find another way of communication if the first one doesn’t work out well, without signaling it as a problem. The importance of how one is met is well demonstrated, and applies to every aspect of social life. So when the other participant demonstrates an intention to move on and engage in communication for real, Ragnhild is ready to loosen her own requirements for perfection. Family Life Ragnhild’s life has, as indicated in her opening phrase, been marked by her parents’ early death, and she has actualized her desire to establish a social network because of this: It is important to have someone that is proud of you no matter what, and often only a family can provide that. It is almost an existential need. The recognition that parents can give cannot come from elsewhere. This is the big emptiness in my life. If my parents were alive, I know they would have backed me up, and maybe they would have learned to sign. Among her close connections are her hearing husband and his family: “Martin’s mother has started to learn sign language and I have established a close relationship to my family-in-law. It is a nice family and my mother-inlaw has been taking well care of me.” There is no doubt that Martin and his family means a lot to Ragnhild, and before this connection was established she was lonely: “I was left on my own,” she says. Potential adults that could help her were not easy to find, but there were a few of them: There were persons that could sense how I felt, and one of them was a neighbor lady that lost her parents when she was an adult herself. She was also the mother of one of the kids I played with as a child. I could really communicate with her since she knew

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me. She could understand my situation and she was an important person in my life. There were also other adults who became important for Ragnhild, for instance, a female teacher at school to whom she could talk freely and get serious responses. Her desire to have and maintain close friends increased, and when she needed companionship most, the old friends started to establish their own adult family lives. It was not easy to establish new, close relationships among hearing people when she turned more deaf. After the death of her father, there were only two close adult relatives left for her: I had just one relative, with any authority over me, left. It was my aunt. She was the only one that could raise her forefinger when I was in need of that. When she died there was just my grandfather left, but he is more than ninety and lives far away. We stay in touch, but I have no deep personal contact with him. He is a difficult guy to communicate with, but he was the one to escort me down the aisle in church when I was married. It is important for me that he simply is there. My husband is, however, good at keeping relations going with him, even if he describes himself an asocial hacker. My grandfather is equally a data freak, and it’s cool to have a grandfather on the Net. New Technologies: Windows to the Social World The social connections enabled by the Internet mean a lot to Ragnhild, and because of her restricted social life, the Net provided her with a window toward re-accessing social life: I started using e-mail and Internet in the early 1990s, and it was in particular the IRC (Internet Relay Chat) that caught my attention. I spent rather much time on IRC that summer. I developed a high writing speed, and usually had a great time while chatting with people I met. Once I sat from 2 p.m. to 7 a.m. the next day, and my body felt rather strange from sitting there so long. The guy I was talking to, convinced me that there would be a new day tomorrow, and got me out of the computer room. On some of the pure chat sites there is much rubbish, but on some other sites you can engage in serious discussions. But the field has grown

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enormously in few years, for instance the amount of personal computers connected to the Internet. It was liberating to be able to communicate with strangers freely and without any consideration of hearing status. This contributed to her breaking loose from social isolation to some extent. She reports that she has two contacts left from that time, a German and an American. In her description of her first period online, it is also obvious that it had addictive aspects that went beyond pure pleasure: I was quite IRC-dependent and my studies suffered. When taking a university course, one got a password and access to the Internet. But once I was denied, I was in despair. I felt my world vanish. But the experience made me aware of the dangers. That summer I spent many evenings chatting on IRC, and when I lost my password nobody could know where I was. I was really lost and I longed for the hours of nice small talk with my friends on the Internet. Through this social, text-based network she got in touch with a person who later meant so much to her. Her first contact with her husband occurred through the Internet. It all started when I asked my German friend about some technical computer stuff and he wrote back that there was a person sitting next to me that could show me the procedure directly on my screen. I resisted taking direct contact, but my German friend sent Martin a message, and soon he was helping me. After that we started to be in touch. I didn’t notice that he was especially nice, but we started to chat along through IRC. I thought he was quite snobbish and a bit arrogant, and he was not good at maintaining social relations. But later we got to know each other, and then we fell in love. It was thus because of IRC and my German friend that we found each other. It is, however, important for Ragnhild to note that she was not dating him through the Internet: “I quickly found out where he was sitting, and our relationship didn’t start on IRC. I used the IRC in order to get answers to my scientific questions related to computer programming. He was good at that, and it was reasonable to ask him.”

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As with other stories presented in this book, Ragnhild’s story in particular shows how new technologies have contributed to making social life more accessible. They have also contributed to removing a whole lot of practical obstacles. Ragnhild herself considers these technologies to be of prime importance when it comes to coping with her hearing disability. Escaping Deafness or Embracing Difference? Ragnhild’s use of the Internet is thus of a certain kind, and she has not been keen on visiting the deaf sites on the Net. The practice of using the Internet and the new technologies in pursuit of promoting the ethnopolitical aspects of the Deaf struggle is beyond her present interests. It is rather the possibility to move freely and unmarked, with deafness playing a secondary role, that matters. This is also connected to her position on the fringes of the Deaf community, and reflects her ambiguity toward some of the collective Deaf projects: I am not an active member of the deaf community, and I do not feel quite at home there. But I am engaged in some parts of deaf politics, through DAF (Deaf Academic Association). If it hadn’t been for that, my contact with the deaf community would be equal to zero. But I do appreciate the social life that accompanies the gatherings I engage in, and I can feel that I benefit from being engaged. Other reasons for this restricted contact with the Deaf community are the previously mentioned differentiation between the “real deaf” and others, and an accompanying feeling that one is not always welcome. Ragnhild resorts, however, to a more general explanation: “The point is that individuals are different, and one chooses one’s friends not because they happen to belong to a certain category.” Ragnhild therefore doesn’t pretend to inhabit a privileged position in the Deaf world or to have any strong loyalties. However, she engages in issues that are important to her, for instance, the poor interpretation service. In many ways, a “both/and” attitude reflects her ambiguous identifications. On the one hand, she both understands and partially has a share in “the hearing majority” points of view, and on the other hand, she also shares

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the deaf skepticism of normalizing forces. Mainstreaming in school is one of these forces: In primary school I functioned well, and with the help of my friends, I didn’t really feel different. I cannot really recall who I was. I read books all the time, I had some friends, and I was a scout. I realized that I missed out sometimes, and that children often could be quite rude. I didn’t suffer, but I cannot say for sure that I was doing very well. I was quiet and nice, but I do not believe that I was forced to be so. So when I was together with people I got along with, I don’t know if I had this feeling of being different. That, however, happened more often later, when I approached people I couldn’t understand. To show that I didn’t hear was embarrassing, and yes, I had an inferiority complex. If someone asks me for directions, they sometimes just walk away if I politely ask them to repeat. No normal politeness! But foreigners are more tolerant and they always try to communicate. They probably know what it means to be different. The challenge of mastering marginalization and difference is thus one of the primary themes in Ragnhild’s life. As a field of enthrallment and suspense, it also points to the drama of becoming and being oneself. This drama relates to different socializing forces, which make becoming a rather difficult task. As part of a more general late-modern project, Ragnhild is certainly hunting for her self. She poses intriguing questions toward her self: “Who am I? How can I become my true self?” In her highly self-reflexive understanding, we can detect elements of both essentialism and constructivism. Her project is further connected to the problems of performance and her highly cherished wish to display functionality in the face of disabling circumstances. She strives toward perfection, but on the other hand, she avoids pretending to be another hearing person. She does not want any reader to believe that she is disappointed. She therefore stresses that she has good friends, a husband who adores her, enough to eat, and a lot of abilities and opportunities. The next story, by Håkon, resembles both Ragnhild’s and Trygve’s at certain junctures and in relation to the primary challenge of facing deafness as a loss. It is at the same time a life story that is differently configured

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and told, and contributes to a wider understanding of both the disciplining forces and narrative options surrounding deafened people. HÅKON: PART-TIME DEAF? Håkon is in his forties and his deafness came suddenly when he was an adult. His story is thus sparked in a slightly different way than was the case for both Ragnhild and Trygve: I grew up as a hearing child, and I went to the regular schools. Then in the beginning of the 1980s I lost my hearing due to an inflammation of my brain. I continued however to live as if I was hearing. I continued to go to lectures at the university by using a FM [frequency modulation] system for amplification of sounds and I somehow functioned in group-work settings. It took half a year to recover in physical terms after the inflammation damage, starting at the hospital, where I stayed for two weeks. I went through a lot of tests on hearing, sight and nerves, and I got hearing aids adjusted to my needs. Then I moved back to my parents’ house outside of Oslo. The county specialist in audiology approached me quickly and asked me if there was anything I possibly needed. I answered no. I still imagined myself to be a hearing person. It was just a question of weeks before my hearing would return. At that time I could cope more or less successfully with my hearing aid. But three years later it became worse. Then I was “deaf as a post.” The loss was thus marked by a certain period of denial, based upon the belief that the loss was just a passing difficulty. However, when it turned out that this was a lie, he directed himself toward sign language and the Deaf community. I moved to Trondheim in the north and started learning sign language for real. First, I got myself a job at the deaf boarding school. I made a huge leap into the sign language world by working in it. People, who knew me from before, noticed a great change. From that time on, I became part of both worlds and since then, I have continually moved in and out. In my family, there are only hearing persons except me and our choice of friends

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and mode of communication is marked by this. Close friends are among hearing persons and those I have most connections with at work in a deaf institution are also almost hearing persons. There are a few deaf persons that I am attached to, but they are mostly deafened, like me, except for a few others. I communicate with several deaf persons, but I have no deep relationships with them. He is thus somehow within the Deaf world, but not of it. The two worlds, the hearing and the deaf, have because of this become quite separate realms of his social reality: The two worlds are quite separate, that’s true. In my case it is especially so because of my family. My wife has problems with the mixture in deaf and hearing interactions, even though she is a good signer. In mixed encounters, she experiences the problem of being socially restricted because of the imposed role of being an interpreter. She is impulsive and socially oriented and loves to discuss. To be a mediator disables her in this respect. The consequence is that we consciously have chosen hearing friends. When we moved to this place we happened to live quite close to another family that seemed to be similar to ours: a deaf man with a hearing wife and two hearing children. The difference is that he is a Deaf man. Since they live so close to us, this has implied more interaction. We are on good terms with one another, but we wouldn’t have traveled together with them on holidays, to put it that way. By saying this I am exposing some of my personality, I believe. I do not demand “my right,” so to say, if it is so that I have any rights. Explaining why mixed relationships are troubled waters and objects of avoidance, Håkon highlights that he first and foremost adjusts to his wife’s needs as he puts it. I have no choice if I am going to continue the marriage and staying together with her and the children. Yes, I think my wife would leave me if I had chosen a stronger affiliation with the deaf community. We have talked about this, a lot. It is hard to accept my deafness. If we, in addition, should get a lot of deaf friends, at the expense of our hearing friends, it would be too much for her. But if I had wanted to do it, I could have done so.

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On the other hand he willingly downplays his “rights” and engages in a compromise. By questioning these rights, he is also criticizing the discourse on rights within Deaf politics. I have been involved in many discussions related to that topic, with a lot of persons. I agree on a general level that “if a family with a deaf member shall function well, sign language must be the form of communication.” But it is an emotionally difficult task to handle communication between deaf and hearing members of the same family. Personally I don’t feel that I have the right to demand sign language. In a similar vein, I don’t have the right to listen to the radio or to understand everything spoken. If other persons really want me to follow, they have to make this for themselves by checking me. But it is not an easy strategy and often causes conflicts. I am a little bit unclear on the topic since I sometimes mean this and other times that. Sometimes I think I should have been tougher, and I do have a permanent bad conscience regarding my children. On many occasions, I cannot grasp a single thing of what they’re up to. This means that I have to be quite active in relation to them, but it is not always true that I come to know by asking or that it is a proper time for interruptions of that kind. Sign Language and Bad Conscience His relationship with his children is thus of a painful kind, and he struggles with a bad conscience: I have this bad conscience because I haven’t used or put that much weight on sign language. It is not a good feeling to always be the one to be informed after a while, and that this and that were said without my attention there and then. I should have used more signs in my communication. One of them, however, can make herself understood through signing, but the other one can’t. This is also connected to grievance about his loss of hearing, which he admits is still there: The sadness because of my deafness is still there. I thus have difficulties when it comes to saying “we deaf.” This is mostly due to

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my own attitudes towards myself and that I am not born deaf. This has practical consequences as well. If my TTY (teletypewriter) is broken, I think that it doesn’t matter much. The same goes for the alarm system by light. It could be much better, but I do not use energy on repairs. This is because I often think of myself as a hearing person. In terms of identity I am thus more hearing than deaf. I haven’t really worked hard to enter the deaf community. Håkon is here exposing his ambiguity on identity, and as deafened, he is not alone in this. He has however chosen the Deaf Association (NDF) because it suits his needs much better than the Association for the Hard of Hearing (HLF): The first contact I made however was with HLF, not NDF. I attended evening classes in lip-reading at Briskeby which is owned by HLF. But since then HLF never represented an alternative. My contacts with the deaf environment in Trondheim made me realize that I had to use sign language. I knew where I could find the HLF office and persons, but I had no desire to get in touch. I guess it also had something to do with their attitudes towards “inability to hear.” In fact I like the label “deaf ” much more than “hearing impaired” or “hard of hearing.” By saying this I also indicate something about my loyalty. However, even if he prefers to be deaf, he does not celebrate deafness. His hesitation partly is due to the way he became deaf, but also to a certain experienced narrowness in Deaf social life: It is a narrow social environment. It is difficult to find the ones you want to befriend. Besides, there are so many strange things going on. I am thinking of the relationship many deaf persons have to the social benefit system designed for disabled persons and those unable to work. It seems to be OK to pass as disabled in such circumstances and get benefits, and at the same time claim “I am not disabled!” I am also thinking of fields of interest and what one cares to talk about. This may be due to educational and occupational related similarities between deaf persons. It may also be the case that I have a prejudice towards the deaf—as a group with lower status.

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He is not proud of this prejudice. He struggles to go beyond it. Some experiences and noteworthy events have strengthened rather than weakened his feelings: I can very well remember an instance when I was almost knocked down after a soccer match. I was playing on a deaf team and my teammates behaved in a strange way. The referee made a fair decision against our team. I had no problem in accepting it, but the others were furious. It was a regular match between the deaf team and a hearing team. In this instance, he was accused of being a treacherous person because he didn’t side with the rest of his deaf team. When I ask him if he looks at this instance as one of many where episodes almost automatically are interpreted within a discourse on oppression, he agrees: When something is felt as wrong or disadvantageous, it is a very common reaction to state: “This is typical of hearing attitudes towards us deaf.” When someone fails to order an interpreter is another example. What I mean is that many deaf persons often expect others to sort things out. This mentality is in addition connected to the deaf schools and the boarding-school system that I have never been a part of. I couldn’t imagine myself to be part of it either. I have no part in that history. Today, the situation is different, but at the time he was a primary school pupil this was probably the case: That was the situation then, I believe. I do not know any deaf person of my age that managed well at school. Almost everyone had both the ability and cleverness to do so, but the option must have been closed. Well, I know a few hard of hearing guys that have been integrated or been to schools or classes for the hearing impaired. They managed. Maybe the real reason that I don’t know more about other persons is my limited network inside the deaf community. I don’t know what it is like to have been to a deaf school. But I know that I wouldn’t have liked it. I can thus say, “Poor deafies that have been robbed of educational access because of their primary school shortcomings.” But this is, of course, not their fault, and I am really shocked over how this has affected my

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own attitude. I am struggling with this, because when it comes to basics, this is a question on human value and how one approaches other persons. This struggle is a central one, which extends to himself and his self-image. He once told me about his childhood, which he considered as being safe and basically good, but he was immersed in a specific and narrow version of the Christian religion which he in later life felt limiting. Healing—No Option One would believe that Håkon is a person who could be positive toward the “new” healing options, such as CI surgery. However, that is not exactly the case: I have met several persons who have made use of the CI possibility, but there seem to be poor results. Most of them are very disappointed. This stands in sharp contrast to the success stories from the National Hospital (Rikshospitalet), which we can read about in the newspapers. Cochlear implants certainly do not work for everybody: But I have been to a test where responses in my hearing nerves were examined, in order to see if surgery could be an option for me, that is right. I could hear something, something that reminded me of my own tinnitus. Then they turned the volume up and I suddenly heard more. I heard the electricity, you know, like standing under the high-voltage electricity lines. But I chose not to go for the surgery, because I was afraid of producing a conflict between the little hearing I still have on one ear and the new kind of hearing I might get on the other. It might work, but the opposite could be the result as well. If I should loose the little sound based connection I still have because of a CI surgery, I would be worse off than ever. I would certainly run into a deep identity crisis. The anticipated deep identify crisis is of a double kind. The one he doesn’t elaborate on is related to his position in the Deaf world. CI surgery would probably make his position weaker within—a pretender from a Deaf point

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of view who strives to escape deafness is often looked upon as a traitor. The paradox, that he would turn more deaf, audiologically, and less Deaf in cultural terms, is thus understandable. The internal debate on the issue can often be quite harsh, well illustrated when Håkon shows me the different signs for CI. “The alphabetic spelling by hand of C plus I is the most neutral. Then you have the “electric connection” sign (two fingers behind one ear), and you have the “pistol” sign, that is mostly used as a kind of mockery or among persons that agree on the badness of CI.” On the other hand, the possibility of losing every bit of sound-based connection to the world is also frightening for Håkon, and he continues: I am dependent on sounds. Even if I cannot apprehend what the sound is or means, it is still something that is important to me in order to orient myself. I can hear cars, airplanes . . . But I have to use my sight in order to locate the source. Continual sounds, noise, are possible to locate by turning my head. The volume of the sound is at its highest peak when my hearing aids are positioned in that direction. By using hearing aids, I can even hear birds if they’re close enough. Others can make me aware of the cuckoo that is singing, but I cannot perceive that. This has to do with frequencies and decibels. Small brooks running down the hills, the rhythmic sounds of ocean waves . . . Those are sounds that mean a lot to me. When I ask Håkon if it is possible for a deafened person to become Deaf, he says: In theory, it should be possible, but when it comes to practice, well, it is not that easy. But I know of other deafened persons that have moved closer than myself in becoming Deaf. They are fully sign language competent and work in the deaf sector. They have taken the consequences of their acquired deafness, but they have also been better prepared. He explains that there are several routes toward the Deaf community and to becoming Deaf: One is to have a share in the common experiences in childhood and in deaf school, another one is that you through sign language take part in activities and befriend other deaf persons. Encompassing

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both ways is the attitude towards deafness and what it means to be deaf. You can become part of the community by using sign language and participating in common activities where deaf persons gather. So, to a certain extent, one can compensate for the lack of common experiences. Some of the reasons why he hasn’t turned Deaf have been exposed. He amplifies some here: It is not true that I have met hostility in the deaf community. I feel welcome. Here, where I live, the environment is quite mixed and hearing persons, deafened and deaf mingle. There are not many persons here that would walk around wearing a “Deaf Power” T-shirt. Most of them are bilingual, like myself. In fact, it is like this in other places as well. At Ål for instance, it is not that extreme. But there are some distinctions going on between Amembers and B-members. Some of the local deaf clubs operate with two kinds of membership. A-members are those that are qualified deaf and the B-members are those that are not deaf. It is hence the medical definition that counts, but I think this attitude is on its way out. Personally I would like to see the label “supporting member,” rather than the B-label, and that everyone could choose which kind of membership they prefer. To be a real member includes some privileges such as the possibility to be a representative. A too strict interpretation of the rules can function as exclusion, and block some persons’ access to the deaf community. I can remember that one of the old boys in the deaf club here labeled me “half-way deaf.” I believe he did it as a positive gesture. But at the same time, this also tells about a not fully accepted membership. His own experience of being vague in terms of identification and the way he is positioned by others in the Deaf field makes him a transitional figure in many respects. This is also evident when it comes to application of the term disabled: I do not consider myself disabled, but this is because I often do not think of myself as deaf. There is, for instance, a service for disabled, including the deaf that allows you to get a free escort— for instance, when you attend the cinema or an arranged bus trip.

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It is totally fair when it comes to deaf persons with disabilities that need an individually adjusted interpreter. When I myself need an interpreter, I order one and take it for granted that it is for free. I have considered to get the card that allows you to have an escort for instance when I go to the theatre, because it is difficult to get hold of a professional interpreter on specific occasions. The only thing I need is an interpreter and I have never really needed any discount for travel or a handicap-badge on my car. This relates to what Håkon has mentioned earlier as a strange phenomenon in the Deaf world, that is, that it seems to be OK for deaf people to make use of the social benefit system designed for the disabled and at the same time deny their disability. This is also a problem that has been addressed by Harris (1995) and Corker (1998) about the situation in the United Kingdom. It is basically constructed as a problem of riding two horses at the same time, and that this could be a counterproductive practice. For Håkon, however, and within the Norwegian welfare system, you simply have to relate to the social benefit system. This is a problem, which is related to how deafness is viewed from a bureaucratic stance. To get the services you need, the social benefit system for disabled or work-impaired people is applied: Secondary schooling for the deaf is, for instance, defined as rehabilitation for work. All the necessary technical aids—TTYs, visual/tactile alarms, and interpretation services—are also defined as “rehabilitation” and thus financed and delivered through the social benefit system. So you cannot escape being treated as disabled. Everybody has to relate to that system. Changing Times Håkon is well aware of the obstacles facing the Deaf communities and that he is, to a certain degree, dependent on the Deaf society and how the Deaf society approaches the future. The changes that have occurred are thus objects of deep reflection. When I ask him about positive aspects of being deaf, he answers by comparing the old times with the present: I believe it was better to be deaf before, I mean before the deaf consciousness stuff was introduced. It would have suited me better,

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because I can now see tendencies of a more exclusive community. It has also become more specialized in terms of small interest groups. Those who are not engaged in any of these become less involved, and I believe that there are more lonely deaf persons today than ever. Much of the mutual care is about to be lost and the community spirit is weakening. The processes of fragmentation and loss of solidarity in the Deaf communities are part and parcel of the general trend in late modern societies. However, Håkon believes that the influences have come late into the Deaf world, but now with a full force. Even if he regards this as mainly negative, he is also willing to see potential positive traits in these processes as well: There will always be new arenas where deaf persons can meet. But you need to have more energy to join. It is not as easy to just drop in at the deaf club gatherings at six o’clock Thursday evenings as before. You “must” know someone there from before. But the Deaf Church stands up for the lonely ones, for all those that don’t feel welcome elsewhere. But of course, there are better opportunities now to get into deep relationships if you happen to meet people that fancy your interest. The slogan “Be a shooter, target new friends!” does have meaning. The Norwegian Deaf community has now and then been compared to other small-scale local communities and Håkon elaborates on the similarities: The deaf community is quite similar to a local parish in many respects. The big difference is that the people of the deaf community live at a physical distance from each other. But despite this, I believe that the deaf community has been able to preserve some of the intimacy that has been the marker of small communities. However, because of the physical and geographic scattering of its members, the conscious and continuous work to assemble and reassemble is both noticeable and precarious. The local Deaf clubs are not very attractive anymore. In the eyes of Håkon, there must be stronger focus on other and bigger events:

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I believe that events like the Cultural festivals and other huge arenas where more deaf people can meet are important. I am thinking of Nordic camps, cultural festivals, sport events and the new Sign Language Theatre on tour all over the country. These cannot really compensate for the closeness experienced in the local deaf clubs. But I believe we have to focus on a few, high quality events that attract many deaf persons. All this seems to be pointing toward actual trends within Deaf communities. The numbers of deaf people living within a specific geographical area seem to be too limited to keep the local clubs going as usual, and deaf people seem to be more varied in both their experiences and interests than before. The translocal traits of Deaf communities are hence becoming more important and to cater for their assembling needs they have to create bigger and more diversified events. The new situation is thus exciting and creates new opportunities and challenges. The diversity aspect is from one perspective strengthened, but at the same time, the potential numbers of lonely people may be increasing. We have seen how Trygve, Ragnhild, and Håkon have been challenged from different hearing perspectives. All of them grew up as hearing people and strongly identified themselves culturally with hearing activities. Becoming deaf was thus a loss of something cherished and secure. This was, however, tackled differently. For Trygve, it started later in life but was less dramatic than some of the others’ experiences because he was already somewhat immersed in the Deaf world. For Ragnhild, it evolved gradually from an early age. For Håkon, who suddenly turned deaf, the change was more dramatic. For all of them the loss represented a kind of turning point—first of all, turning into a state of void. In all three stories we have seen how their diverse personalities have given shape to different experiences and different ways of coping with deafness; Trygve through his joking relationships with the hearing world, Ragnhild through her self image of being “less social,” and Håkon through his compromising attitude and behavior. The difficult and ambiguous relations to the hearing world have been explored and illustrated through the embodied experiences of pretending, passing, and longing. However, there is not necessarily stronger focus on these aspects because of their status as deafened. Their “abilities” to pass as hearing persons may be

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stronger, but all of them have experienced occasions where they have been unmasked. A more interesting and compelling concern is therefore their attempts at passing as deaf persons and thus joining a new network of deaf signers. We have seen that there are no easy entrances. In the case of Ragnhild, the entrance was less than clear cut, and the potential ritualized entry was pretty loose and not too effective. But despite the different obstacles each of them have encountered, they strongly feel that they belong to the Deaf world, although only marginally. The most noticeable criticism of the present state of affairs in the Deaf world is formulated in the words of Ragnhild: “Some deaf people dislike us that are deafened, and they say that we should not be involved in NDF and the deaf community at all.” Trygve, Ragnhild, and Håkon certainly feel this position is excluding. As we shall see later, this is also a problem that is addressed from other angles. There is a continuous battle going on—about how to define and safeguard deaf identities. Some lose if the boundaries are drawn too sharply, whereas others experience the dangers of being “watered out” and of losing strength. This unclear situation thus contributes to the deafened people’s permanent state of becoming—a statement that hence also holds for the deaf population as such. Deaf identities are thus marked by fluidity and becoming. As such, they are very much in the making. The complex configuration of center/periphery (Fernandez 2000) in the Deaf worlds and the struggle to establishing clear-cut boundaries around cultural identities and definitions of the cultural identities within the boundaries are thus once again exposed. In the next chapter, Klara tells her story. It is a story that reveals and deepens aspects of deafness that we have already touched upon. It is also an evocative and moving story of how difficult it can be to gain access to the Deaf world, even if born deaf.

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THE HOMELESS MIND—BELONGING AND LIMBO

It is difficult to say who I am in a clear and single statement, because I have no deaf identification and no hearing identification. But I have a little story that says something about who I am—my identity. —KLARA

In Klara’s life, there are few solid anchorage points, and a central leitmotif in her story is thus her thorough sense of homelessness or strangeness. For Giddens (1990), homelessness is one of “the consequences of modernity” that, through different “disembedding mechanisms,” contributes to the lifting of the individual out of his or her social connectedness and structural positions. For deaf people, these “disembedding mechanisms” often begin at birth and may escalate when deafness is discovered. This is especially so when a deaf child is born into a hearing family, which lacks understanding of the child’s basic needs. This can grow into a pervasive sense of homelessness and a lack of anchorage points, which may engender a unique “drive” to depart and arrive elsewhere. These “other” places differ from one deaf person to another, because of varied lived experiences. Early exposure to deaf signers and deaf role models directs the not-yet-socialized person toward a longing in that direction, giving life a focused orientation

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toward visual communication. If, on the other hand, the person is forced to look upon herself as a failure, she will most likely experience a social and existential void. This might become a permanent state of limbo and disorientation that can turn into a psychiatric condition, but not necessarily so. In Klara’s story, there is a remarkable lack of social support. She could not share her personal experiences with others for a long period of her life. Her early sense of “difference as wrong” is, however, well marked and bodily experienced through neglect and abuse. As such, her story resembles the autobiography of Bolander (2000)—a strong testimony of a life nearly ruined because of misdiagnosis and lack of care/recognition. In particular, the installed sense of “own fault” is paralleled. Both stories point to the sad consequences of an instilled personaltragedy stance toward one’s self. However, they also provide insights into the process of reclaiming spoiled lives and undoing the imprinted discredit. THE INITIAL ENCOUNTER AND NARRATIVE HEALING Klara does this reclaiming through a narrative work about her own life. She points to glimpses of meaning and turning points of life-saving importance that provide her with the minimal requirements for survival. When I first got in touch with Klara, she was eager to participate in my research project by telling her life story. In an early e-mail, she explained some of her concerns and why she wanted to participate: This will be an opportunity for me to clear the air of frustrations. I take it for granted that it will be OK for me to re-approach a lot of past events. I haven’t touched upon these painful topics for a long time, and I consider it healthy to do so now. There is no reason to feel pity for me, and I am fully responsible for myself. I look forward to making use of the possibility of having a “listening” person in front of me, even if your motivation is to write a book. I will then create more space for happiness inside. I count on such an effect. It is also great if you can transfer this information to others, for instance future generations of deaf persons, so that they too can focus on the possibilities.

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This start points at Klara’s purification motif. She wanted to get rid of the painful ingredients in life by establishing a relationship with a receptive researcher. Such an anticipated therapeutic relationship was, however, difficult to handle for both parties. I neither could nor wanted to be her therapist, and she was equally unwilling to become dependant on me as a client. Hence, the use of this opportunity for therapy proved to be a mixed blessing.1 In her narrative endeavor, Klara clearly struggled with vast areas of meaninglessness, which she could not understand or face directly. The act of narration contributed to a partially successful healing process in this respect, and her style of telling reflects the unresolved character of her life thus far. Her story is thus one of a rare kind: It shares similarities with untold and maybe untellable stories that lack well-structured plot and chronology. Childhood as a point of reference or background for self-understanding is common, but problematic, particularly in her case. Described events in childhood are often treated as objective markers in life, with an implicit assumption that such accounts reflect “critical points about the life in question” (Denzin 1989, 19) and “natural” points of departure. Some people assume that these “give coherence to the life in question” (ibid.), which may be right in most cases, but not all. It is possible to observe some of the characteristics of “broken narratives” (Kirmayer 2000) in her life account. At a certain juncture, the narrative work, in which Klara was engaged, became too much for her, and she did not want to continue our cooperative work on her story. This was “because it was so painful to read through the transcripts of our conversations” and thus to face things she was more eager to forget. She felt this way particularly about descriptions of embodied childhood experiences of being ignored, isolated, and scolded. Such experiences, and the metaphors through which one remembers and makes sense of them, may, as Kirmayer states, “subvert the project of narrative and come to dominate the sense of self ” (153). This was almost so with Klara, but not totally, because she was ready to continue the process of telling after a break of a year or so.

1. The use of autobiographies is, however, an acknowledged therapeutic method (Kleinman 1988).

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THE LIFE STORY OF KLARA Klara was born deaf, but she was not exposed to sign language before she was seventeen years old. Today, in her mid-thirties, she looks upon herself as deaf and as a periodic sign language user, but she does not feel at home in any deaf world. She also reports an equal sense of homelessness in relation to the hearing and the hard of hearing worlds. This neither/nor feeling paves the way for a different story of identification: the “story within the story” that describes an experienced spiritual dimension in her life. This story will be described later. Here, we merely note that her sense of belonging is less than clear-cut, and that her core anchorage points are of narrative and spiritual types. The homelessness, exposed through this neither/nor positioning, is ambiguous. It points toward a certain freedom from prefabricated scripts and ways of understanding one’s own life. This puts her into a zero position, an experiential void, which may place heavy limitations on her ability to cope with life. This happens at the same time as normalizing coercion is involved. These are forces that contribute to the shaping of her marginal position. Here we witness another version of double marginality, an existence on the outskirts or the borderlands of both the deaf minority and the hearing majority, which gives insight into a life marked by isolation, marginalization, and oppression. Despite this, the story is pierced by the spirit of hope and a strong belief in human goodness. This is, however, not necessarily an attempt to make things look better than they really are or have been. In my approach to her story and life stories in general, I look upon this as a way of understanding and of “healing” (Mattingly 1998), as a cognitive way of making sense of life. This sense-making activity implies a focus on key metaphors lived by and their narrative/narrated extensions (Lakoff and Johnson 1999). Hence, it is important to approach the text with a certain degree of openness, which makes a multiple reading of Klara’s life both possible and desirable. Klara is herself quite aware of some of these ways of reading. In some passages, it is her life as a more or less vulnerable woman that matters most, and in other passages, it is her life as ambiguously deaf in a hearing world that is most relevant. Her touchy relationship with the Deaf worlds is also a theme that is thoroughly marked throughout her

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story. In this relationship, she both feels excluded because of her incompleteness as a deaf person and willingly distances herself—often with reference to negative episodes that she has experienced. In addition, there is a clear spiritual leitmotif in her story that guides her burning desire to develop as a human person and her endeavor to understand and heal herself. Childhood Essentials and Turning Points The first thing Klara told me, when I challenged her to tell freely about her life and how she has become the person she is today, is this: There is one thing that has meant a lot to me since I was a little girl. Other children bothered me and my grandma always told me, “Do not take notice of it. They do not know what they are doing.” She supported me a lot and it helped. They couldn’t hurt me if I didn’t care. But it has been troublesome. I couldn’t understand what my parents and my siblings really talked about before I was seventeen. I also imagined that those who communicate also honestly supported and helped each other. When my mother invited relatives for coffee, I naively believed that there was a supportive atmosphere. It was not true. She continues to point out central childhood events and experiences that made an impact on her as a person. The experiences often contain ingredients of loneliness, exclusion, and a strong longing for real social life where honesty and support is central. She recognizes that without support from a few important, good helpers, she would have been lost. In the previous quote, Klara indicates a few turning points in her life—events or occasions of specific importance for her. First, the experience of being bothered that could be countered, and second, the experience of family life as less supportive and honest than expected. In Klara’s story, there are a lot of references to critical events, and, as mentioned, the narration itself has contributed to a remembering activity that has both reinforced and re-actualized strong sentiments in a way she could not anticipate. The emotional turmoil clearly indicates a reference to very critical and revealing events, which are hard to tell about. Those experiences and events, which are hinted at and re-experienced through

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retrospection, are forms of threshold experiences. In such moments or states, the experiencing subject is often in a kind of no man’s land and “betwixt and between” (Turner 1974). For Klara, there have been few, if any, cultural scripts or guidelines to relate to in times of crisis, and ritualized contexts where such turning-point experiences could be socially and culturally guided were nonexistent. Childhood Klara’s relationship with her mother has never been of a safe kind. In the eyes of Klara, this is due to her mother’s lack of understanding of Klara as deaf and as a human being: My mother didn’t notice that there was anything “wrong” with me before I was three years old. She lost a glass bowl on the floor; it broke into pieces and made a loud noise. I was sitting close to this, but didn’t react at all. But she didn’t really understand that I was deaf. It often happened that she beat me when I couldn’t hear. Because she really could not hear, this kind of punishment could have been a regular practice. To be beaten was, of course, bad. However, it was even more painful being totally rejected as the person she was or could have been in the eyes of her mother. Stupidity, stubbornness, and asocial behavior seem to be the cultural meanings that her mother attached to Klara’s deafness. As such, this may have informed her mother’s acts of punishment and sense of shame. Sign language and visual communication were out of question and not even considered as options. I had extremely little contact with my mother and father during my childhood. Most of the time I played by myself outdoors. But I had an aunt in Molde that I liked, and even if she lived quite a distance from our house, I visited her as often as I could. Sometimes she came to our house to fetch me. I often missed her. Klara describes a restless family life with frequent moves as an important ingredient: “I have moved so often in my life. From the time I started school till I finished my college education, I had gone to eleven different

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schools and lived in four different regions of Norway. For four years, we also lived abroad.” Entering a deaf school was never considered. It seems to have been imperative that she should go to “regular schools for normal children.” I could talk quite well, but I didn’t hear a shit. I didn’t get my first hearing aids before I was halfway through first grade. However, it didn’t help me much. I had to continue doing what I had already practiced for a while: to continually look over the shoulders of the other pupils in order to figure out where and what was going on. The teacher pulled my hair and said: “You shall not peep.” But what was I to do? I can remember that I was filled with rage. I was angry about everything. I was so angry that I refused to learn the multiplication table. However, she mastered reading well, and books became in many ways both her escape and savior. She read books “immediately when I got a hold of them, and I finished them in a hurry.” After third grade, the family moved for the fourth time, this time to a town in the south of Norway. This meant a new school and different people: It was not better for me in Kristiansand. Nobody in my family talked with me, and there were no pupils that ever followed me home. I started to eat candy to comfort myself and I did not understand what the other pupils said. I taught myself a few children’s games in order to capture some attention. They came, watched, but disappeared quickly thereafter. I was never allowed to join in, and I often had this “lump in my throat.” It became so problematic that I simply had to move to another school in the same town. The move to a new school was also a failure, and after a few more years in no man’s land, the family moved once more, this time to France. However, in contrast to other deaf individuals’ appraisal of travel and the enriched option of extending one’s translocal and transnational network, Klara was put in a position where traveling and moving meant a strengthening of her existential and social loneliness—traveling deeper into a state of solitude.

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Abroad and Apart Moving abroad was in many ways just a continuation of events and patterns Klara had already experienced for a long time: When we came to France, I entered a regular school. I sat in the classroom with no understanding of anything whatsoever. One day, I just started to cry. My parents got an offer to send me to a school for Norwegian speaking kids, but they refused, due to the expenses. Reduction of expenses has been their main preoccupation for as long as I can remember. Whereas she earlier could manage school because of her knowledge of the Norwegian language and her joy of reading, she had now no abilities to rely on. French was an incomprehensible language for her and, with French teachers equally as ignorant as Norwegian teachers about the needs of deaf children, her days at school turned into hell. She was moved down one grade and “was treated as an imbecile. It was humiliating. I was a thin and tall girl that was put in a class with small children.” Klara’s family stayed in France for four years. At the end of this period, she went to a school for disabled pupils. She does not remember much of this; maybe because of experiences that have been so painful that forgetting has become a deed of necessity for her survival. “I entered a convent school run by Catholic nuns, and was put in a group of disabled pupils.” The experiences from this school have, however, been transformed into symbolic significance for Klara. When she later sums up her life, she tells about a life lived in a type of monastery, where looking at the world without participating in it has become her basic mode. Isolation and humiliation also marked the social life within the family, for Klara. Her parents’ lack of care and knowledge of Klara’s needs, and the shame of having a disabled child, is clearly exposed in her experiences of having been sedated: My parents must have been very ashamed of me. When we had guests or visitors, my parents either sent me out for a long walk in the streets or they hid me. They often gave me sleeping pills before their friends arrived. I became totally confused and lost my sense of daily rhythm and I was often very groggy. Lately I have

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become anxious of getting cancer because of the sedatives I have been given. I can remember that I fell asleep after having been given pills. When we returned to Norway, I had to fill all of my teeth. You know, I fell asleep without getting my teeth brushed, and . . . they always locked my door. This sense of imprisonment was a corporeal experience that extended into her very sense of existence and was among the things that were too painful to re-approach in written form: I couldn’t read it through, then. It was too tough. I felt that old wounds were re-opened. I became sad. All those bad memories . . . I have been so much alone, and there were always a lot of people around me that talked together, but I couldn’t follow them. It was very frustrating not to understand them. Especially as a teenager I felt extremely hurt. What is left from those days is the sense of loneliness. Mother, father, brothers and sister, they talked together, and I was left out. The years in France were especially bad, and we lived there for a long time. She has never told her parents about these experiences because she has never been able to discuss any personal problems with them at all. She strongly believes that her mother could not cope with having the sedative use exposed: It won’t work. She will certainly change subject immediately. But I do send letters to my mother, and I buy expensive cosmetics for her and I try to let her feel some joy. She is rich in economical terms, but she has such a negative outlook on life. I am trying to get her into a more positive track. Now my mother thinks that I am the one to educate her. When I ask her more about her mother, their relationship, and if her mother appreciates Klara’s willingness to stay in touch, she answers: She appreciates it, but she never calls me on my TTY. When she calls, it’s always to the kids. She has never felt comfortable with me, and she may have been envious of me because I was the pretty one. When I read, she beat me. Suddenly my book could be flying through the air, and I wondered what happened. She

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screamed, “You can hear! YOU CAN HEAR!” It is as if she thinks I can actually hear. But my other senses have been sharpened. This I consider a gift. I am very good at working, and I am proud of myself for that. I have become very observant and I can manage quite well. But I have also become very vulnerable. The fact that my mother never calls me up on my TTY, only my kids on the regular phone, hurts me. The relationship with her mother is a returning theme, but Klara does not present it in chronological order. She touches here upon her divorce, where she indirectly tells about influences from her mother and gives examples of how her mother relates to her: You know, if you have had a bad childhood, you will have a tendency to attract strange people. After I got divorced, my mother came visiting me for the second time after I was grown up. The first time was when I was living in a room in a student’s dorm in Oslo, while studying at secondary school. She stayed in my room for one week and I had to work extra as a cleaner to be able to afford having her there. I was not together with her that week because of this. But my mother enjoyed the stay. She was a “nice” lady, talking with the others. That was it, but the story does not end there: When she left, she took a little vase from me, a little souvenir. I wondered where it was, and later I found it in my mother’s hut. I was very irritated, because it was a nice vase and a precious one to me. I wondered what kind of upbringing she had received. I can remember from the days when I lived at home, that she had to have her own bag of sweets when we children got ours. But she was a country girl, having attended school for only seven years. She simply got used to fighting in order to get anything. I was simply her child, a victim at her mercy. It is striking, however, that these ways of explaining her mother must have demanded some sort of sacrifice from Klara. Klara herself claims that it has taken time to gain the necessary distance to engage in understanding. The childhood experiences still hurt, however, but she claims that the alternative, hatred, would be entirely destructive.

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“Home” to Norway After France, the family headed for their homeland, Norway. It was a new place again, Bodø, up in the north. This was mainly a positive step for Klara, but not unequivocally so: “I had so many empty spaces in my curriculum when I entered seventh grade. I had hard work to do in order to catch up. I did well in reading, but in math I had huge problems. I also started to experience tendencies of sexual harassment from both teachers and classmates.” The advantage of coming “home” again was connected to the Norwegian language, especially the written version, which already had become an important part of Klara’s life as one of her few gateways to the social world. She was, for instance, extremely happy when a teacher showed her the school library: “It was as if I was granted entrance to heaven!” At this time, books had become her main escape and space of freedom. However, this was, as we have already seen, a salvation that also provoked, especially her mother: “She became mad at me because of this, and started throwing books at me.” Today, she considers this behavior as both crazy and insensitive, but again she tells about a process of reconciliation: I am not bitter, and there is no cause for tears and complaints. I try to be a friend to her now, because she has had her own problems. I try to encourage her, so that she is able to love herself a little bit more. She was married into a Christian family, and she was, I believe, a social misfit in that environment. My father stayed much away from home because of work. The will to explain her mother is strong, and this time she gives a type of psychological explanation on deviance. It is as if her mother’s own shame transformed into an aggression toward her daughter, which in a stronger sense carries the stigma of difference. She also sides with her mother in the family drama, in which her father is the biggest villain. Escape from the Family However, she got herself through school and there was little that made her want to stay at home. She realized that she had to move:

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I moved to Oslo in order to have my family at a distance, my father in particular. He scolded me, he could turn furious, and I was always the one to take his shit. I was seventeen when I moved away from home, and I had to borrow money from my father to do so. During the years at the secondary school for hard of hearing students, I had almost no contact with my parents. But I reestablished contact with my mother when my parents were divorced and my father died. It was a relief to escape from home. However, it was not easy to establish a new platform in life: I did not feel happy the first year at Briskeby, so I packed my belongings in a backpack and headed back “home.” My mother laughed at me, and made fun of my return, so I quickly changed my mind and went back to school in Oslo. I had problems with some of the subjects, but I also managed to learn something, especially the ability to read lips. In Oslo, Klara stayed in a rented room in the student dorm. In many ways, the world started to become more accessible to her. Some problems remained, of course: This was the place where I for the first time in life started to communicate with people. I happened to make some friends, but I couldn’t hear any better than before and my life remained a loner’s. At school I had problems with the male students. They were crazy and tried to get a hold of me and I was on the edge of being raped. I then got myself a hearing fiancé, because it was a legitimate excuse to say that I was engaged. It was a relief, because I then became less of an object of sexual attention and pressure. The troubled relationship with boys and men is another theme. She was sexually harassed before she came to Oslo and this continued. She was put in positions that made trusting relationships with males difficult to establish: A person that occupies a position can make you thrive or make you sink, depending on how he or she meets you. At school we were regularly treated badly and haphazardly. The teachers couldn’t communicate with us. It was absurd. It was not unusual that teachers established a sexual relation to some of the students.

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I once lost the opportunity to participate on a tour I had applied for, because the responsible teacher didn’t manage to get his hands on me. He had for a long time invited me home to his place and assured me that his wife was at home as well. But she wasn’t. After this, he came to my room several times in order to visit me. It was an uncomfortable situation and I had nobody to consult. At that time I was one of these slim and pretty ones, and the males used every opportunity to say so and to touch my body. Klara is here clearly hinting at a position as victim of both the “deaf and dumb” and “delicious and stupid” stereotypes. The first type contains a phonocentric degradation of both deafness and the deaf and the second type implies a degradation of femininity as delight and women as objects of the male gaze and attention. Together they are part of a masculine, hearing dominance that has affected Klara on many occasions. The sense of not being met or approached as a whole person is strong, here as elsewhere. Who Am I? On Identification in a Void We have seen that Klara has difficulties when it comes to her identification as deaf. One reason can be that she earlier had little, if any, contact with the Deaf community. At the secondary school, she approached other deaf people and signed language for the first time, and today she states that she has “a good feeling when using sign language.” However, she was not welcomed, and she still struggles with the lack of appreciation. These troubles are probably due to a whole range of conditions. Among the conditions are internal traits within the Deaf community itself. This is how Klara came to know a segment of that community: “At secondary school, everything was turned upside down. It was a new world. Everyone was engaged in defining me, and for the first time I saw sign language. I couldn’t grasp it, and it took some time to get accustomed to it. No girls liked me, however, but all the boys fancied me.” Sign language gradually became a language she could master, and she has been working hard to improve: “I have instructed myself a lot. By now, I am able to run sign language courses for hearing people. When I meet co-students from secondary school, I can get comments like ‘Wow, your sign language has really improved.’ ”

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However, the atmosphere was not good in the group of deaf people at school, Klara reports. There were many rumormongers there and intrigues were frequent. Everyone nagged at each other or engaged in clique activities. I have always had problems making good contact within the deaf community. I don’t know why this has been so, but I suspect that it may be due to the school and the social environment there. Despite this, however, I had a period when I was involved in an extensive network of deaf persons. We were several deaf women who were engaged in coffee-parties in connection with our children’s birthday parties. It was a pleasant tradition that was further developed into a deaf mothers’ club, where both hard of hearing and deaf mothers were involved. Then a woman from my secondary school got involved, and she managed to split the club. At her own birthday party she only invited half of the group. That was one of the instances that caused the split. I don’t know if she carried envious feelings towards me from way back of the days at school, or why she otherwise was against me. I had problems staying in touch with the others after the split. I can no longer tolerate pretending that everything is OK, when it isn’t, and then talk about trivialities such as money, house and kitchen. For Klara, this was a bitter blow. For the first time in life, she had gotten access to a social group, and then all of a sudden she experienced being backstabbed and left on her own. That was how she experienced it at that time. She did not give in; she simply could not. Here, she tells about how she “had to establish another social frame of reference than the one from secondary school” through other parts of the Deaf community. I had to look for another social milieu. The first obstacle was to learn proper sign language. That was a prerequisite before contact was considered from their side. Then I got in touch with a lot of lonely deaf men, who told me they loved me the first time we met. When I hesitated they told me I didn’t love them because they were deaf. It was totally crazy. I met so many sad and suffering persons that dragged themselves and others down.

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Hence, the sign language community was not enough for Klara, because she here also met what she wanted to escape—especially the sadness, loneliness, and disheartened atmosphere. “ ‘It is so bad to be deaf ’ you know, and there are a lot of loners. I know that very well myself. Because this is so, it is a double pity that we cannot take care of and empower each other, instead of making life even more miserable.” She does not know exactly why things have turned out this way. Her contact with other deaf people is now minimal: There is so much control in the deaf environment, so many techniques of mastery and power involved—at Ål, for instance. I cannot even consider going back there. I was there once, in order to learn more sign language. I was also there when the Cultural Festival was arranged at Ål, a long time ago. I can never visit such festivals anymore. Some of the deaf persons behave as if they are kings and queens, looking down at you, if they ever look in your direction. These deaf dynasties bother me. At the Deaf College itself, I once more experienced sexual harassment. One man dragged me into the toilet and tried to pull my trousers off. I got away from him by saying that someone was going to fetch me if I didn’t return upstairs shortly. I was very afraid, and wondered if I should escape, but when he realized that someone could be looking for me, he just kicked my ass and walked right out. The Deaf community is a small one and many are struggling, like Klara, with experiences that make social life difficult. The fact that everybody knows everyone else makes it even more difficult. As within other small communities, much of the exchange of information and social interaction takes the form of spreading rumors and engagement in gossip. This has been reported by many people and seems to be a problem. In instances like the one Klara reported, the victim is often further victimized because the abuser will be protected by invoking “false accusations” and the victim will be judged through her reported ways of behavior or character. It is as if she “deserves it” or has “triggered the abuse herself,” which still is a popular male chauvinist myth about interpretations of instances of rape and sexual harassment. The formation of cliques and fuzzy forms of exclusion/inclusion will often be products of such processes.

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Klara connects her own experiences to such popularized trains of thought, and she clearly feels that she has become further marginalized in the Deaf community because of this. Klara further connects this to a strong cultural atmosphere where rumors and control are central and speculates on why this is so: In addition to the fact that the community is small and easy to grasp, I believe it is equally due to the human drive to control others. Everybody wants to rule, and this has something to do with security- and comfort-related human needs. This lies inside every person, and it can even be so that a necklace you give someone can be a way of controlling the receiver. Envy can transform anyone into an ugly monster. Normally, I like to focus on the positive traits of any human, because everyone needs to be treated well and just. When I was separated from my husband, I experienced myself how destructive rumors could be. He called up my friends and told them I was having a nervous breakdown. That was not the truth, but he had terrible things to hide. The result was that every deaf person I had relied on before was suddenly out of my reach. I was in need of support, but nobody came to help me. I called a deaf friend and asked him to watch my kids one evening. My friend said yes, but when I was about to leave I got the message that it was not possible after all. No explanation. What kind of attitude is that? I don’t want to enter such a milieu full of shit, accusations and rumors. The milieu has not been supportive for her at least. The establishment of exclusive cliques and divisions based on rumors is, however, not something she thinks is exclusive to the Deaf milieu—it is a trait of humanness and of social life in small parishes. Differences in the mastery of sign language are also among contributing reasons for the problems related to inclusion and exclusion. Klara relates her own problems, with fitting in, to this as well: “I know a few deaf persons who grew up with caring parents, and I have often wished that I could have had a better childhood. I got neither love nor a language that I could communicate through—sign language. They were never interested.”

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Social Competencies This loss of love and communication opportunities is related to her difficulties in interpreting social life and appropriate behavior. When I look back, I should have gotten more opportunities to mature socially. Compared to others, I am lacking much. I never ever learned anything socially important when I was young. There are a lot of social traditions that I have never been aware of. I was, for instance, recently invited to a special party, a “hen party” for a friend of mine, for the first time. I learned a lot about a tradition that was totally foreign to me. I have had to reinvent the traditions around Christmas from vague memories. After I had my divorce, I started to arrange traditional Christmas for my kids. The children really liked it. It has become a good, large celebration. Both as a student and later as an employee, she continued to experience trouble. I have been hurt many times because persons have done things they shouldn’t have. It is so hard to see how secure some persons are because they master the game of communication and have their network to rely upon. I cannot stand being considered a person that is less important. I am often in despair because of this, and I can understand very well that many deaf persons explode in the face of hearing insensitivity and ways of understanding. But I believe the best strategy is to ignore such behavior, and concentrate on doing things right and straight. That’s the way to survival. But I have material for the funniest of comedies from situations I have experienced. To survive, Klara here exposes one of her favorite strategies: to ignore lousy behavior and to concentrate on the positive side of the coin: “Why not turn things upside down. The most important thing is respect, that is self respect and respect for each other.” However, she admits that she is in need of more to manage social life. The problem with not knowing other social frames of reference well enough is addressed when she tells of her uncertain attempts at networking.

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I would like to have books with recipes on how people react in different cultures. Dissonance, I believe, establishes distance, while the opposite creates confidence between people. Then I could, with my disability, participate in creating confidence without always having to explain everything. I am fed up with telling so much about myself, and getting so little in return. Maybe it is not common at all to expose so much? I often wish that I had better ties to both the deaf and the hearing milieus. This is an unsolved obstacle for me, and I believe this has something to do with my lack of a home, especially during adolescence. The lack of a home is, however, something she shares with most other deaf people and contributes to this common experience of homelessness. But, she lacks more: namely, the very sense of belonging to a social world that many deaf people have through social bonds established at the translocal deaf schools. This is very much part of her unsolved obstacle, and indicates that she is stuck in the phonocentric assumption of belonging as “hearing together.” When I recall that my cousin was ashamed of my lack of hearing and ran away from me in order to swim with the cute boys, I understand that much work remains to be done in several fields. It is also sad that so many elderly people are so ashamed of their gradual decline in hearing ability. Even in present times, there are many that don’t dare to use hearing aids or to admit that they might need one. My grandfather couldn’t hear much, but to order hearing aids was obviously out of the question for him. I used to tease him a bit and said to him, “I am using two of them but they are of no use.” I laughed, but for him, it was deadly serious. For the elderly, it seems to be of prime importance not to turn senile, and not to lose hearing and sight. There is so much focus on hearing, as if this sense is directly connected to keeping senility at bay. This is all about Norwegian hearing culture and values. In these condensed passages, Klara points in many directions. She makes some critical remarks on Norwegian culture and its phonocentrism, and she indicates the need for a change in attitudes toward deafness. With regard to the problematic social competencies and difficulties

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in establishing social rapport, she seems to be very well aware of the dissonance she may be creating—especially through her heavy exposure of own person. This is, ironically, also evident in her closing note in the e-mail to which I have previously referred. She makes an apology for once more “having used the e-mail system for my own development.” She had, however, a need to capture a “listener,” “one at the other end that just had to read it.” One of the keys to understanding why Klara, against the grain, has managed life pretty well, as she herself puts it, is her thorough attempt to turn things into elements of an intrinsic good story and to search for goodness when nothing of that kind is in sight. She is also eager to focus on the edifying aspects in life. Respect is among these, which implies, for instance, an obligation to focus on the positive gifts of life. She does this by emphasizing experiences and people that symbolize authenticity, deep connection, and communication. Good Places, Small Things, and Deep Connections When Klara was a child, there were few places she felt connected to because of all the moves. But, there was a summerhouse: Every summer, we went to a place on the Northwest coast, near Molde. I really loved that place. I could swim there, and I got in touch with nature. I found space for my philosophical thoughts, and to read a lot. Climbing in the mountains, especially to the top of the highest and most beautiful mountain, is great. The panorama is wonderful from there and nature is virgin. I have learned to appreciate Nature—and the small things in life: to walk on the beach, feeling the seaweed under my feet, or to walk with bare feet in the snow just for the sake of the sensation. My advice to the sad ones is to look to nature. Concentrate on something, a stone for instance! Make a wish—small things. This was also the place where Klara got in touch with her paranormal sense of self. The story that tells even more about who she is, as mentioned at the start of this chapter, is this: One of these summers, I was sitting in the rear seat of a car. Suddenly I sensed a voice in my head that demanded me to “lie down

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on the floor.” I obeyed and lay down. A few seconds later the car turned around and we had a minor crash. I had a strong presentiment telling me that something was about to happen. This was a strong experience that has left traces. In Denzin’s terms, we are here talking about “epiphany”—a critical event that changes or transforms basic structures of meanings in life (1989). It contains a turning-point possibility and gives her a sense of belonging, of a metaphysical kind, however. The event or the interpretation of the event is also significant because it paves the way for similar events and ways of approaching the world. Moreover, she connects the experience to the question of her own identity: “My identity has much to do with this. It is connected to the mystical and metaphysical. I have, for instance, seen glimpses and I have received insight into the future.” Klara has been cultivating these aspects, for instance as a neophyte in a course that educates healers, going on “shaman travels,” and engaging in new spirituality. This does not imply any escape from reality, she says: It is important to have your feet on the ground as well. I have to take care of my children, and there are a lot of practical tasks that have to be done: at home, at work and in my studies. But I have experienced some paranormal phenomena and view them as important, also in relation to practical life. To me, it is all about developing this special sensitivity that I have. I have been isolated, and you can almost say that I have been living a monastic existence, observing the world. This has made me sense that acts and events speak for themselves, and that it is important not to interpret too much. I have developed a sharpening of my senses, so to say, through this and through my close contact with the elements in nature. In a few other instances, this sensitivity has been particularly painful. Two people she knew committed suicide, and she had strong presentiments about this but was not able to interfere. In other instances, less dramatic but socially difficult, she has “seen” future disasters in the relationships between seemingly happy couples. She has also had strong experiences concerning the deaths of people close to her:

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I have always said things which surprised others. I knew when my grandmother and my father would die. I experienced it in a combination of energy flows and shamanism. I was flying and I could see it happen. But as I told you, I am trying to keep my feet on the ground and to live my life socially. It is important to be receptive towards life and every being. At this point, Klara gradually changes the subject and turns her story in the direction that she anticipates is the proper and expected one—the identity question and her social life: You are mostly asking me about identity related matters. The most important thing for me, then, is to establish permanent relationships, either face to face, via e-mail and the Internet or at a more mystical level. I believe that one’s surroundings give a kind of identity, and that it is important to know oneself in order to separate good influences from bad. It is certainly madness to imagine that one can manage totally alone. But when I look at my own social network, I realize that it is small and limited. It makes me vulnerable. But what can I do? What she reveals here relates to life in general. She indicates a field of tension and suspense, between individuality and sociality that she experiences strongly and daily. She is struggling hard to connect with others, to build social networks. Her attempts have not always been successful. This perhaps has been partly due to her own extreme level of self-questioning and independence, which hampers her social life. Dreaming of Something Better Some attempts have, however, worked pretty well, even if she feels that much is lacking: I have had colleagues at home, served dinner and we have enjoyed each other’s company. But this has not resulted in permanent networks. But on the other side, there are a lot of people who smile at me and greet me and ask how I am doing. To some of these, I have also been able to talk about things that matter to me, and they have found it interesting.

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Klara is continually taking such initiatives. She takes concrete initiatives at work to engender improvements, and the following examples illustrate her point: I wrote an article for the internal magazine at work in order to find solutions to some work related difficulties. It was about slow exchange of information and co-operation difficulties in the company, and I wrote about the importance of openness and of a listening attitude that would create both a better working environment and be important to the future of our company. I am not sure if it helped, but the editor said it was impressive. The articles that followed had in fact a more open-minded spirit and were more analytical than before. But nobody approached me, face to face, to discuss the questions I raised. Klara has often seen that her professional qualifications are underestimated. This was especially so at one workplace, where the employer gave her tasks far below her professional level. Generally, she feels that her knowledge and skills are not valued. This, she admits, has something to do with her poor social competence. However, “there are also those that don’t want to give you a chance, and make use of disabled persons in order to promote themselves.” She is also fully aware of the specific challenges she faces, as the only deaf worker in an otherwise exclusively hearing workplace. I really want to contribute, through my specific point of view and through my strong opinions, to a new way of thinking: to create a new respect for diversity and differences and to raise awareness on this issue, together with my colleagues. But I am not in the position to do this, because the fact that I cannot hear produces uncertainty around me. I have noticed that there are cultural borders that make it difficult, but I move in an out of each culture. I have thus more than one frame of reference. That’s positive. But my ways of thinking can also be too different. That makes communication difficult as well. Here she switches back and forth between collectivist and individualistic frames of explanation. The individualistic bias is in the fore: I am personally working for a solution that makes the company dare to make use of me in key positions. This is not utopian, and

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I do not have any hint of megalomania. I know about my abilities and that I often have been right in my judgments. This should give me sufficient self-confidence and the guts to take the initiative. I also know that I have inspired several colleagues and that some of them will back me up. What I lack is to find out what I really want to do. When I find this out, I should be able to make my wish come true. I should avoid people that have been dragging me down and concentrate on those that have joy and inspiration and show me respect. That’s the way to strengthen myself. I have a lot of good things within me, and I should certainly be able to attract good and creative fellows. Klara’s vision for a better society is connected to this: openness, truthfulness, and dialogue. Concepts such as harmony, respect, and communication are also important: There is so little that needs to be done in order to create a good society. Nobody deserves a miserable life. Disabled persons and others deserve good lives. Everybody struggles, and is in need of being treated with respect. Respect is so important for every living creature. Everyone can do so much by establishing dialogues with their fellow humans. For Klara, the new opportunities for electronic communication have been important. Internet and cyberspace have given her the opportunity to sustain and establish social relations. Through the text medium she is able to pass or participate just like anyone else. Cyberspace is also a space that mediates between the social and mystical aspects of life, for her. Cyberspace, Life, and Connections Klara is a particularly active user of electronic communication and has been in that business for a long time. This is except for periods when she has chosen “to live off-line” and “switched from a digital to an analogue state of being.” She tells this: I use the Internet a lot both for work related tasks and for private reasons. But the most exciting thing for me is how people shape

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and create worlds in cyberspace. Many use the concept Avatar where one can create one’s own cyber-worlds and be the ruler by projecting own consciousness and sentiments into one of these figures. It is a way to live out your fantasies through these characters. The figures in cyberspace are called Avatars. Girls in these milieus are often eager to create emotive figures, and boys often play rough games and create powerful, dominating figures. The point is, for me, that people are less aware of how easy these projections can work in “real” social life. This play of identities on the Internet has elements of social drama for Klara, and hence is an arena where she can pick up social rules and ways of interacting. However, it is also something more, because the mystical and spiritual dimensions have such a prominent presence in her life and worldview. I insist that I am not confusing the two spheres, i.e., “our real world” and cyberspace. But we both know that the real world or rather our world of thoughts is mirrored in cyberspace. That’s why it is so important to promote the good values and qualities in cyberspace as well. We should hence encourage the inclusive and non-polarizing attitudes on the Internet. Many of the boys’ games are based on the concepts of honor, power and status. In this context, Klara tells about many instances of power abuse, both in cyberspace and in our so-called real world, and that both people who are “eager to dominate” and those who prefer to become “victims” are often caught in their own way of understanding themselves: The problem is that people are often caught in their own Being. But there are ways of escaping this imprisonment. I have managed to do that myself, to have it both ways. “Both/and” is an attitude that is positive and open-minded, and by using it one can learn a lot, for instance, that co-operation with the deaf, the blind and other disabled persons is possible and inspiring. To be disabled doesn’t affect one’s mind, and often it leads to different angles and points of view that are valuable. But the disabled themselves have much to work on in this respect. Awareness-rising has not been too

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good so far. I can see that there is too much misuse of energy on “fighting” and “self pitying.” This leads in wrong directions for everyone. Everybody has their burdens, but it is important to notice that much of this is self-induced by their own patterns of thought. What I mostly appreciate and like, is when heavily disabled persons show their joy and are pleased with what they are able to do and manage to include able-bodied persons. I have seen examples of such attitudes, but also the opposite. The frequent thematic shifts in Klara’s narrative are sometimes difficult to comprehend. Her agenda is multidimensional and she wishes to get the maximum benefit from our conversations as quickly as possible. The connections among the Internet, the avatars, daily life, and cooperation obstacles between disabled and able-bodied are based on her own experiences. On the Internet, writing is the common medium and nearly universally accessible. Nobody can guess or perceive her deafness. This is mainly why Internet is so attractive. Sometimes, the need for face-to-face communication pops up there also: When I use mIRC, one of those chat channels, I often establish good contact. I use the channel #norge a lot and also some French and English ones. For me, this is really all right because I can chat away with people and be as receptive as anybody else out there. Until someone challenges me to come closer by saying “I have a mobile phone next to me, I want you to call me now.” Then, “reality” makes things more complicated again. Sometimes, this means a full stop in communication and is then followed by a sense of bitterness. On other occasions, the breakdown feels easier. Sometimes, however, she dreams of being able to hear. Deaf Politics and Ambivalence Klara has, as we can imagine, an ambivalent attitude toward Deaf politics. This is very evident when it comes to the heated debate about CI. It is thus difficult for her to support any of the opposing standpoints because she is able to see strength and weakness in both:

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The CI controversy is brutal from both sides, and one argument is almost a mirror image of the opposite. Nobody cares for the key actors, the children, and discusses what is best for them from their point of view. I don’t think that the leader of the NDF managed to make good arguments either. I cannot say what counts as a good choice in this matter. I feel deaf, but also as a hearing person. I experience myself as double, as two. But it is an operation and you face the dangers of infection. This can cause problems. But I understand why one should be able to hear. It is often a social benefit in hearing environments, for instance to hear when your mother is shouting DINNER. But, this has to be a decision within the family. The need for signs will still be there, and I have observed hearing parents communicate in signs with their deaf children. There are thus many reasons why this question is so difficult for Klara. She herself has not considered surgery as a fruitful way of approaching the difficulties she experiences as deaf. In general, she is more occupied with letting people be who they are, including the deaf and the disabled. The concept disabled, which she often uses to describe herself and deafness, is interesting. By using this term so frequently, she clearly departs from the more ethnopolitical-oriented deaf people who defy the disability label. She is, however, able to see clear parallels between the situation for immigrants and for deaf people. In one instance, she showed me a feature article by Carli (1999) about the invisibility and powerlessness immigrants in Norway experience. “Exchange the label immigrant with deaf, and it is an apt description of the situation we, the deaf, are in.” When it comes to disability, one is often too preoccupied with difficulties. Disabled people are so different and it is often true that life is what you yourself make out of it. The most important thing is to generate self-confidence. In order to gain respect you have to trust and respect yourself. Naturally, it helps if others show faith in you. It is also important not to believe everything others say. I don’t want others to make decisions regarding my life. I try not to collect and keep the problems, but to tidy up and

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at the same time to be aware of the opportunities. They are always there somewhere. Making the Best Out of It, on the Edge The “obligation to cope” is one of the key phrases in Klara’s story. This is an obligation not to give up or to give in to the forces she considers to be destructive or evil. She has made a decision—to be one contributing to life, rather than staying put in bitterness and despair. She resists being simply a victim at others’ mercy. However, Klara has had few social anchorage points in life. She has been and still is, thus, more or less left alone in her endeavors to tackle obstacles in life and to create meaning where nothing, or just scattered aspects of meaning, seems to present itself to her. Her identity quest is of a highly reflective kind, as she seems to be aware of the instability of her own social position. In her narrative, she exposes her lack of key social competencies, as well as her conscious and continuous work to get a better grip on social interaction. The quest is thus ambiguous, and of a type well known in the literature on identity. Bauman (1993), for instance, writes about the tightrope walker/dancer who has to master the art of balancing to survive. The struggling person in question can be seen as balancing the needs to be in control of his or her own life and to gain social approval. Klara faces the dangers of balancing and falling, and she will continue to struggle with them. To a certain degree, these are general aspects of contemporary identity challenges because there are few, if any, safe identity positions available. Minorities and otherwise marginalized groups, however, face these obstacles in more intense and difficult ways because they often lack the power to alter the definitions that the majority imposes on them. This is the case when it comes to the deaf minority but may be more so when it comes to other disabled people. Persons and groups that are considered “deviant” or “not deaf enough” within deaf minorities face an even greater challenge, and we have seen how difficult this has been for Klara. It is especially the sense of not being met or approached as a whole person that has been problematic. Her touchy relationship with the Deaf world is thoroughly marked throughout her story, where she has felt excluded because of her incompleteness. She feels a lack of wholeness also

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when it comes to the hearing world, and thus this contributes to her double marginality. Her potential wholeness is then countered from different angles and is, as Goffman (1963) notes about other stigmatized people, “reduced in our minds from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one.” She is neither “hearing” enough nor “deaf ” enough, even though she is attached to both worlds. The most important aspect that makes her story different from other deaf stories is that her acquired self-understanding is hampered by a lack of social support and acceptance. Her subject position within the Deaf world is thus extremely contingent. In her narrative endeavor, she struggles to bridge the gaps between the one she is and the one she ought to be, and to build a kind of coherence in life. She performs a heavy task which few are able to recognize. Her narrative drive is strong, however. This is a drive that is fuelled by hope and desire. Hope is directed toward healing, and it is a hope she cannot abandon. There is, however, a possibility that she may have misguided hopes that may contribute to a closure of social gateways still open to her. What matters for Klara when approaching the Deaf communities is the possibility for participation in an environment where sign language is used. She longs for a community of free communication marked by openness and sincerity—a situation she never experienced at “home” and only received a glimpse of in the Deaf community. Longing can thus mark her identity in more than one respect. She has this in common with a lot of other deaf people who often have moved away from one “home” and into, if lucky, the culture of a minority community. Home is, as Monette writes in his novel Half-way Home, “the place you get to, not the place you came from” (1991, 262). Hence, belonging is both cherished and problematic. The term belonging, as Bell (1999) writes, is worth dwelling on. It allows an affective dimension that gives identities not just a status of being-inthe-world but also of longing as dreaming, searching, projecting, and staging. It also strengthens the narrative aspect of selfhood because it signifies modes of existence “which insist that one does not simply or ontologically ‘belong’ to the world or to any group within it” (ibid., 3). Be-longing has more to do with achievement and of an embodied sense of striving toward reaching others.

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One of Klara’s turning points is worthy of recounting here. When she was seventeen, she was for the first time exposed to signed language. This was a huge eye-opener for her, and, to rephrase Denzin (1989), it was an interactional moment and experience that left marks on her life. As a true turning point, combined with her escape from the troubled and nonsigning family life, it transformed “basic structures of meaning in life” for her, and she saw in a moment her life from a different point of view. The gradual mastery of sign language was also a bodily transformation that fitted her capacities for expression and comprehension. She was thus finally ready to enter a social world, she thought. However, her fragile state of being was threatened, contested, and often delegitimized. This was and still is so because of a whole range of reasons that should be further explored. One partial explanation shall be mentioned. To be recognized as deaf, one is often dependent on the embodiment of a specific orientation within the world that implies fluent signing. Deaf people with a late exposure to signed language are thus rendered incompetent and not too attractive as communication partners. Some, then, seem to stay put in a negative spiral, where you seldom get the chance to improve. This has partially been the case for Klara, and when rumormongers make you into a highly suspicious figure, the entrance is further delayed or completely prevented. Isolation, oppression, hope, and identity quests take on different meanings, both within Deaf worlds and within any figured world. In the following chapters, more variety on these topics will be revealed so that we may better grasp contemporary identification processes and how collective forces within the Deaf worlds are both affected by and affect deaf people. In the next chapter there will be, in contrast to Klara’s story, a framing of stories which are equally strong but more uplifting.

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ally and Albertine grew up with a stronger sense of love and shelter than Klara, and they were not challenged by abuse and neglect as she was. Both of them were born deaf into hearing families that they describe as caring. The sense of disorientation and void was there, however, but in less hampering and traumatic ways. Their entrance into the signing world was smoother and their translocal and transnational practices from quite early on have been of a joyful kind—providing them with a sense of orientation and meaning. Sally’s and Albertine’s stories will shed further light on our understanding of renewed and emerging transnational deaf bonding practices. Both have lived abroad and traveled a lot. These experiences have been important for them and have given them unique ways of looking at both the hearing and Deaf worlds. Because they live on the margins of many worlds, and translate between them, they both shed interesting light on key aspects of a figured Deaf world. ALBERTINE’S LIFE STORY: THE BEGINNING Albertine was born in the mid-70s, and starts her story with a conventional beginning:

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My mother had a difficult delivery. She nearly died because of the hard birth. My deafness may be due to this, but this is not clear. I grew up, and my mother started to worry if there was something wrong with me. She approached a doctor and asked why I talked so little. The doctor answered: “It’ll come, she is just a little bit slow.” We lived near Oslo at that time. When I turned two years old, I was brought to the public health center for a routine control. The nurse walked into the room where I was sitting with my back facing her. I did not react when she approached me, and she said that I had to go to check my hearing. This led to the discovery of my deafness. We moved to Oslo in order to be closer to the deaf kindergarten. This suited my older sister as well, she told me later. My sister and I made friends in the same family. This was a Christian family different from ours, but that was no big problem, and my new friend and I stuck together in good and bad days. The discovery of her deafness thus had consequences for her family, because they chose to move to give her the chance to socialize with other deaf children and to give her the available support. To a certain degree, this was indicative of her parents’ acceptance of her deafness—but only partly so. The education in the kindergarten had a strong normalizing focus and one of the main aims was to teach deaf children to speak. In kindergarten, I started to learn speech and to use hearing aids. We were about six to eight kids in my group, and a few of them went to Haugen School, like myself.1 So I had some friends in my class from the start. But before going to Haugen, I went to another hearing kindergarten just a few minutes away from home. But once in a while I went to the other kindergarten to have my speech lessons. Her childhood memories are lacking in details, but she remembers the speech sessions well: I can remember a few things from kindergarten, especially the speech training sessions. I enjoyed feeling the vibrations and

1. Haugen is a regular school with a few special classes for deaf and hard of hearing pupils.

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producing understandable sounds. I never experienced this as enforced or traumatic. I cannot remember if sign language was used, but I guess it was “sign plus speech” which was common at the end of the 1970s. Her experience of the speech lessons as enjoyable is interesting because others report these kinds of activities as more traumatic. On the use of hearing aids, she was less enthusiastic: My father told me that I threw my hearing aids into the toilet when I was two and a half years old. I don’t know if I repeated this or if it was a single episode. My first hearing aids were heavy and I can remember that my mother sewed me a bag for this apparatus in funny colors and figures. I got a lighter one which is hung on the ear when I entered school, the same type as I am wearing now. It works pretty well. Primary School and Initial Encounters with the Deaf World I started at Haugen in the early 1980s. We were eight pupils. The next year, we were seven, and the third year we were five. This number was constant for the rest of the primary school years. When one quit, another one came in. A girl and a boy who had been in the class before, returned later. They had lived in two different European countries, in the meantime. Other features of her school days included transportation, leisure activities, and the establishment of friendships. She mentions these in brief statements: In 4th grade I began participating in organized leisure activities at school, but I always fell asleep when I came home, so I quit that. In fifth grade, I went to school by myself, by bike. That was great! In first grade, Irene, a girl from southern Europe, and I became friends. But our friendship was very difficult in the beginning, since she scolded me when she failed to understand me. But this improved after a while. She came to Norway when she was five and lived first at a place where she could learn Norwegian Sign Language.

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A few of her classmates were part of the Deaf community through their deaf parents. Being in their homes was Albertine’s entrance into the Deaf world, of which she didn’t envisage herself to be a part, at that time. This sense of belonging came later when she became more involved. In the beginning of primary school, she was in-between Deaf and hearing communities. The language at school was also more of an in-between kind. She was, however, accustomed to sign language because of the children’s signing during lunch breaks and other pauses between classes. The first time I met the deaf world for real, must have been in first grade through my friend and classmate who had deaf parents, and later through my social support contact when I was ten or eleven years old. It was especially through the experiences at the Deaf Olympics in Oslo in 1987 that I approached the deaf world by meeting deaf persons from all over the world. Before, I had been more in between and I was very shy. Then I started to be more socially oriented. The best thing was that I eventually started to meet others speaking the same language. I started to join the Deaf Club when I was sixteen. I became a member of the Deaf Youth Club and my social network among deaf persons was broadened. Her growing self-awareness and ability to choose for herself contributed to her decision to have her Confirmation, a ceremony marking the transition from childhood to adulthood, done in an alternative, nonreligious way: I had my Confirmation ceremony at the City Hall, which means that it was a civil arrangement. We were four deaf persons doing it together. But before the ceremony I had joined the Christian confirmation camp for deaf youths, because of the social aspects. I had several friends through the Deaf Church and the scout camps/activities they arranged. I started to go there when my friend Irene started. I joined in from fifth grade till the end of eighth grade, and I really enjoyed it except for the religious stuff. It was important for Albertine to have the previously mentioned support contact as an entrance guide to the Deaf world. The experiences she

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had during the Deaf Olympics were equally important: “This meant a lot to me. I became more self-confident and I got in closer touch with the deaf world. Then I started to befriend more deaf persons, and when I attended the Olympic Games as a spectator, I became very interested in people from other countries.” The American Experience The experience of being part of the big Deaf world left marks on Albertine’s life, to the extent that she decided to go abroad and finish secondary school in the United States. In eighth grade I decided to become an exchange student in the United States, because I knew people who had been over there. So at the end of ninth grade, I said goodbye to my fellow pupils who continued in the class. I didn’t continue the tenth, which is the extra year for the deaf, but I wanted to continue with them at the deaf school when returning. I thought it would be possible because of my good papers. Because I knew I was going to the USA as an exchange student, I started to do my homework seriously. She was exposed to the opportunity of going abroad, embraced the idea, and did everything she could to go. The following year was a success for her in many respects: I went to the USA, and moved in with my host family. The deaf mother was a teacher at the school I went to, and her daughter was a hearing person. We were in the same grade, the twelfth, but at different schools. There was another foreigner, Tina, an exchange student, at my school at the same time. We became very good friends. A third exchange student lived at the school principal’s house. At this old deaf school, I was the youngest one in the senior class. One might think that language problems would be one of the big obstacles for Albertine in this new environment among strangers, but this was not the case. She learned her ASL quickly, through her native sign language, NSL, and with the guidance from her host mother:

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It was not that difficult to learn a new language. My host mother, Laura, told me to simply use my own sign language, and then she could correct and help me. 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 ASL. To gain fluency in a foreign language was a huge accomplishment. She was also enriched in other respects, even if she mentions that she was mostly unprepared for the experiences: I was not prepared for my first encounter with the deaf students. I met a whole gang of them at the local supermarket, and my friend introduced me to them. I went together with my Swedish friend and ten deaf Americans in twelfth grade. We had two teachers, and things were pretty easy going. In the English class, we were all together, but in other classes we were split or had to join in with other pupils. My friend Tina and I were in the American Government class, where we learned about politics and American history. I really started to realize that politics could be interesting that year! We considered the year a relaxation year, but both Tina and I managed very well. We were among the best students and I was eager to follow the courses. I learned how to behave among strangers in a new environment. I had to start on scratch when it came to making friends and to be as polite as possible. After a short period with a few mistakes and shaky attempts, everything went fine. I really learned to know myself. Being an exchange student and only fifteen years old was thus no big problem. She learned and experienced a lot, and her host mother had a lot of experience to share with her. My host mother told me a lot. She had attended Gallaudet in the 1950s. She told me about that experience and how gloomy and frightening it was to move about outside the university. There was a lot of crime and the area was a slum. Nowadays it is even worse. I was about to visit Gallaudet but the trip was called off, but I visited other deaf schools in the USA.

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There were other trips as well, and she managed to see a whole lot: We went on a class trip to Vail in Colorado and went skiing, and in the spring, a few of us were selected to join a group which was going to the Space Camp in Alabama. Tina and I managed to join, after some testing and interviews. It was great to go there and to meet deaf persons from all over the States. At this camp, I was chosen to be the Captain in a flight simulation. We crashed because of translation problems. But despite this, I got an award for being the most curious visitor. After that trip I was interested in everything about space flights. The trip was at the same time as the riots in LA started. The whole year was thus an enthralling experience which made her both more self-aware and more competent to engage with the Deaf world and the world as such more deeply: Being an exchange student contributed to both my selfknowledge and my English language competence. This, in combination with my acquired ASL, made me extra prepared to meet with other deaf people of the world, especially at the Deaf Olympic Games in Bulgaria in 1993 and in Copenhagen in 1997. These two trips have made me more conscious of myself as deaf. I was luckily a tourist both times, because being an active participant in sports means less time for social activities. Before she went to Sofia and Copenhagen, she lived, once again, in Norway. This was a mixed experience and an opportunity to see the Norwegian and Deaf worlds in a new light. Returning from the States When I returned from the States, I went to the secondary school for the deaf. We were six students, two boys and four girls. We all knew each other even if we came from different parts of Norway. Some came from deaf schools; some from Haugen and others again had been “integrated” in regular schools. My friend and classmate from Haugen, Irene, went to the same class as me. But the boys disappeared to Briskeby.

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The difference between the deaf school and Briskeby was stark, and for Albertine the sign language–based choice, Sandaker, was obvious. At Sandaker, there were three programs: General science, Economics, and Social welfare. There was also a class for immigrants who had Norwegian as a foreign language. We had much in common with them, for instance, the Norwegian curriculum—Norwegian as a second language. But I opted for the regular curriculum in the final year. I loved English, because I always loved languages and I knew so much from my stay abroad. The link she makes between the foreigners’ situation and her own parallels the views expressed by others. The fact that both groups experience the national language as a foreign or a second language is revealing. Albertine, however, opts for the regular curriculum because of her love of languages and her acquired skills. Returning to Norway, it was paradoxically the NSL that caused problems: “I had some problems, in the beginning, related to coming home to Norwegian sign language. I experienced NSL as bad, and I couldn’t understand why they communicated in such a stiff manner! But after a while it was OK.” The experienced stiffness was due to many things. For one, she had changed her attitude toward being a deaf signer while she was abroad, and, upon returning, she looked upon the native sign language use in a new light. She does not elaborate much on the topic, but simply states, “I still believe that NSL is stiffer than ASL, but that is simply a matter of course.” In this chapter, Sally touches upon this topic in a more elaborate manner, indicating that NSL is also influenced by the Norwegian language. In addition, immersion in a foreign Deaf environment makes individuals seem more deaf, because they cannot thoroughly understand the native verbal language and hence cannot engage in mouthing/speechreading practices. Secondary School and Further Plans The first autumn back in Norway was full of events. At a deaf soccer match, Albertine met the man who was to become the father of her child: “When I became pregnant, I didn’t dare tell my teachers, but I asked the

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adviser to inform them. It was no big deal and they understood the reasons why I had been away from school.” This caused no problems at home, either, and she lived with her parents until she was twenty. She moved out when she was about to have her baby. The remaining years at school were quite alright for her, except for some minor challenges. Her problems with math prevented her from becoming an engineer as she had wanted, but she proceeded and adjusted her plans: I passed my exams in German and Norwegian, but failed in math. But the timing was good. I had the maternal leave while I attended an adult education institution in order to pass in math. Anyhow, I had to delay my entry to the university. I found out that I was interested in library work, and I submitted applications to the relevant school. But I also applied to the History course at the university in order to have my second choice available. I also applied to the Engineering School and was admitted but I decided to go for History, because of my problems with math. I entered the university, taking my entrance course while my son was in kindergarten. Then I started to study History and I enjoyed it. It was very different from the secondary school: no obligatory lessons or homework. Everything was dependent on you. The exam was successful and I believe this was because I was tough and had been through some personal crises. So I continued to study. Her personal crisis was connected to the experiences of being between both worlds and hence of feeling lonely. For a long time, she did not feel quite at home in any social world. She was not “worse off ” than other deaf people, she states, but she certainly experienced challenges. Life in Between When she was younger, Albertine was quite engaged with the hearing world, but she did experience trouble during encounters with hearing peers: “I have had both hearing and deaf friends. When I was nine or ten years old, I played the clarinet. It was quite fun. But after a while,

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the relationship between the hearing girls of my age and myself became a bit tiring, so I stopped playing before I was eleven.” The experience of relationships as tiring made her gradually withdraw from engagement and involvement: I don’t know, but I was probably not worse off than other deaf persons have been. I began in a club together with hearing kids and could feel that the girls thought I was stupid. I was quite uncertain in my early teenage years and they teased me, to some extent. It was not very direct, but I started to stay away and keep a distance. To escape the deaf-and-dumb syndrome, she established a distance. This was certainly a loss, but at the same time an eye-opener for her. She could not rely only on a social network of hearing peers. That would be too unstable. However, this understanding was not triggered primarily by communication problems, but because she realized the extent of the hearing prejudice against the deaf. This also relates to family life, even if it is hard to say that prejudice or hostility marked the atmosphere. The problem was rather that sign language at home never was fully used. My mother and father do not use sign language, but an easy version of signs plus speech. But we can communicate OK with each other because they speak clearly. I first realized how little signing they mastered when I saw them together with parents using sign language, and they are in trouble when I have friends at home who are “more deaf ” than me. But my sister is better; she masters the manual alphabet. We exchange e-mails a lot, and I also do that with my parents. It is somehow easier to stay in touch that way, because they are all very occupied. The dependency on written communication is thus important, and in this context she remembers that she had to fight to get her first TTY: I got my first TTY after a little struggle in sixth grade. I couldn’t get one because they meant I had too much hearing. But I wanted the TTY badly, in order to chat with my friends directly and not via others. I was connected to the Internet in 1995, which was nice. I have become good at using the Internet now, and I have a university account. This is nice, because I can save

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money at home and use it as a tool for my studies whenever I like. The first year, I was heavily into chatting through IRC. This was so much fun, being able to talk to people from all over the world. Especially when using the deaf channel at IRC and ICQ. The gradual implementation of new communication technologies has been important to access information and to stay in touch with the outer worlds, both the hearing and the Deaf. She explains: I do not use IRC or ICQ as much as I did. ICQ is a program which enables you to meet friends who are online. One of the good things with this is that you can pretend to be a hearing person, and many of them write worse than I do. But I have experienced being called “you bloody Pakistani” once. Most of the time you can be anonymous and I like it. You can talk about whatever you like to anyone. Before, I mostly used the deaf channel. The benefits of passing as a hearing person in such contexts are connected to the possibility of interacting with a larger group without having the prejudice against the deaf attached, and in anonymous settings you can “talk about whatever you like to anyone.” This is also implicitly a critique of the impossibility of being anonymous in the small Norwegian Deaf community, a problem that is discussed in more detail in the following sections. However, her contact with hearing people today, outside of her family, is mostly limited to students at the university. She reports that the attitudes and obstacles have not changed much: Well, I can still see that hearing persons are a bit frightened and I can see that they hesitate to get involved. Some persons are frightened because I use interpreters a lot, but when I approach one or two of them, the conversation runs quite smoothly. But within groups and group work situations, I have to use interpreters. She is, however, quite content for the time being. Her plans for the future have slightly changed. She is now taking a small university course, with fewer than forty students. She states that she wants to use this education in museum-related work, but she is not thinking of the Deaf History Museum in Trondheim, even if she fancies Deaf history conferences. Trondheim is

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simply too small of a place for her, which leads to her present motto in life: “If I shall move from Oslo it must be to a bigger city, therefore abroad.”

Big Cities, Traveling Abroad, and Deaf Gatherings Albertine is not quite fully comfortable within the hearing world. At the same time, she seeks out every opportunity to join in when she can visit interesting deaf gatherings or special events. The reason is obvious, and connected to her feeling of ease in communication endeavors: “To meet with the deaf environment meant a lot to me, because I started to understand more. I have always had problems in catching up in other contexts. Now it became easier to take initiatives and to be an active participant.” She has also been very capable of taking initiatives in her own activities and engagement within the Deaf world. She has consequently been elected to the boards of the Deaf Youth Club and the DAF (Deaf Academics): “It is very OK to have these associations, which support us deaf, especially DAF. It is so good to have the opportunity to meet with equals, those who are or have been studying.” The milieu in Norway is small, however, and hence she has been eager to strengthen the ties to the transnational community and to broaden her network among the deaf people abroad. First, she did this by continuing to meet with deaf people through the Youth Club who are from other countries and visiting Norway, and when there were arrangements such as the Deaf Winter Olympics in Oslo in 1987. When the Deaf European Soccer Competition was held in Oslo in 1999, she was also present. As she described in previous statements, she traveled abroad for this purpose for the first time as an exchange student when she was fifteen years old. Later, she traveled to a few transnational deaf sporting events and to gatherings she discovered through the Internet. I have also become acquainted with a lot of deaf people from England, and I was recently at the “Deaf Rally” in Blackpool, one hour from Manchester. It was a new experience! Suddenly, I was in a place where 2000–3000 deaf persons in the same age group

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(sixteen to thirty) gathered. There were parties and sign language use all the time. The deaf milieu in Oslo is small. It is much bigger in England, and you can meet many deaf persons with a higher education. In England, it is also more common to use interpreters. It was a new experience to learn British Sign Language, BSL. The two-hand alphabet is quite different. The letter A is not the same as here. When I used my A it meant something quite different—having sex! But I managed after a short while. The Japanese SL, however, is totally incomprehensible for me. But I’ll guess I would have managed after a few weeks. The way she feels at ease among strangers, although sign language users, is striking, and she also strongly appreciates the possibility of mingling with a big group of deaf people who both equals her in terms of age and interests such as partying and academics. Two other events shed further light on these aspects: When I went to Bulgaria in 1993, I had inherited a lot of money from my grandmother. I ordered a hotel and everything. I was part of the Norwegian troop, but not as an active one. That was good, because I then had lots of opportunity to be social. I was the youngest one from Norway and I shared a room with a forty-year-old woman. I spoke ASL and English and it was so easy to communicate with everyone. The social aspect was a bit more hampered in Copenhagen in 1997. Here, she was short of money: We lived more dispersed in Copenhagen than in Sofia. I stayed outside of town, at the backpackers’ youth hostel, and I stayed for one week only, because of my very young son, and because of lack of money. I am going to use more time in Rome in 2001. I love Italy. I have been there before, once on a school excursion. Albertine prioritizes this aspect of her life, to the extent that she makes traveling plans well in advance. She shares the love of Italy and southern Europe with many other people from the Nordic countries. This is not only related to the warm climate, but also to the relaxed way of living. Daniella Josberg also touches upon this in her deaf autobiography (1993). She writes about the easy communication between deaf and hearing

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people in Italy and Greece because of the more elaborated body language, and Albertine agrees: “Daniella is right: Deaf and hearing people communicate easier together down south. The body language is more relaxed and yes, it is much easier than here. It is difficult to be deaf in this cold country and the stiff body language of Norwegians.” This can also be read as a commentary on her previous statement about the NSL stiffness she experienced upon returning from the United States, in comparison with ASL. She has strikingly similar observations as Sally (the next person in this chapter) on this topic. Albertine further connects the coldness of Norway to smallness and restrictions, which extends to the Deaf community as well. This is a recurrent leitmotif in Albertine’s story. The experienced smallness is thus also related to troubles that every small community faces. Conflicts within—Tribal Conformity? Some would say that conflicts are typical of the Deaf community, but others would say that this happens everywhere. When it comes to more obviously Deaf-specific conflicts, Albertine experiences personal trouble. She is well aware of contemporary discussions in the Norwegian Deaf community— about CI, about the critique of deaf people for not being deaf enough, and about the problem of hearing nonsigners in key positions in most of the deaf institutions. She has her own opinions on these diverse topics. She envisions herself to be quite Deaf-conscious, but when it comes to the Deaf Power position, she simply states, “I believe that Deaf Power is out of fashion now.” However, to be on good terms with everyone is not only a matter of her own choice and attitude. There are rumormongers around and other instances of “social control” that she has less control over: The deaf community in Norway is a small one, and one should stick with the “right” persons. If not, there will be rumors. I experienced this once. There were rumors circulating about me, which were totally wrong. I approached the one who had started the rumors to make things straight. It was about a party and being together with people who were so-called “cheap,” if you know what I mean. The deaf community is like a local parish, with the same types of conflicts. There is a lot of “social control”

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going on, like you described at Ål.2 Have you seen the TV series “Murder and Mysteries” which is on TV2? It is about a small society which hides the most horrifying truths. It is somehow similar to the deaf milieu. This is a strong statement, which sheds further light on her eagerness to establish social bonds abroad and to escape the “tribal conformity.” Tribal conformity is, however, not a phrase which Albertine uses. It is borrowed from Shanny Mow’s (1989) humorous and ironic comments on being sentenced to live in the Deaf community: “It is a microcosm that unmercifully tries your individuality. You either surrender to tribal conformity or return to the other world. Or you live on the fringes of both worlds, never to fully accept one and never to be fully accepted by the other” (Mow 1989, 43). The extent of the “horrifying truths” about the Deaf community in Norway, which Albertine tells about, is hard to estimate, but there is no reason to disbelieve that this is an aspect of the picture. There are glimpses of this in a few of the other life stories, and the recently documented stories of sexual abuse in deaf boarding schools and elsewhere are also indicative of this. Murders and other crimes are less documented. There are, however, a few books dealing with the subject: mostly with cases from Britain and the United States (Jackson 2000). The deaf people involved are both victims and executors of crimes. The thesis of Jackson’s book is, however, about the problems in communication and the miscarriages of justice that many deaf people have suffered. The lack of sign language interpretation has led to a lot of unjust and wrong sentences in criminal cases. This seems to have happened in one of the few known deaf criminal cases from Norway.3 Albertine’s statement on “social control” and the village-like quality of the Deaf community in Norway also indicates the different attitudes of Albertine and Sally, who we discuss next. Sally has equally, and perhaps more so, been engaged in Deaf communities and transnational bonding outside

2. In the beginning of 1999, I lectured at Ål, for the Deaf Academics (DAF), on the topic “social control in the deaf world.” 3. In the 1970s, a deaf man was sentenced to jail for many years for the murder of two young women. The case was recently reopened, and before he died in 2005, the court declared he was innocent of at least one of the crimes.

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of Norway. However, the conclusion she arrives at is quite different, as she strongly cherishes the small village quality of national Deaf groups. SALLY’S STORY: A TRAVELOGUE TALE Sally is a woman in her early forties, presently living in a small village in a rural area of western Norway, but within reach of the city life of Bergen. She is married to a deaf man from another small country, and they have three children: a hearing daughter and two deaf sons. I can see that my life has been very complex. I am married to a man from another country and have lived in his country for four years. I am also in a situation where I have to be aware of the two different worlds of my children. I can really see that I have something to offer. Even if I am only in my early forties, I have a lot of experiences to look back at. I have traveled and experienced a lot through meeting so many different people. In my husband’s country, I had the opportunity to get deeply involved in another world. It has been so interesting to relearn my own culture and to compare it with the other. She reflects on how she has become the person she is today. As is typical in these life stories, she first mentions her childhood circumstances, with a focus on when she started to sign: I was born in Bergen into a hearing family and as the youngest child of five. I was the only deaf person in the family. Before, I used to call myself hard-of-hearing. But now I am deaf. My hearing hasn’t changed, but my identity has. From puberty, I was deaf, and still am. Before, at the school I went to, sign language was forbidden. But there was a change when a pupil that used sign language moved in. Then sign language gradually spread at school. I was about ten or eleven years old at the time. I learned the language gradually since I increasingly made use of it for everyday purposes. Today, I usually say that my mother tongue is Norwegian and sign language my first language. When I started at the deaf secondary school, I began being together with deaf friends all the time. I began to keep the hearing world at distance. I belonged to the deaf world.

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She does not report much trouble in early childhood because of her situation as the only deaf person in her family. She took that position for granted and made the best out of the circumstances. Both parents and elder siblings treated her as one of the family, as a special but not a toospecial girl. Gradually she discovered more and more discomfort in her life. This was related to the nonsigning practice in family life. We didn’t know about sign language when I was a child. We were into the oral period that everyone knows about. That was also the reason why I was called hard of hearing. Because of this, my family didn’t learn sign language, and our method of communication was speech. They have continued on this track even if they know that sign language is the preferred language among the deaf. My mother and sisters attended sign language courses for a few years, but I am sorry to say that they are not using it at home. The course was a kind of sign plus speech type. But today they are much better. There have been tremendous changes in sign language training. You certainly know about “sign plus speech,” the method where the signs follow Norwegian syntax: How – had – you – it-?4 (Hvordan – hadde – du – det-?) But sign language has its own grammar and syntax, which is totally different from Norwegian. I followed the same course, because we thought it should create closer bonds between us. They insisted that I joined them, because this was “on my terms.” But I had no use of that course. Sally lived at home during her childhood. She was thus not exposed to the boarding school experiences that other deaf people of her age had: I was a smart girl who wanted to follow everything that happened and was said around me. I was the type of person who had to know everything. I couldn’t accept that information escaped me. This became even more pronounced when my knowledge and language competencies grew. I was the youngest child and I demanded so much. My parents became exhausted, especially my

4. The English translation is very bad, but it is meant to illustrate a point. When translating word-for-word from one language to another, the result is, at best, limping.

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mother. For one or two periods, I was therefore sent to a children’s home for a few weeks in order to give my parents a break. In this “home” I met many deaf and hard of hearing children, and I was certainly not harmed by it. She has no problem understanding her mother’s exhaustion today, being a mother herself. Despite the hardship, she insists that she had a good upbringing: Except for the fact that I was the only deaf person around, and that I always struggled with catching up on everything, I had a lot of positive experiences in my early years. I had siblings whom I liked, and my parents were both caring and supportive. They did a lot of good things for me. I have many nice memories from my family life, for instance from the farm where my family spent summer vacations for fifteen years. The farmer had six children, one at my age. It was so good to come out on the countryside and to be together with the animals during the summer holidays. The great relief, however, came when she became acquainted with a signing community: I was about fifteen years old when I started to frequent the deaf community in my leisure time. I had no need for more contact with hearing persons and my family. I got what I needed from my deaf friends. The change didn’t occur all of a sudden, but gradually. I became more satisfied and calmer inside. This relief was also a turning point experience that changed her life, but not to the extent that she disregarded her upbringing and hearing influences. Even if family life was discomforting, she is happy to have been raised in that family for several reasons. One of them is related to her ability to make herself understood in verbal Norwegian. This enabled her to communicate with hearing people without relying on interpreters all the time; she admits that deaf people “live in a hearing society most of the time.” Sally has a hearing daughter to take care of and she is happy to communicate in both sign and spoken languages with her. She is pleased to see that she is able to help and support her.

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Ål, Deaf Power, and the Deaf Voice In telling this part of her story, Sally also mentions the “Deaf Revolution,” which also hit Norway. She refers particularly to Ål as the site of Deaf Consciousness/Power in Norway: I have never been closely attached to the Deaf College in Ål. But I can remember the period when there were a lot of discussions about being Deaf. Deaf persons “discovered” their rights and demanded that everyone should use sign language. Everything should be conducted through sign language. They also insisted that Ål had the right answers to all questions. This was the Deaf Mentality as we outside the Ål milieu coined it. It was out of the question to cooperate with hearing people. It was a pretty extreme attitude. No speech training was acceptable. Everything should be on deaf terms. There is another atmosphere now and when we returned from our stay abroad in 1997, everything was different. Now, it is more of a take-and-give situation, more of an equal relation between the deaf and the hearing world. It is more co-operations. Today, deaf parents ask for more speech training for their deaf kids as well. Moderate speech training is thus not harshly disregarded anymore, and cooperation with the hearing world is on track. Because she is the mother of a hearing daughter and because of her relatively good skills at communicating in Norwegian, she is quite critical of some of the extreme aspects of the Deaf Power period. She welcomes the softening of the Deaf communities’ rigid attitudes, but she also reckons the period as a necessary one because of the previous oppression of the deaf population. Hence, the revolution was a matter of historical necessity to change the agenda and the relations of power. “Before, the deaf population was totally dominated by hearing persons, and we simply had to follow their lead. Then came the Deaf Power period, and now it is more like something in-between. You know the pendulum; it moves back and forth!” Cooperation with the hearing world was not the only battle. The Deaf Power movement believed that sign language should also be of a certain kind, and one was obliged to use right signing, but this obsession has changed as well:

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There are different signs meaning the same thing, and there is an acceptance now for the different variants and dialects in sign language as well. Before, everyone was supposed to use the Trondheim version, which was the true sign language at Ål. But they have been right in many things at Ål. Especially on topics affecting the deaf community, and the cautioning of not being too compromising towards hearing people. There is a danger of being too nice. The changes at Ål have been tremendous, from the start in 1974/75 until today. In the beginning, deaf students used a lot of time to catch up in math and the Norwegian language, and, paradoxically, to learn the constructed signed Norwegian, which was foreign to them. The class for hearing students had the clever ones who were given the dubious roles of “helpers” and “language models” because signed Norwegian was based on their mother tongue. The helping spirit was also indicated by the name of the one-year hearing course, “the Social Service course.” In the beginning of the 1980s, things changed rapidly. The collective self-esteem grew and a sort of “ethnification” occurred. Today, the hearing class is engaged in catching up with the deaf students and their language, and the course is now called the Sign Language Course. Mixed Experiences at School Returning to her experiences from primary school, Sally remembers many things of interest. The school consisted of small deaf classes alongside regular hearing classes. In the schoolyard, there was a certain mix, even if the pattern of interaction was pretty segregated and predictable: The milieu at this school was very mixed. The pupils represented different groups, deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing. I cannot remember that there was much mingling with the hearing pupils. In the last years, we were only girls in my class, and we fell in love with hearing boys. But we didn’t have any close contact with them. The deaf and hard of hearing pupils stuck together and the hearing pupils did the same. We seldom played together in the schoolyard. At secondary school, it was the same. We were separate groups. This was because of the differences in communication between the

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two groups, and that one felt most at home in one’s own group. The deaf are more relaxed in communicating with each other and the same goes for the hearing persons in their world. But despite this, some of the deaf youths had contact with them. Sally never had any deep relationships with hearing boys, however: I have never had a hearing boyfriend, but there was some flirting, that’s right. It would have been a very different situation for me to have a hearing man instead of a deaf one. This is because of differences in communication and culture. I know exactly how it is to be the only deaf person in a family, and I didn’t want that to happen again. In my house, I want to be as relaxed as possible, and there shall be no communication problems even if he mastered sign language. If I were to meet with his friends who were hearing persons as well, I would be left alone and on the fringe. Luckily, I met a deaf man who can share so much with me. Literature on this subject supports this kind of choice. Padden and Humphries (1988) state that approximately ninety percent of deaf adults marry deaf partners and that these marriages are more stable than hearing–deaf marriages. The problem is, however, that these statistics do not include deaf individuals in single households. Besides, the statistics are old, mostly from the 1920–30s, and from the United States. After she completed primary school, Sally started directly at the deaf secondary school, where she both thrived and learned a lot. She did well on the final exams and she was inspired to reach higher goals. In the beginning, she had no clear idea of what these goals were to be. She started to work and gained experience in different fields. This made her gradually aware of what she wanted to become: First, I worked at a rehabilitation center for drug users. Then I got a more permanent job at an institution for old and sick people with a separate department for deaf elders. In the autumn the year after, I attended the university and completed the entrance course. Then I worked as a substitute teacher for two years. This was a positive time for me, and I learned and experienced a lot. After this period, I found out that I wanted to go to teacher’s college.

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Later on, she did exactly that. However, in between, there was much more to do and more to experience. Here, she explains how she came to consider additional education and how she managed to do it. Deaf and Alone in Hearing Academia She tells that she had no concrete plans for the future at that time, but she was lucky to have a “helper” who directed her forward: I can remember that my brother-in-law advised me to consider further education and to plan for the future. It was totally out of question for me at that time, but he inspired me to find my own way. The year after, I attended the university again. Today I am very happy for his advice. From that time, I gradually became more self-aware. Because of this, I tried out teaching as a substitute, and later I entered the teachers’ college. The advice was not concrete, but it sparked off a self-reflective process, which made her realize that planning in advance was something she should do. At college, she was the only deaf student. Being once again immersed in a hearing world was a big challenge. In the beginning of the first year at the teachers’ college, I rediscovered that being with hearing people was not an easy thing for me. To talk one on one was OK, but in groups, I was lost and fell out. For the first time in my adult life I realized that I didn’t accept my deafness, and that I wanted to be a hearing person. I wanted to be one of them, my co-students. This was certainly a shocking surprise to her, because she gradually had come to terms with her deafness and had acquired a sense of comfort and pride. Once inside the college gate, I didn’t accept that I was deaf, but as soon as I was outside, I was a happy deaf woman with many deaf friends in the deaf community. This became a conflict within me. I was a person who participated actively in conversations and not the one to sit passively in gatherings. This lasted for about half a year, and after that, I accepted the situation, even if it was dissatisfying.

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The gate, which separated the inside and hearing world from the remaining aspects of her existence, was thus a strong symbolic threshold, visually representing her temporary split personality. The conflict she experienced was, however, softened although not resolved when she learned to live with the ambiguity and “accepted” the situation. She had the same interpreter during her entire college period. Here, she tells of how that worked: The interpreter had her breaks when we had ours. During these breaks the students discussed a lot. I was not involved, and I thus missed a lot. I was often socially isolated at school, and in informal discussions. My interpreter got to know my co-students well, and they started to feel more confident talking to her than to me. I started to become irritated. At that time I didn’t know what to expect from an interpreter, and I was too cautious to say what I felt. It became even more difficult to give her the message as time passed. I was caught in my pattern and couldn’t break loose. Not having access to informal small talk was one obstacle. Another, more serious one was the loneliness and social isolation that the situation fostered. This also negatively affected her struggle to reaccept her own deafness. Thus, she was left alone most of the time, a situation that she had been accustomed to from home. The difference was that, in this setting, she was less relaxed and less self-content than she had ever been at home. Despite the hardship she experienced these years, she managed to take the necessary exams and to become qualified as a teacher. Her leisuretime Deaf world was important. It was both relaxed and empowering. This was, however, not unambiguously so. A few years before I entered the college, I spent much time together with friends. We worked together and traveled a lot. We also went to the disco and met with a lot of hearing people. When I started college, I was less able to spend time with my friends. I often wanted to see them, but I noticed that this was not easy. They regarded me as too important and they felt that I looked down at them. It is important to note here that she was one of the first who went on to higher education among her friends and in the Deaf milieu as such.

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“Most of them were less educated, often with primary school plus vocational school only,” she adds. DAF didn’t exist at that time. She was hence not able to take deaf educational support for granted, the way that Albertine and younger deaf students can. At the time when Sally entered academia, there was also a lot of skepticism within the Deaf community of deaf people with such aspirations. The effect on Sally was bad: At that time I was regarded as a bit snobbish and there was a spirit of obligatory equality around. They thought like this, I guess: “Aren’t we good enough for you?” Most of them were friends from childhood. But when parties were arranged, some of them didn’t want to invite me at all. This was very hard for me, especially because they were my friends, whom I had spent so much time with. I was not welcome there anymore. This lasted for two years. Luckily, she was welcomed back at one occasion, which also paved the way for a more thorough redress: I was invited to an old friend who had her twenty-fifth birthday party. I knew everyone invited to the party. I was filled with joy, but at the same time I was horrified. It turned out to be a costume party. Unfortunately, I didn’t read my invitation carefully enough and arrived in a regular dress. Everyone else was dressed in costumes and I started to lose my good spirit and wanted to leave. I chose to stay, however. I just had to see how the evening progressed. The good mood returned and the atmosphere was fine. All of a sudden, we were equals again, as we always were before, and I found back to my old self in their presence and I managed to re-establish the links to my old friends. I will never forget that precious night! After the party, we stayed in touch and renewed our friendships. Today, we are good old friends.

World Traveling and Transnational Gatherings Sally’s life is heavily marked by her engagement in world traveling and transnational Deaf gatherings. After finishing secondary school, she did a lot of things in a short time span. One of these was traveling, which was a desire she had for a long time:

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I had an enormous desire to travel, and all my savings were spent on travels. This started when I was sixteen. But I had to wait two years to get my parents’ approval. At that time, I was very dissatisfied with their strictness, but today I understand them. Most of my friends were older and had started Interrailing. Touring Europe by train was really “in.” So when I turned eighteen, I traveled a lot. I went on three trips in Europe, and in between I went on a charter tour to southern Europe. After my second trip, a friend and I went on a two-and-a-half month backpacker tour to Asia via the TransSiberian railway. She tells of exciting experiences with hearing people in southern Europe, especially how easy communication was because of their body language and relaxed gesturing. These experiences marked a stark contrast to the “bodily over-controlled Norwegians back home.” I experienced so much on my journeys. I received more insight into how life was lived in different countries and met so many different people. People from southern Europe had a much livelier body language, and they were easy to communicate with. Norwegians are much stiffer. I have a revealing story about this: A friend of mine and I were on a Greek island for one week during one of our summer holidays. We communicated easily with the hearing Greeks because they used so much body language, which is part of their language. This was comforting. On our return back home, when we landed in Norway, we wanted to have a picture taken of the two of us outside of the airport before leaving. We politely asked a hearing Norwegian if he could do this for us. The man just stood there and didn’t fathom what we asked for. We pointed at him, the camera, gave it to him and pointed at us while doing the “click.” It was so easy, but there was no response. Communication suddenly broke down and the contrast to what we had experienced in Greece was smashing. I had to face him and ask in Norwegian: “Can you please take a snapshot of us?” Then he responded. I had to give him a careful description of where to push the button. In the end, we had our picture taken. But it was hard to arrive and meet the stiff Norwegians right away! More exciting and important, however, was the experience of direct contact with deaf people abroad, and how easy it was to be engaged in

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world travel as a deaf person. Mingling with deaf strangers occurred everywhere. The Asia tour was revealing in this respect: We were two deaf friends going to Asia via the Trans Siberian Railway. We started in Oslo together with a group of ten to fourteen Norwegians heading for Beijing. Our first stop was Helsinki. We stayed there one day from morning till evening and we met a friend of Monica, my travel partner. Then we headed for Moscow, where we had a twenty-four-hour stop. We stayed at a nice, big hotel with a nice panorama from our room. We were able to see a lot of Moscow, and to visit the deaf club. We met a lot of deaf persons, and were surprised to see that the deaf club had their own theatre. There was a rehearsal going on, and we were eager to see how they did it. But we noticed a strange atmosphere surrounding us, which was no good. Someone had planned to rob us, but we were cautious and everything went fine. After this adventure, they continued their tour. In Ulan Bator, we met other deaf persons by chance on the streets, and it was interesting to communicate with them. When we departed, everyone came to the railway station to have a last chat and to say farewell. This was so nice, and the communication was so smooth. Very often when we signed, other deaf people approached us. We automatically got on good terms with each other. We got help for whatever we needed: transportation and accommodation. Both in Europe and in Asia, there were no communication barriers. The feeling of communion was often strong and the sense of being “at home among strangers” (Schein 1989) was both confirmed and strengthened, but not equally so everywhere. In some places, they were not able to find any deaf people, and the Moscow experience was quite mixed. In Beijing there was more trouble: Finally we arrived in Beijing. Communication with deaf Chinese was more difficult. They had a totally different way of thinking and very different writing and numeric systems. One day in Beijing, we met several deaf persons on the street. We joined them

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for several hours before we parted. We ate at a restaurant and communicated, but they cheated us out of our money, looking for the tourists’ foreign currency. The Chinese had a different currency which was restricted in use. With our money they could go to shops were you could buy everything. We traveled in China for three weeks. Then we went to Hong Kong. After that we went to Bangkok in Thailand and met deaf persons several times on the streets. We also visited a deaf school in town and met more deaf persons. We communicated well with many of the deaf pupils and deaf staff working there. This was both fun and interesting. In her summary, she highly values the experience of communication and the ease with which they got in touch with deaf people almost everywhere. The less pleasant experiences do not alter this. These are spicy ingredients that contributed to the excitement of the tour. It is, as she states, “as if we are a big family, worldwide.” This family feeling is usually a pleasant one, which makes world traveling highly attractive. However, the intensity of approaching other signers on every occasion can be too much: It is not that easy to meet new persons all the time. It depends on how you feel that day, and if you are in the mood for befriending strangers. It can be too much. One day in Venice, we were suddenly fed up with deaf strangers, especially boys. We wanted to be on our own because we were tired, but we were bothered over and over again. When they saw us signing, we were approached. In order to avoid this, we stopped using sign language, and when we saw others signing, we didn’t approach them. On that trip, we met with incredibly many deaf persons, in fact, at every place we stayed at, and we learned a lot about them and their cultures. It was also quite effective in terms of time use, because the local deaf persons served as our guides. The danger of exhaustion never did, however, outweigh the delight and pleasure of free movement and communication in the frequently Deaf world. In addition to traveling, Sally also attended all the transnational events that she could during these years. Like Albertine, she attended the Deaf Olympics in Oslo 1987, Sofia 1993, and Copenhagen 1997, and some of her previously mentioned experiences were strengthened.

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At the Winter Olympics in Oslo, I was a tourist, and it was a huge event. It was such a nice experience to see deaf persons participating in the different winter sports and to witness sign language being used everywhere. I became friends with many and some of us stayed together until the end of the games. In the Summer Olympics in Bulgaria and in Copenhagen, I was an active participant myself. It is different to be a tourist and to be an active participant. As a tourist you can do whatever you like, but as an active, one is more restricted. It was a less free experience, but I met many new persons. Witnessing sign language everywhere also evoked strong sentiments of empowerment and normalization. “It feels like I am a hearing person,” she says, hinting at the chance hearing people have to access everything surrounding them. In such huge events, “we can have the same experience and follow everything which is communicated, even if we cannot understand one hundred percent of what the deaf foreigners say. It is such a different experience to see that everyone is signing. It feels as if we are equal to hearing people.” This sensation is brief, and connected to certain situations, which she is perfectly aware of: “Time flies and one has to realize that it is four years until the next event of this kind. It is to the same as the World Congress, which is arranged every fourth year. But we have the Nordic events and games in between.” There has been a gradual change from when she was a teenager until today in how she experiences the big deaf sports events and traveling. Now, she is “more relaxed” and a bit critical of “superficial relationships.” This superficiality is due to two main factors: limited time together and limited knowledge of the other’s sign language. Her reflections on the spread of ASL and BSL are also interesting in this respect, because they point toward changes in the deaf world: I believe that ASL and BSL are becoming more and more a part of a common language repertoire. This will contribute to easier exchange of ideas and opinions, in the same way as English functions in the hearing world. For everyday purposes, it is okay to use International Signs. But it is difficult to engage in deep conversations. You have spent some time together in order to become acquainted and to engage more deeply. I experienced this in my husband’s country.

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She is still in contact with some of the people she met through traveling. She has continued to broaden her network, mostly through Nordic events and through the Internet, but also by living abroad in her husband’s country for some years. Staying abroad, and being immersed in a different Deaf culture for such a long time, has made a deep impression on Sally. Staying Abroad: Changing Perspectives Sally met her husband, Paul, for the first time in the beginning of the 1980s. They got married five years later. Since then, they have stayed together, and established their own family. We moved to his country right after our second child was born. The first year I was at home, as a housewife. The next year I started to work as a teacher at the deaf school in the capital city, and I did this for three years. I experienced a lot, the nature, the culture and the language. There were both ups and downs. I started to learn more about Norway by staying abroad, because I now had an opportunity for comparison. This also affected my thoughts about family and friends. Who were my friends and who were my family? It felt so good to have had the opportunity of staying in another country. Her reflexive stance expanded and gradually she saw her life from new and different perspectives. She reports that it was good to get away from Norway for a while. In her new country, she enjoyed the pleasant climate and beautiful nature. The people were friendly, but also very different. There were thus several instances of cultural shock: There were many things which shocked me. One of the surprises was the size of the deaf community; it was much smaller than in Norway. Totally, the number was less than 1000 and everyone knew everyone! This was something I felt very strongly, in the capital city. I was used to choosing my friends, but this was simply impossible there. I just had to participate. I started to communicate with everyone. This was a useful experience for me. I really got to know new persons, because I had no choice.

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Her valuation of the inescapable position into which she was thrown is revealing and produces a counterstory to individualism. Her new reflective stance is balanced, however, and the new experience helps her to make comparisons. This endeavor illuminates many aspects of Deaf community-making: the troubles, challenges, and variable strengths: When the deaf community is so small, everyone has tasks to do which cover a wide range of activities, while here in Norway, each and everyone has fewer tasks to perform and there are more opportunities for specialization. But one comes closer to each other when the milieu is small. This can however be both a positive and a negative thing. She does not discuss the disadvantages much, mainly because these are things so commonly known and taken for granted. She is more eager to provide examples of cultural differences, as a means of reflecting upon the potentials of being deaf. “They have another culture of visiting each other. One regularly visits each other at nine o’clock in the evening and often later. I feel comfortable with this practice. You have more time and don’t have to hurry so much when going out to see others.” Another difference is related to her very “foreign” position; her lack of skills in the majority language: The national language, written and spoken, is difficult for me because of the grammar. The sign language, however, is much easier. I had to write notes when I communicated with hearing people. I was not used to this in Norway because I can make myself understood in Norwegian, and I am able to understand a lot of what hearing Norwegians say. It was a new experience to feel more DEAF. This new experience implies a few interesting things. When there is no written/spoken language to lean on, the sense of deafhood expands because the main route for adjusting to the hearing society is blocked. This also made her a more clear-cut person within the Deaf community, because she seldom used her voice. I very seldom used my voice when I communicated with deaf and hearing colleagues. When available, I always used an interpreter.

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One day, I had to call my parents in order to tell them something important. I used my voice with my mother and the interpreter helped me catch what she said to me. When the conversation was over, the interpreter was so astonished. She had no idea of my fluent Norwegian. This was certainly a new Sally for her, since she had never heard my voice before. Sally did not describe this and other similar instances as troubling disclosures, however, but more as interesting opportunities for self-exploration: “It was very interesting to see how I was influenced by the person I happened to communicate with. I had sensed this before, but not in such a self-aware way. So, one needs new experiences in order to be more self-conscious.” Her dictum, that you have to travel abroad and get new experiences to become more self-conscious, is further strengthened by these experiences. Among the deaf people in her new community, she mostly socialized with those who were equal to her. The dividing lines within the Deaf community thus were connected to degrees of cultural experience. The distinction between those born deaf and the deafened was not very sharp, however. The relationship between deaf and deafened is different in my husband’s country. In Norway, there is more conflict between the groups, i.e., the deaf, the hard of hearing and the deafened. In my husband’s country, there are closer ties between the groups. The problems are thus not similar. The attitudes are different. When international deaf arrangements are held in my husband’s country, the deaf from other countries are often surprised to see how the deaf, the hard of hearings and the deafened function together—as one single group. There is much more care and respect between them, and they are equally accepted. This is very different in Norway. In summing up the four years of experience abroad, she says: The first year was almost only impressions. The second year, I understood more and was deeper involved. The third year, I was one of them. I could be myself and communicate with ease. The fourth year, I started to feel that something was missing, and that I couldn’t get the necessary response to all of my own needs. I felt that this was it and I wanted to move back to Norway. We had

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always said that this stay was temporary. We then had our kids in mind, especially the oldest deaf child, who would have better opportunities in Norway.

Back Again to Muddy Waters Sally’s reasons for moving back to Norway were clear and the foreign Deaf community was in the end too small, with few opportunities for deaf youths. The return was in many respects a happy one, but there was also trouble lurking under the surface. The problem which faced her on her return was very much related to communication and the fact that she once more was thrown into the position as mediator between nonsigning and signing family members: When I first met my husband Paul, my family started to use a little bit more sign language. But it is not as fluent as one could dream of. I still have to function as interpreter between him and my family. Now, having three children, two of them deaf, I am even more often used as an interpreter when we are together with my family. I can never be myself and communicate in a relaxed mode: because I feel responsible for the inclusion of them. I strongly wish that everyone used sign language. The return to this setting evoked sentiments of strangling, which had been slumbering a while. When I was the only deaf person together with my family in our cabin, before I met my husband, I had very often the feeling of being strangled—longing for escape and to run off in order to relax in the presence of other deaf persons. This was because I always had to lip-read and translate or guess what the other family members said. It was never a real dialogue. I couldn’t stand to sit quiet and try to listen all the time. Strangling is a strong metaphor resembling the cage and prison metaphors described in previous chapters. Within the nearest family of four deaf and one hearing member, however, the situation is much better; communication runs smoothly and relaxed. But there are still worries.

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Family Life and Children’s Challenges There is much to be told about Sally’s children, how she relates to them, and the fact that they belong to different worlds. “This has influenced my life,” she says, “and when the children were born, it was the beginning of a new era.” The first one, Mia, is a hearing girl, and the second and third, Rune and Lars, are deaf boys. To have a hearing child was no problem, but when the second came she was, to her own surprise, astonished: When he was diagnosed as deaf, I had a shock which lasted for half a year! This was something quite different. We had hoped for hearing children, thinking about what was best for the child in society. To be within the deaf community is safe and good, but we are a small minority with restricted opportunities, compared to the hearing society. There are a lot of things which we cannot access, and if one wants to go to the theatre, for instance, one has to prepare in advance and to order an interpreter. To say it plainly: You cannot always do whatever you want spontaneously when you’re deaf. The dream is to have an available interpreter day and night, having that opportunity whenever the need arises. But now, this is limited to work-related tasks. In terms of geography, we are restricted as well. We cannot live wherever we want. We need to have a deaf milieu within reach. The description is honest and clear: to grow up deaf is to grow up as a second-class citizen. It is not bad, but it is not as good as it could be. The deaf and second-class citizen is heavily restricted, and she clearly touches upon the disability discourse. She is not in search of a cure, however. She points instead toward the burdening restrictions and restrained access deaf children are facing, even today. After adjusting to the fact, she is very capable of seeing the positive traits and is happy on behalf of her sons that they have deaf parents: I love my children. But as time proceeds, it becomes more obvious that they have different needs. One belongs to the hearing world, and the two others belong to the deaf, with all the consequences related to choice of school and friends. It can be quite exhausting. It is not that easy to be good parents, but we are happy that we are their parents. We visit our deaf friends, and they follow

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us to activities involving other deaf persons. Many deaf kids of hearing parents don’t have the same opportunities, because the parents often choose to remain within their hearing circles. The hearing girl, on the other hand, has a full bicultural upbringing. She seems to benefit from the rich language environment surrounding her with two spoken and two sign languages. She has a delightful and impressive support, in contrast to many hearing parents’ neglect of their deaf children’s basic needs. The problem of inclusion is exceptionally well addressed, quite different from how Sally herself and other deaf people experienced their childhood. The way that Sally also had anticipated future problems for Mia in school, because of negative attitudes toward deafness, is also revealing. For instance, she informed Mia’s classmates and their parents about her family situation on the first school day. Supporting the hearing child is one thing: It is another thing to please both parties. When the third child was born, there were two children who wanted their new brother to be of their own kind. Sally’s problem was of a difficult kind: Whatever the result was, one of them would be disappointed. The situation also triggered new thoughts on her children’s future: “I want to give them equal opportunities. But it is difficult to cater for such diverse needs and to be fair. It is a big challenge.” In this endeavor, she often reflects on her own childhood experiences.

Looking Back, Comparing Now that we have two deaf sons, I compare their childhood with how I grew up myself. It is more obvious to me now that to be the only deaf person is difficult. His sister, who is both older and hearing, will certainly help them to meet some children in the neighborhood, in the same way as I was introduced to hearing peers. But Mia also needs to concentrate on her own friends. The planning of where to live and how to arrange for an optimal situation for the kids, the deaf ones in particular, is thus a prime occupation, and the couple has discussed this many times. The positive aspect of growing up in a big city with a Deaf club is constantly compared to the positive aspects of life on the countryside. The present choice is a kind of compromise,

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an “area that is on the countryside and not too far away from the city. This choice has made it possible to stay in touch with old friends, and we can take day-trips to the city.” Besides, the area they have moved to is “deaf friendly,” with a deaf school within reach. The area is today a quite popular one for deaf settlers. The key factor that has made the place desirable, the presence of a deaf school, is also one which can change in a few years. In due time, the place will also be too small for the emerging needs of their children, and she says, “We are prepared to see our sons moving to Oslo, to a bigger Deaf milieu, when they grow older. Only time will tell.” Her world-traveling experiences, as well as her involvement in transnational gatherings, have prepared her for the way, she reasons. She is, however, not very concerned with the potential negative qualities of the smallness of the Deaf communities. In highly positive terms, she values the village type of life. THE VILLAGE ANALOGY Whereas Albertine describes the Norwegian Deaf community as “a local parish with the same types of conflicts” as other villages with a lot of “social control” and hiding of “the most horrifying truths,” Sally occupies another position. She has indeed experienced the conformity that can exist, but she has also come to value smallness in its own right. On the topic of the supposedly restricted choices one has in a small community, she states: This may be the case for many, but I appreciate the country I happen to live in, and the diversity which exists here. It is no catastrophe to lack the opportunities they have at Gallaudet. We have Sweden and Denmark as close neighbors, and it is easy to move between countries. There, we can meet with new persons and different cultures. I say this because I have experienced living in an even smaller environment. The deaf community in my husband’s small country is a small village to me. People are different and have different needs. Her direction is highly reflexive and far beyond tribal mentality. “I understand that the Deaf community in Norway is too small for some, but I do not, in fact, know everyone here in Norway, fortunately!” When

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it comes to the “desire for traveling” that she has experienced so strongly herself, she is only partly willing to explain it in terms of a wish to escape the limiting forces of the village: This is partly true, but not necessarily for everyone. It is a small community where everyone knows everyone else, and we feel comfortable living in this calm and quiet place. If you want to meet deaf friends, you can. In addition, we have friends and family in the city, whom we are still in touch with. The distance is not too big. It is more difficult to make friends among neighbors in a big city. In a smaller environment, people take care of each other. It is a good place to grow up. Both Sally and her husband are now working in the deaf sector, at two different institutions within the same area. She is thus quite settled and content with the local life she is living. Albertine, on the other hand, has been more eager to escape the village type of life, and participate more frequently in Deaf transnational events. This is, of course, due to their different phases in life. The difference between them is not a fundamental one, and the future is all but predestined. THE TECHNOLOGY CONNECTING PEOPLE The use of the new ICT opportunities has been important in many respects. For one, the ability to stay in touch with friends and family without physical presence has improved, and, as such, this contributes to the possibility of a more settled way of life. The new access to mobile phones is a joy she shares with many other deaf persons. Text-messaging extends computer-mediated communication in a precisely more mobile fashion. Internet and e-mail, however, are not outdated; they are still among the main outreach engines, together with the old TTY and fax: I use Internet and e-mail on a daily basis. Most of my deaf friends use e-mail, as well as hearing friends and contacts. In my husband’s country, there are so many using the Internet. Almost everyone has access, and we mail each other frequently. It is very nice, and we are certainly experiencing a new era. In the old days we waited in excitement for the postman and the letters he

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dropped in our mailbox, with the hand-written and personal style type of letters. The times have really changed. Access to computers and the Internet has increased steadily, and deaf people have certainly had a relatively high share in this. However, it is not true that these things make access total and easy. There are still barriers in terms of language use, and the dream of using sign language through the new communication technologies is very much present: I miss the opportunity to make use of sign language directly, so a good videophone would be the optimal solution. It is livelier and I could express myself better through that. It is OK to write Norwegian through the fax, TTY and e-mail, and I am able to express a lot through the written medium, but not one hundred percent. With a good videophone, I could have concentrated on one thing, the transfer of thoughts. When writing, this is more difficult. Sally’s competence in written Norwegian is very good, but she prefers to express herself in sign language. Many other deaf people are worse off in that respect because their mastery of the written language is less good. Favoring the writing/reading faculties at the expense of sign language can be seen as a threat to sign language proper and can further marginalize the language. As we have seen before, both Sally and Albertine report that NSL is an underdeveloped sign language and that NSL seems to be heavily influenced by the majority language, Norwegian. The stiffness of NSL, which both of them reflect upon, has come to the fore for each of them because of their experiences in foreign sign language communities. For Sally, this topic highlights many things of personal and political salience. She describes her own late, gradual acquisition of sign language; when she acquired it, she was still influenced by the general attitudes toward signing as bad and bold: I can remember that I was embarrassed when I used sign language as a child and when I exposed the wire to my old fashioned hearing aids. But later on, this was OK. Sign language became also more accepted. But this did not change from one day to another, even if sign language has become more like a matter of course today. But, strange to say, I can also remember the period of shock when we found out that Rune was deaf. In that phase,

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using sign language with him, my own deaf son, embarrassed me. But, luckily, this was just a passing inflection. EXPERIENCES ABROAD AND HEIGHTENED REFLEXIVITY Both Sally’s and Albertine’s lives are strongly marked by heightened reflexivity and experiences abroad. This is true of Sally, maybe more so than Albertine, because of her more extensive experience and shifting points of reference. They have both gained fresh outlooks on the deaf situation in Norway through travels and stays abroad and through participation at transnational Deaf events. The reflexive stance is thus of a comparative kind: a here–there comparison that has engendered selfreflection. This has enabled them to de-personalize problems experienced “at home,” and to provide alternatives in terms of identification. However, they have also come to occupy slightly different positions when it comes to settling, even if they both cherish their transnational networks. The before–now dimension in their reflexive self-understanding is also evident, and again more so for Sally than for Albertine. Sally’s entrance into higher education was difficult, and she had to stand alone. She witnessed the boom of deaf students and the establishment of DAF when finishing her studies. This was a forum of deaf fellow students from which Albertine could benefit directly. Even if there is more than ten years of difference in age between them, they have experienced similar obstacles and challenges in their different stages in life. The relief of getting access to real communication through sign language and entrance into the Deaf community is strikingly similar. Sally’s reflexive comparison is more extensive, however, mainly because she has come to consider the future opportunities for her children, who belong to different cultures, which is a new challenge in her life. In her life plans, she always looks back to make sure that her children shall not have to face the same burdening challenges as she has. This applies to her deaf sons, as well as her hearing daughter. The us–them dimension is also present in both stories. This is certainly the case for most members of minority communities, and for ninety percent of deaf people, this is a dimension that is inherent in family relations. All of the different levels of reflexivity speak about identity-related

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challenges within the Deaf communities and in the late modern world as such. Identity is, as Giddens states (1991), more and more a matter of selfreflection and individual choices. The collective dimension is not absent, however. The orientation toward a certain collective agenda focusing on diversity is interesting and reflects interesting changes within contemporary deaf identity formation. In the next chapter, these issues will be further explored through the stories of Bill and Lisa. They share many of the compelling concerns that Sally and Albertine have discussed, but they also differ. In a sense, they are stronger champions of a more clear-cut Deaf identification and a more ethnic orientation. However, their accounts are full of paradoxes and obstacles, because the sharper boundaries they draw around the Deaf world are tempting to some and frightening to others. However, their solutions are equally reflexive, and their stories are equally necessary to understand the emerging aspects of Deaf identification.

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WAY UP: ON DEAF ETHNIFICATION

It is a nuclear war and everyone on earth perishes except for two men, one Deaf and one hearing. God appears before them and offers to grant one of them three wishes, with the understanding that the other man would then get double of whatever the first man wished for. Out of pity, God told the Deaf man he could be first. The hearing man agreed since he also felt bad for the Deaf man and besides, he would get double of everything. The Deaf man thought a bit, then asked for four beautiful houses. Presto! Four magnificent mansions appeared in front of the Deaf man, and eight in front of the hearing man. The Deaf man then asked for 200 beautiful Deaf women. And again, presto, the 200 appeared before his eyes, and 400 in front of the hearing man. Coming to the third wish, the Deaf man paused and went into deep thought. Finally, with a smile on his face, he asked for one testicle to disappear. And lo and behold, both of the hearing man’s testicles disappeared! From then on, all future generations would be Deaf and it would become a Deaf world. (LIND 1994, 70–71)

T

his is one of the jokes Lisa Lind presents in her article “Laughing Our Way Up: Deaf Superiority through Humor.” She gave me this article

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quite late in the process of jointly working on the structure of her life story, and it is informative of the way she has come to think about herself as a Deaf person. I met both Lisa and Bill for the first time at a DAF gathering at Ål in 1999 and was able to recruit them for my research project. They both thought my research was rather biased. BILL’S STORY: THE TROUBLESHOOTER Bill is in his early thirties and was born in Oslo. His presentation of personal family relations is limited, or rather, he considered family relations unimportant in this context. His decision to tell his story was first and foremost politically motivated, as well as an opportunity to correct my biases. He does, however, present some of his personal biography. I have a sister who is older than I, and just as deaf. There was no natural sign language environment around me, but my parents went to a kind of sign language course—but in fact, it was more signs plus speech with the Norwegian language as a base. Then I went to a kindergarten (Voldsløkka) with a sign language environment. At school age, I was enrolled at the deaf school, Skådalen. I remember my first teacher very well, whom we had in first and second grade. This hearing man was clear and very visual, for instance, when he taught us about the seasons. He had a talent for drama and made an everlasting imprint on my mind. His teaching gave meaning and I learned a lot. I had a superb start at school. But the teachers were not fluent in sign language. From the second grade and until the end of school, I had twentyfive different teachers, all of them hearing! So I think I should say to all you hearing people. Thanks for your help! This highly ironic statement is symptomatic of much of his outlook on life, and on the hearing, helping world in particular. Their help was in fact more a “pain in the ass” than anything else, and he did not regard school as a learning environment after second grade: Much of the teaching went far above my head. The reason was bad signing, a lot of oral Norwegian and much lip reading. I simply failed to comprehend the curriculum. I cannot remember

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a thing of what I learned at that school after second grade. I remember chaos. I had English for seven years, but with a poor result: I know no words in English. I don’t understand a shit. There were a lot of words on the blackboard, but their connections and meanings were never explained. It is also a sad fact that I learned nothing about Deaf history. But we loved the breaks. Then we could come together and sign. But the classroom was a terrible place. I can remember “Shame on you!” and that the teacher dragged me by the ears, and ordered us to sit down! That’s how my school life was. I learned nothing. And time passed. Time passes, his life becomes rather empty and “out of story” (Mattingly 1998), and he has not yet had the glimpses of enlightenment that could direct him onto a fruitful path. Being at a deaf school, one is tempted to believe, should counter some of this sense of disorientation— but only partly so for Bill. Giving such a negative picture of a deaf school is a difficult thing to do, because these schools are among the few sacred and defended spaces in the Deaf world. Even if much has changed since Bill’s schooldays, he claims that much of his criticism holds today as well and thus indicates a certain frailty of such spaces. Anticipating the problem of a too negatively biased picture, Bill insists: “Even if the educational part failed, the social aspects were good. If we could change the education, the methods and the attitudes, nothing could have been better. It was the teachers who made the daily school life so hopeless. I didn’t feel that I was accepted as deaf.” This lack of acceptance made imprints, and he got the impression that to be a hearing person or to mingle with hearing peers was the ultimate goal in life: I believed that it was important for me to be together with hearies. That was my ideal. I played a lot with hearing kids, but as we grew older, I realized that they spoke a language I couldn’t understand. The divide grew, and I became isolated. I started to sense this after a while. They were laughing about things I couldn’t fathom. I gradually became a little pest and a “walking question mark” most of the time. I admired them and felt that they were better than I was, and that I was different.

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Hence, the package he carried with him from childhood and primary school was of a very ambivalent kind. He was a rather passive agent in his own life, and the overall script he tried to adjust toward did not match. Rather, it created strong tensions and disappointments. This challenge contributed to creating a “crisis of absence” of meaning and direction. His life was not fading out, however, even if the following years contained as much confusion as before. As a life about to be storied, he gradually makes the experiences of existential homelessness into an experience worthy of telling, putting it into a scheme of shared oppression. Years in Confusion After finishing primary school, he moved to Bergen to attend the secondary deaf school, Bjørkåsen. This is typically a period where crucial choices are made related to occupation, and when other life plans emerge. In Bill’s case, the emptiness continued to predominate: I applied to get into the welding course, and I got in. But I didn’t feel comfortable. I stayed put for a while, but it was so boring. Then they tried to transfer me to a turning lathe, with metalwork. But I couldn’t really stand that either. Then they put me into work training. It was contract work, and I made holes in metal sheets. They said, “Oh you are so good. If you continue to be a good boy, you will certainly manage to get work in a sheltered workplace.” A sheltered workplace? Something was terribly wrong. I then told my teachers that I would do something different. I wanted to go to the Deaf College in Ål because I wanted to find out about myself, who I was. In this condensed passage, Bill develops a plot by introducing a crossroad of importance. The use of markers in the first part, such as boring, replace, good boy, and sheltered, points toward a passive and disempowered life. He is hardly an agent in his own life, but more a body that is acted upon. Everyone tells him where to go, who to be, and how to approach “realistic” future opportunities. He simply had to revolt. My teachers didn’t understand. A regular job was all they focused on. Everyone was like that: “Oh poor Bill, you don’t fit in

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anywhere.” I felt ridiculed, and that I was a spoiled misfit. I had no papers, and was thinking of going to Ål. But I applied anyway. I got a refusal the first time, and did not know what to do. Half a year later, I felt I couldn’t function anywhere. I was eighteen and I took a break in life, and moved to my mother’s place. There I was about to be “rehabilitated.” I got an idiot’s job, where I had to put things into plastic bags. After this, Bill applied at Ål once more, and this time he was accepted to the media course. I wanted to learn more of the Norwegian language, because I felt so incompetent. I was so brainwashed that I thought Norwegian was extremely important to me. But then I met a teacher saying, “Please don’t focus too much on that, the first thing to concentrate on is sign language.” This was news to me, and I was not prepared. But after one year on the media course I was asked to join a group which was going to plan the education of deaf sign language teachers. I gladly accepted. That year was a prolonged enlightening moment. As with other conversions, this one was painful as well. Bill explains parts of what happened: I got so much out of that year, but it was sad as well, because it was so frustrating to realize how much I had missed: deaf heritage, pride and sign language. I was filled with rage when I realized how I had been fooled. I was furious. There was a revolution inside of me, and it exploded. At last I realized that it was allowed and OK to be deaf. This year, I learned so much about Deaf history and Deaf identity, and I was so hungry for all of that. But when I came back to Oslo, I was met with: “Oh, you have been at Ål and become brainwashed.” I was ridiculed again, but this time I didn’t care. A new life started for Bill that year. He got much of what he had missed and been longing for. He came to terms with himself as deaf and had almost become a different man.

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Crossing One’s Own Tracks Even if empowering changes related to self-identity had occurred, the outer world stayed more or less the same. However, Bill had a kind of platform and belittling attempts certainly did not have the same bite as before. In the years that followed, Bill knew he had to return to Ål. First there were a lot of detours, however, and a lot of traveling from one place to another: I moved to Trondheim when I was nineteen, and worked in a kindergarten for deaf kids. That was a good work experience. All the kids sat in a circle and the staff arranged tales and plays. There was much talk and there was a lot of play involving sounds and songs and rhythms combined. “Excuse me,” I said: “Can’t we do other more sensible things?” I was patient to let the teachers understand that the kids might get more out of visual plays, and we tried it. It worked and the kids matured so well that year. I really understood their basic needs and I was able to introduce new methods. I’m good at that. Then he returned to Ål for a while. Returning to Trondheim, once again, it was in pursuit of taking a university course in pedagogy: I really did well at that course. I got better exam results than my hearing co-students did, thanks to Ål. I then returned to Ål again to teach. But my old school, Skådalen, had noticed me, and wanted to hire me. At first I thought no, I don’t want to go to that place again. But after a second thought I made a decision. OK, I’m going. It was, however, a shocking experience. Everyone was fumbling. No comprehensive view on language theory and sign language. The result was that I had to quit after a while. Of course, a lot of things had happened at Skådalen since the time when Bill had been a pupil there. The sign language revolution had recently started to influence the school, and the school had started hiring deaf teachers. Bill’s disappointment was related to the fact that the process had not come far enough. To him, the changes were minor. He was encouraged to stay, but he could not stand the old spirit that was still present. To Bill, this crossing of an old track made him realize that the pace of change was slow and was, at worst, a step back.

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Special Needs, Psychology, and the Spirit of Pity When I ask Bill about what he really thinks has changed in the past years in the deaf education system, one of his present political concerns becomes even more evident: There is more psychology now than before. The “centers of expertise,” such as Skådalen, are offering more psychologically oriented counseling than ever. But the results are poor. Parents get more advice, which makes them choose integrated settings for their children instead of going to the deaf school from the very start. And traveling teachers from the centers are doing outreach in every direction. But what about the sign language environment? Bill refers to central, troubling topics in the Deaf world. The demands on deaf schools to adjust to the needs of the more self-confident Deaf community are not really met. There are many reasons for this. A range of conflicting impulses made the outcome of these processes less than predictable. In the 1980s and 90s, a new wave of medical/technological normalization infused the atmosphere through an aggressive and highly seductive campaign for cochlear implants. The seductive power of medical/scientific arguments contributed to alternatives to “cure” a flavor of backwardness. The strong sweep of general integration policy affected the Deaf world as well. Even if the deaf schools managed to be temporarily saved through political mobilization, the number of deaf children enrolling has clearly decreased. The number of deaf children integrated into the so-called normal schools is now at an all-time high, and hence deaf schools are in a state of emergency. We have to change the attitude. When we hire new teachers for the deaf schools and interpreters, we must avoid the ones with a “helping syndrome.” There should be a primary focus on language abilities. I remember when I was interviewing students in order to sort out those who could become interpreters. I asked why a person had applied, and the answer was “I want to help the deaf.” Well, I couldn’t really go for that. Another one answered, “I love languages and sign language is challenging.” Now, that’s what I am looking for, that attitude. A third kind of answer goes like this: “My parents are deaf. That’s why I want to become an

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interpreter.” I am skeptical to that sort of motivation, but of course if there is a serious language interest they can develop fine. But it is not a sufficient qualification to have deaf parents. The helping syndrome still haunts the field, not only in schools and as a motivation for becoming interpreters. Institutions owned and run by deaf people are also somehow infused. This is clearly revealed in Bill’s narrative about his experiences at the Deaf Video and Broadcasting Unit (DV) located in Ål, near the Deaf College. Working in the Twilight Zone While working at Ål as a teacher, Bill was also hired to do some freelance jobs for the DV. “I didn’t do much work for DV. They have never been keen on engaging Deaf persons. Never. You must have some Norwegian skills to be recognized as someone. If you are a pure Deaf signer, that is not what they want. That is a kind of oppression, that too.” While at DV, he wrote a critical article for Deaf magazine, Døves Tidsskrift. One of his objections was that using incompetent hearing signers in the few signed TV programs was an insult to the Deaf community. This open critique was not welcomed: “I was making a modest request. It was part of my work, I thought, to strive towards a better representation of us: our culture, history and news. Most of all, I wanted that these things should be told by Deaf signers. This caused a strong conflict which escalated.” The fight had, however, a good outcome, in Bill’s eyes. The turbulence was turned into a strong and memorable story, containing enemies and friends, desire and despair, obstacles and quests. The fact that the event turned into a temporary victory made the experience even more tellable from Bill’s perspective. When the staff at the Deaf College got involved, DV was forced to defend itself, and finally Bill found himself as a kind of winner. This was mostly because of subsequent favorable changes in this sector of the Deaf world. The lesson learned is that fighting is necessary, and even when dangerous “one has to fight and stand upright! But the worst thing is when someone goes behind your back.” Take Jim, a Deaf teacher at Ål, for instance. He is clever and strong, but there are so many persons going behind his back,

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showing him the finger and speaking negatively about him. Most of them are hearies and deafened persons. The criticism is ridiculous. What he does, is to fight for sign language without compromise. They accuse him of being narrow-minded, and he must stand a lot. There is so much unfair mud throwing. But if you look at this from a certain distance, you can appreciate some of it; In order to have progress, there have to be fights and explosions, including personal attacks and conflicts. But there is too much negativity and badgering; “You are not educated and too narrowminded.” But what about experience, isn’t that something? Much of this is dangerous, tiresome, and really sad. Because Jim, he is a real Deaf one. A proper Deaf person, with a capital D, that’s a big difference! There is a certain force in Bill’s tale at some junctures. In his mind, there would have been no present or future for the Deaf community without such “martyrs” and strong fighters. “The main problem is not that we are different, but that some are so afraid of mixing friendship and politics. But you cannot loose a good friend because of disagreement and strong engagement. I mean to say that everything is debatable. No one is of lesser worth and nothing should be hidden. Everything should be put on the table.” The ambiguity here indicates that important things are at stake. He puts the need for fighters in the foreground, and at the same time he exposes the counterproductive lack of acceptance of such strong people. The trouble Bill faced when he worked for DV relates to several other key topics that Bill wants to frame. The hearing domination of the Deaf world is among these, and especially how parts of the deafened segment of the community have managed to endure phonocentrism and oralism. I cannot enjoy reading the Deaf Magazine, since it is too much on the deafened’s terms. A funny example is in one of the latest issues. The editor starts an interview article by writing, “We are now knocking on X’s door.” X is deaf, and so is the editor, so why use the door-knocking. It is a hearing idiom. Flashing of lights and the visual ways of making contact would have been better. This is one of many examples. It is so obvious that his writing is speech-dominated and that his cultural understanding of deafness is poor. We don’t feel at home in that style of writing.

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The Danger of Blending From Bill’s point of view, it is the language question that is most at stake, and he offers examples of how damaging and misguided the mixed language practice can be: I have experienced that my own language has been destroyed. There has been so much mess with different teachers, and I don’t want the next generation to be like me in that respect. I am hoping for a better situation for them. I certainly know that my written Norwegian is less than perfect, and I think it is because of the misguided education I got. The method was based on ideas of the sign plus speech philosophy: JEG TAR MEG IKKE NÆR AV DET. This sentence illustrates my point: If you translate word for word the sentence gives no meaning at all in sign language [a word-for-word translation into English illustrates the point: [i take me not close of it]. You have to translate the meaning, and then make it fit the grammatical rules of the other language. In this case, it should have been translated into something like i don’t care (the sign language expression) or it is not that important (the sign language expression). Teachers using speech and sign taught me in this way at school. Their methods gave no meaning. Bill gives more illustrating examples with a humorous twist: How do you express the best food, “first class food” in sign language? Eat (the sign) good (the sign) perfect (the sign), or condensed in one single expression (tight lips, index finger on the mouth, and a quick move of this finger away from the mouth in delight (a satisfied facial expression). In the speech/sign way they do it like this: First (the sign), class/grade (the sign) food (the sign). Oh, you will think, Are you in the first grade at school, and this is about food for small kids? This is why the Norwegian speech/sign system is dangerous for us. But for the late deafened, it is very understandable, because they are used to Norwegian language. In the 1970s, this was a mix that was officially used and approved by NDF. Nowadays, when sign language as used within the Deaf community is

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accepted and has become official policy, the mix prevails, especially in the deaf schools and in encounters where the deafened are involved. Hence, the actual position of true sign language is much weaker than one often imagines, if one takes Bill’s account for granted. One reason is that the messy system places little prestige on the genuine visual traits of sign language. Besides, the deafened segment of the community, which thrives on the mixed sign system, has gained core positions in NDF, and this is something that worries Bill a lot. For the deafened, on the other hand, the situation is differently interpreted. Bill certainly recognizes this, but his agenda is a Deaf one: It cannot be easy to become deaf in adult life. But you have to move on. There are examples of deafened persons in NDF who have not improved their sign language a bit in twenty years, and still use their sign plus speech system. The best strategy is to go inside the deaf community and learn sign language proper. Then you will be able to communicate with everybody. Bill also attacks those who use their voice: Some deaf persons are doing wrong when they use their voice towards deafened persons. How can they learn our language if we don’t use it more often in their presence? We should be more proud and more confident in our use of it. But we are not that many. The result is messiness. We must claim a sign language with status; define it as a powerful language! Bill offers an example of an eager deafened teacher, a colleague who really looked forward to working on and in sign language: She was eager to learn more sign language, and I really looked forward to working with her. But after a while, she gradually talked more and more with the hearing staff and the parents. Her language became more of a speech plus sign type. I couldn’t follow her, and asked, “Excuse me, don’t you master sign language?” She could, but she wanted to use Norwegian plus sign in order to take care of others’ needs. I challenged her, but her mind seemed to be settled. Time after time, she scolded me because of my poor voice. She had been so afraid that the silent signing should destroy her voice. That’s why she preferred speech and sign. She really had her wires crossed, and it was so mistaken.

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Bill admits that this really points to the problems of identity among the deafened, especially the late deafened, and the big divide in the Deaf world as he envisages it from his perspective: But we shall not mock at those losing their hearing late in life. It is a loss. The interesting thing is that we are very different. My experience with hearies turning deaf is that they are so obsessed on issues of equal rights, and that they apply that agenda at any cost. They simply haven’t got it! I do, for instance, master some Norwegian in writing and reading, but I am not demanding to reach the same level as hearing persons. We will always lag behind on that, since we in that respect are born different. To be preoccupied with equality is fatal. The important thing is sign language, and the deafened can get at it if they try to forget their voice and Norwegian language for a while. My salvation was the signing deaf community, no matter where. But for those growing up as hearing persons, the situation is different. They have Norwegian language from the start, and think through that language. That position might foster a negative outlook on deaf signers. When the equality agenda is applied in light of this, the comparison always leads to leveling with the hearing majority. The result is that you will become a poor copy, and your Norwegian will become poor as well. If you try to mix, everything will stop halfway, and misunderstandings will occur. One should use either pure sign language or pure Norwegian! The danger of blending is here fully exposed. It applies to language, experiences, and identity. The language is an important part of your self. If you use Saami, Norwegian, French or whatever, it is part of your identity. With a proper language you will learn any other subject easier. If you have a good platform in yourself, you can learn anything of your liking afterwards. Which language you use doesn’t matter, as long as it is yours, whole and clear. If it isn’t, then much effort will be in vain. These are Bill’s arguments for a strong deaf identity based on sign language. It is also an argument against any impairment-based understanding of deafness:

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There are a lot of persons who say I am hearing-impaired. I don’t like it. It gives wrong connotations. There is a Norwegian Association for Hearing-Impaired, HLF, but they do not fancy sign language. They sit there with their hearing aids and they talk sooo cl-e-a-r-l-y and artificially. But as long as also we deaf are classified as hearing-impaired, I think it would be better for them to drop the term, and call themselves Hard of Hearing, because we are two distinct groups with very distinct needs. The same applies to the deafened. There is a hell of a difference between the groups, just to let you know! I really don’t think you can understand it! Deaf Power and Deaf Consciousness The backdrop for understanding Bill’s rage and empowering solutions should now be quite clear. The experienced and embodied belittlement fostered by a helping and at the same time demeaning educational regime had to lead to some kind of breakdown—an either/or situation—a true turning point. This change was fuelled by experiences from Bill’s years at Ål. He started there a few years after the revolution, at a juncture when the Deaf community drastically changed. It started in the beginning of the 1980s. I had heard rumors about the importance of sign language for a while and a few years later there was the big dispute, when the Norwegian dominated “sign language” had to withdraw. That was just a necessary part of history. Those persons had suppressed the deaf for all those years, and told the deaf that they were not good enough and that they had to master proper Norwegian in order to become worthy humans. They dominated the field at that time. They had the power and because of that there had to be heartbreaking episodes. Bill captured rumors, things started to happen, and he started to look for a new direction or guidance in life. These are not coincidental, one-thingafter-another sequences, but plotted events that make other narrations possible, other paths accessible. This also points toward the transnational connections in the Deaf world and the rapid spread of Deaf empowerment. The empowerment movement came to Norway via Ål by means of

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certain individuals, and the sources are both of Nordic and American origin.1 As the central Deaf translocal and transnational arena in Norway, it was no wonder that Ål was the place to pick up the connected ideas and put them into practice. This was precious to Bill, because he got a chance to revalue his own life from a different position: “This revolution gave us freedom. It gave us the opportunity to live on own terms, and I can only say thanks for that. Finally we could breathe deep and get rid of our Hitler (laughingly). The tyrant had to go elsewhere to cause havoc.” The liberation analogy Bill uses here is powerful. What the Nazis were to the Jews, the hearing people were to deaf people. Bill is, however, wary about the negative connotations such rhetoric can foster, and is aware that the label Deaf Power comes from abroad. Keeping in mind the ridicule Bill experienced after being at Ål for his first time, we can understand his cautiousness. He adopts a somehow different position about the CI controversy than other militants. Forget CI! It is not a new phenomenon. Basically it is an advanced hearing aid. Instead of focusing too much on that, we have to focus on sign language, and on how to live a good life with a good language. We have to develop the positive aspects of deafness. But hearing parents are in trouble when most of their information comes from the medical experts. We, and NDF, have to argue that sign language is important for their children, and that this is their best choice. I can understand the parents’ wish of having kids similar to themselves. But the kids will suffer, and almost become slaves. We must fight for sign language as a positive and powerful language—something to look up to. For Bill, the struggle against normalization extends to several fields. One of these is the contested term deaf-mute, which quite recently has

1. Deaf empowerment got a real launch in 1988, when the DPN campaign at Gallaudet University succeeded. From then on, the catchwords Deaf Power and Deaf Consciousness rapidly spread around the globe. In a Nordic context, things started to happen before this, in 1978, when a leading deaf figure from Sweden, Wikström, introduced the term “Deaf consciousness” (dövmedvetande) in a lecture at a Nordic Deaf event (Haualand 2001b).

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been revitalized. This perfectly fits Bill’s pursuit of drawing clearer boundaries within the nonhearing world. As part of a resistance against regimes of the normal within the Deaf community, it targets the people and groups who mingle too easily with the hearing world and hence contribute to what may be called a “distorted and false image of who we really are.” In Norway, the debate started in a Deaf magazine in 1998, where Christensen proposes a revival of the term deaf-mute (døvstum), for some of the reasons previously mentioned. Most of the reactions I have noticed run counter to the spirit of that article, but others, such as Bill, are more supportive and point to the hegemonic position talkative deaf people have achieved in the NDF. There are indications of a possible split in the Deaf environment in Norway because of this.2 The best thing would be to split, and to establish two separate organizations, one for the deaf and one for the deafened. If deafened persons wanted to stay in our organization, they would have to respect us and join in on our terms. But now they’re taking over more and more. To be frank, I don’t think that the deafened should be staying with us. It would be easier without them. If you are born with hearing, you will always look up to and compare your situation to what it would have been if you were a hearing person. Now they have invaded the deaf scene, using their mastery of the majority language to gain power.3 On this occasion Bill points to deaf experiences from one recent annual gathering in NDF. There was one representative who stood up, and spoke Norwegian and signed simultaneously. It was hardly understandable,

2. The first time I noticed this was at Ål in 1999, when discussing internal problems in NDF with a deaf teacher at the college. 3. Bill admits that these are strong formulations that might provoke reactions. If so, he is satisfied. However, it has to be modified somehow, because the message does not capture the nuances Bill himself describes in other instances. He is, for instance, able to name several deafened people within the Deaf community who are not running the phonocentric majority’s errand.

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but not one of the deaf dared to put their hands up in objection. Because they didn’t understand what he was talking about. They feel overruled so to say, since one after another of the deafened pop up at the rostrum performing their “nice” speeches. There are a lot of deaf persons, even adult ones, who still get the feeling that it is their own fault when the message can’t come through. They stay put, pacified, even if they have much on their minds.4 However, Bill is not too sure about the reintroduction of the term deaf-mute, because he understands that the label still denotes degradation and hence the time might not be right. On the other hand, the label signifies something that is important to him: I have experienced the need for this label. Once, quite recently, I was invited to a party. Some of my deaf friends from Ål were also invited, and so were two interpreters. I was chatting with one of the interpreters when a hearing man approached us, asking for permission to hear my voice. Oh no, I thought: Don’t you have pen and paper? And he answered, “No, no, no, please let me hear your voice? Oh please!” A lot of other hearing persons around joined in and begged me “pleeeaaase.” I felt stupefied as it turned into group pressure. I told them to forget it, and rather use their sign language, but they continued. Then I told them I was a deafmute. And, hey, they took it. I felt that the label conveyed a clear message, and that was it. Mostly, however, I coin myself Deaf, but if pushed like this I frankly invoke myself as a deaf-mute. For us, born deaf, it’s not a big deal, as it is for the deafened. Bill is quite preoccupied with the politics of deaf identity. There are certain features that evoke pleasure and gratitude, and others that evoke pain, anger, and frustration. Hence, there is something to fight against and for. The positive and future-directed goals and outlooks weigh most. It is a peculiar teleological drive in his narrative, in addition to his clear intention to

4. This is, of course, a situation that calls for a double response. Bill is not only criticizing the deafened, because he also states, “It is a pity that there are so many cowards among the deaf.”

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correct the hearing researcher’s biases. His own, self-appointed role in this drama is the necessary provocateur figure, the one who doesn’t avoid confrontations for the sake of peace. His future plans and projects also relate to this. The Future: In Whose Hands? Bill’s future is, of course, as unpredictable as any other person’s. However, Bill’s tale contains lots of clues. It also helps us understand compelling concerns within the Deaf world. There are lots of things to be done, as shown in Bill’s narrative. Not surprisingly, these are mostly related to children, parenthood, and language. In the future, if I have a hearing child, I will be pleased. I am going to teach the child sign language and give it a lot of positive attention. Then the child will experience the richness of the sign language of the deaf parents. I’ll certainly set a good example. This statement refers to several things. It is not about a desire to have a hearing child, but rather a realistic projection related to demographical statistics. This given, his focus is less on the deaf/hearing divide. His focus is more on setting examples regarding communication between deaf and hearing members of a family, that is, that this should be through the medium of sign language. If not, the deaf member of the family will remain the loser. This also relates to the necessary improvement of the status of sign language and the importance of strengthening deaf parents’ selfconfidence in raising their children, hearing and deaf alike, through a selfevident use of sign language: There are too many deaf parents with a poor self-image. They are so insecure as to how to proceed. Should they use their voice and should they downplay sign language and so on. Often, the voice of a deaf adult is really poor, and the child will say: “Your voice is so bad, I feel embarrassed.” If the parents then just talk to their kids, it will be worse for the kids. Take a situation where a lot of deaf friends are invited home. The parents use sign language with their friends and turn to voice to their own children. That is differential treatment, and prevents the child from experiencing a

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signing social environment. They will, hence, not be able to master the language, and might feel isolated and less welcomed. If they always feel in need of withdrawal, that is bad. It is important to give children opportunities to become at least bilingual. Both the deaf child and the hearing child should therefore get every possible positive input—so that deafness and sign language can be valued as a difference worthy of celebration, as something of which to be proud. For Bill, the most important thing is to look for the promised future in the present, the emerging now, and not to engage in an obsessive retrospective endeavor. “You cannot spend your energy too much on adults. They are spoiled and their time is over. We have to concentrate on the children, the future. If the kids are given chances, they will succeed. We cannot continue to walk around as clowns, behaving like hearies because ‘those who know best’ tell you so.” The future is in the hands of the children, who are seen as promising because of their not-yet-formed identities. It is then all-important to ensure, protect, and strengthen the sign language environment—to safeguard a field of belonging for deaf people. This is not necessarily an isolated ethnic or subculture enclave, but a translocal and transnational field of belonging. Bill has thrived in and stressed the importance of certain translocal environments, such as Ål and Trondheim, even if they both are paradoxical places. In addition, there are the cherished and frequent translocal events that foster social bonds in the Deaf world. Bill, for instance, makes annual “pilgrimages” to whatever Deaf gathering he is able to attend. Among these are summer holiday camps in the south of Norway where several cabins are hired for a number of deaf friends and the annual Cultural Festivals of the Deaf in Norway. He also travels to more explicit transnational events when feasible, such as the European Deaf Soccer Championship in Oslo the summer of 1999. I really feel at home at such events. There is so much sharing of experiences and sense of belonging. We do not have to bother too much with the previously mentioned problems between deaf and deafened, even if we share some of the same problems in that respect. Outside of Norway, in Washington D.C., and Stockholm,

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for instance, there is a better understanding of what deafness means, and how one should approach the future. This transnational aspect is more prominent in Lisa’s story, because her life has been more deeply transnationally entrenched. LISA’S STORY: THE LIFE OF A FORMER PUPPET I started this chapter by quoting a superiority joke from an article Lisa wrote when she was enrolled at Gallaudet University. Lisa was one of the first Norwegian students to go “over there,” and after her, approximately thirty deaf Norwegian students have been trained there. In her article from 1994, Lisa expresses some aspects of what she has experienced at Gallaudet. This is related to a certain sense of pride and belonging. Humor is part of this, and she explores how differences in Deaf and hearing humor indicate cultural differences. She also explores how jokes can be used as strategies to fight oppression. Lisa is, hence, what one can call a Deaf-conscious person, with an outlook basically similar to Bill’s. The process of becoming Deaf was, however, quite different, and the way they tell their stories also differs. Both Lisa and Bill joined my research to help me balance an anticipated bias. There was a clear political motivation from both. Lisa however, developed a double agenda during our period of contact, as she saw a positive healing outcome of the process for herself, and a “the personal is political” type of reasoning.5 Lisa was born in Oslo, and her life narrative contains strong messages about normalization, isolation, and high hopes, as well as empowerment and belonging. First, she gives an account of childhood and adolescent experiences, which she believes is important for understanding her present situation. She envisages herself as a “puppet on a string”: The most important figure to compare my previous situation with is that of a puppet. Looking back and seeing myself from

5. This is clearly a feminist-inspired attitude. It also points to a new trend in the Deaf world of narrative exposures as a vigorous way of arguing for the Deaf cause.

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outside, I suddenly realized that I had been such a puppet with a lot of strings—one from my head, from each arm and from each leg. I discovered that I had been controlled from outside, going in directions others had decided upon. I then realized that I had to cut all those strings myself. At Gallaudet I had this revelation on how naïve I had been before and on how much pain this had caused. With this strong puppet metaphor, Lisa frames her story as a quest for liberation, a process of cutting loose from a false, disciplined position. In this, she places herself in a tradition where the escape from society’s oppression becomes all-important. She wants to become someone, neither a copycat nor a clown. With this, she positions herself alongside Asbjørn, Trygve, and other deaf tellers. These are metaphors that may be extended into mini-stories and may provide the subject with a provisional narrative self-understanding (Kirmayer 2000). Lisa continues: I was always trying to be a good girl, nice and clever. I was too willing to do as expected in order to pass as smart. I was supposed to talk and perform well at that, and always adapt in order to please and become as normal as possible. I didn’t want to see the realities back then, that I was deaf and hence in need of sign language and all that stuff. She is happy that this period in her life is over, but she is nevertheless aware of the wounds and damage done. This has made her life more troubling and painful than necessary, and because a lot of deaf children go through the same today, she particularly hopes to inform the parents of deaf children to at least think twice. Lisa offers a few examples from her own life. Once, a friend and I went to Huk Beach one late evening when a lot of youths gathered. It was dark and we wondered how to get in touch with the boys. Reading lips in darkness? No way. Then we found out that we could use matches to light up their faces and read their lips close up. When someone came by, we lit the match. Every time they ran away. They looked at us as monsters when they realized we’re deaf? Another time I went alone. I went out frequently those days, hoping to find a boyfriend. But it didn’t work. It was hard to make myself understood. This time I got in touch

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with a drunken boy. I got in trouble and he started touching me. He screamed into my face, and I tried to get him out of sight. I shouted, “Go away” but it didn’t work. Often it is enough to mention my deafness, to get people turned off. When he became aggressive, I was lucky to see a Vietnamese gang appearing. They defended me and took care of the situation. They understood. These two episodes contain a few messages. For one, the adaptive approach is both a barren and a dangerous one. The dangerousness is twofold. In the last example, the situation could have turned worse. At a deeper level, the danger is about losing one’s self through pretending. The Vietnamese gang thus served as a tempting and different position, pointing toward selfesteem through acceptance of differences. After all, they understood: This understanding should have been more common, and taught in school. It is about self-esteem, which comes from letting people being happy as whom they are. When I was younger, I knew to some extent that I was deaf, but I knew nothing about cultural differences. I didn’t understand the others’ humor. They laughed, I didn’t. I felt stupid. Besides, my hearing brother didn’t want me to talk to his friends, because they didn’t accept me. If I had captured the sense of cultural difference back then, and that the deaf humor was as good as hearing humor, just different, I might have been able to combat their prejudice. The marking of her as an humorless person who could not get the clues also worked inwardly, as she really believed it was her fault. This adoption of a personal tragedy sense has given her psychological problems and a sense of incompleteness that she feels she should have been spared. There was so much focus on how to improve. When I was fifteen, I struggled over and over again. But every time I was turned down. At the age of seventeen, I was desperate. I began doubting my ability to speak like a hearing person, so I went to a speech therapist to get help. I was asking for the impossible, and the therapist even hinted at this to me. But I wouldn’t realize the obvious. We talked together, and she gave me words to train on at home. It was so much, but I sat down and practiced. But that wasn’t good enough. “You have problems with the accent and

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the variation of the tone.” Hey, the accent, I thought, that’s a challenge. There was nothing wrong with my aspiration and will. But of course, I didn’t make it. This was in the fragile teenage period, and it was really a traumatic experience, and my contact with hearing peers was equal to zero. But it’s kind of funny, you know, because I couldn’t imagine myself dating a deaf boy. She now regrets her eagerness to try to talk like a hearie, but she is also thankful to the woman who gave her the true message. I should have been doing other things and forgotten the talking mania. I should have focused on important things in life. But what should I have talked about with my empty brain? With the loneliness added, I was lost. But finally the message seeped through to me. The speech therapist said to me that I would never speak like a native. She challenged me to revise my goals. If she hadn’t been so honest, I would have wasted even more years. She prevented me from wasting more time on an impossible task, and now I name her one of my guides towards wisdom. Such helpers are important figures in narratives of this kind, as we have seen in other stories. In this case, the help was a revelation of the futileness of her present route, an opportunity for her to look at alternatives. Within, but Still on the Outside Much of this happened while Lisa was within the deaf environment. She was going to a school that gradually implemented sign language. However, because she was so eager to participate in hearing activities, she took a belittling attitude toward her own environment. This created problems, because no one could stand the little pest she sometimes must have been. She admits that she had been bothered at school, and that she often felt lonely. The reason she gives is that, in addition to her “hearing attitude,” she was “very pious,” more or less a snob in their eyes. Despite this, she grasped the basics of sign language at school. What she did not grasp were the social skills in communication. As a student at Gallaudet, she got the opportunity to correct her “bad habits.” One of these was interrupting whenever it pleased her.

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If my parents would have been deaf, I would have got that training early and been spared of being conceived as an interrupter. I know another deaf woman with the same problems as I had. She hadn’t learned the rules which have to be followed in sign language. She broke in at undue times, and caused a lot of irritation. After a while, she noticed the antipathy, but didn’t understand why. Then I told her, and it was important to do so, that I had the same problem at Gallaudet. It was embarrassing to admit this, to expose own shortcomings. But she finally understood, and managed to relate the problem to the lost training opportunities in childhood.

Hope and Other Ways of Coping In her life as a youngster Lisa was preoccupied with the idea of being accepted among hearing people. “There was too much hope,” she tells, combined with a perfectionist’s obsession with “nothing less than one hundred percent”: The ideals of being oral and fitting into the hearing world were beyond my reach, and were not coming from myself. So it had to come from my upbringing and other normalizing pressures. I had to work so hard to manage. The result was that I had to improvise and use my creative abilities, which sometimes turned out to be quite funny. When I met boys and had been chatting for a while, they wondered why I had this strange “accent.” I answered that I was from another country, and lied about my deafness. I had been made aware of sounding a bit Russian, and told them I was, making me an object of interest. But my lying didn’t work as intended. Once I met a very nice chap and this time I was “Italian.” He was so pleased because his mother was Italian. He spoke Italian, and I was trapped. Telling him the truth, he became furious and left me. This was the last episode of that kind. She had to admit she “was deaf, and face others without lies.” However, other kinds of self-denial prevailed: I finally got a hearing boyfriend when I was eighteen. It was a really tough period, because he made his future signing an object of

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negotiation. If I went for a slimming treatment, he would learn sign language! I was shocked. But even more shocking was my reply. I was naïve and accepted the deal, since I was already about to reduce my weight. I was into ballet and not slim enough for that. So I thought it would serve a good cause, since I would get him into signing in return. But it was all in vain. We parted, and I realized how cruel the deal really was. This was a second step in her self-finding process. She strongly started to sense the need for another life. A more thorough reorientation had to occur. “I started to look around in the deaf world, deaf sports, and opportunities for going to deaf events abroad. From then on, I became more and more involved in the deaf community. The all-important questions were: Where is my world? Where do I really belong?”

Turning Point, Turning Deaf, Touring the World At this juncture, she really searched for the right place to both be and belong. In short, she was about to turn Deaf in a hurry. “I was meeting deaf persons all the time and I had my first great love affair with a deaf man. It was in Finland, during the WFD congress. I was very curious and suddenly I saw this man from Greece. I was fascinated and wanted to get in touch.” The emotional intensity of the social atmosphere at such occasions frequently facilitates such strong encounters. This is partly because of the characteristics of the Deaf community as translocal and transnational. The number of potential deaf mates within the local or national setting is often so low that one simply has to look abroad. For Lisa, this became more than a momentary infatuation, and she used all the tricks in the book to get a grip on him: In the beginning, he was held up by the activities he was involved in. He was a member of the Greek Theatre Troup, and they wanted me to stay away from him. They were in need of him all the time, but I couldn’t care a less. I walked up to him all the time and courted him, and when the congress closed I intended to follow him. He was going to Denmark with his troupe, and I joined

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him. The instructor of the theatre was mad, “Not you, here, again!” After Denmark, I wanted to follow him further, and I asked him if we could meet in Greece. He was a bit confused, but I still had holidays left and was eager to spend them with him. It was a happy time. He came from a deaf family. His mother was deaf, and his father hearing. But the mother had a deaf lover who was part of the family. My boyfriend’s sister was deaf as well. I got a strong and sudden sense of what it was like to be really deaf. I started to turn off my hearing aids, and realized that I had mostly gotten noise anyhow. Before, she had imagined herself to be totally dependent on hearing aids. Since then, she has stopped using them. “I don’t bother anymore, since I cannot benefit from using them, It’s not giving me any content based language,” she says. This is one example of how old experiences and beliefs change when seen through a different lens. In this short time span, she had both pleasing and shocking experiences. She soon sensed the conflicts in Athens between the poor and rich deaf. There were a lot of things going on resulting from poverty. I realized that this family was a flock of black sheep because they were so poor. They were negatively labeled, and I learned a lot about how to survive with the odds against you. But I was also fooled. One day we were driving a car and suddenly I saw some cards in the hat-rack in the car. They were to be distributed on café tables with this message: “I am deaf-mute. Please give me some money!” My friend had never told me about this. He gave me one card to inspect, as he turned both confused and despairing. I told him I was disappointed because he hadn’t told me: “OK, you can go on with your dirty business, but why haven’t you told me. That is the worst. Who are you really? And what are you really doing?” In a sudden glimpse of truth I saw what they had been hiding and I challenged him: “OK. Society is cruel against you, but what do you do with that? There is no improvement in begging.” This was a shock for Lisa, both the fact of being part of a beggar’s environment within the Deaf community and of being fooled. Her reaction,

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however, was creative. She challenged him to change: to engage in economical activities that are less stigmatizing. “There must be other ways to survive. What about selling things, key rings or whatever?” I asked. And he replied: “Yes, OK that’s a good idea. We’ll start selling things like that.” So we did. We experienced so much together, touring Europe with our petty business. We sold a lot of those key rings. This was a kind of begging too, traveling around selling small items. But what we did, we did, and we couldn’t care a less. We thought of all the rich people cheating on their taxes, and other monkey businesses. So we felt: “Damn it, we can do it!” As a middle-class Scandinavian with no experience of being poor, she was close to embracing the elitism and middle-class values inherent in deaf identity politics, where all kinds of peddling are condemned. Deaf associations have, for a long time, waged war against deaf peddlers. It is believed that peddling does harm to the deaf population, negatively influences the hearing society’s picture of deaf persons, and evokes oldfashioned ideas and sentiments about deaf people in need of charity and pity.6 Lisa is critical of such elitism, which she later experienced at Gallaudet. Readjusting Plans, Changing Tracks When the relationship with her friend faded out, she returned back “home,” to try to catch up: “I still had a dream of going to a ballet college. My dream was to become a ballerina. This was of course against all odds, because I was deaf. But I had this strong desire and stubbornness. I attended two different secondary schools the last year, Fagerborg, where I danced a lot, and Sandaker where I signed a lot.”

6. The issue is complex, but in this context it suffices to say that in Deaf politics it has for a long time been important to not “be classed with any group of people who were not self-supporting” (Van Cleve, 1997).

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She continued to ride two horses, as before, and she insisted on fighting for her dreams, which were clearly linked to her previous normalizing attitude and way of life. I applied for admission at the ballet college, and it was really hard to get in there. But I did! Among three courses, I chose the teaching course. I believe they gave me a chance because of my deafness, but I know the teachers weren’t too pleased to have me there. They saw me as a bit clumsy. I was not slim enough, and not elegantly ladylike in their eyes. But my sense of rhythm was good. But in sum, it was not good enough; I was no swan in their eyes. Her previous struggle toward normalization and perfection clearly lurks in the shadows. Once more, she had put herself in a situation where she most likely would fail. She had, however, a new point of reference in the Deaf world, which made it possible to see the difficulties in light of oppression. She quit the college shortly after. She had suddenly become totally fed up. We sat in a circle of many students, and the cold faces were so self-obsessed. This was a music lesson, and the teacher suddenly announced: “Yes, listen to the music now. What does it mean?” I was suddenly totally lost and lonely, and I thought to myself: “Is this the kind of life you shall continue to lead?” No, was the message within, and I stood up and walked right home. The American Dream She surely felt she had hit the end of that road, realizing it was a blind alley. Her next move just had to be different. Going abroad to the Deaf university fascinated her: I was well informed about Gallaudet and about the academic life among deaf peers. And yes, I went there to experience that. I stayed there for six years. It was a big transition, a personal conversion as it were, where I was immersed in deaf life. Nothing of the sort I had experienced before. It was there and then I started to open my eyes to the values of the Deaf world, seeing the light so to say.

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Her entry into one of the center stages of Deaf life was, however, not only sunshine. This was, she says, due to her immature understanding at that time and her dubious position as deaf. The first year I was introduced to ASL Poetry. I was quite ignorant and passive, but thought I’d rather give it a chance. I expected it to be dramatic in a snobbish, “high culture” way. I sat patiently and watched one poem after the other. I thought, OK, but so what? Then the teacher wanted us to analyze the poems, and I was not prepared. I was not able to read the message, to see the ironic use of ASL and the power of poems to alter perspectives. Her position as a novice in relation to Deaf academia was obvious. A lot of things were hard to grasp. Among these was the problem of realizing the poetic qualities in ASL. In one case, it was about a poem that was a kind of commentary on CI. As such, it was a meta-commentary on the essential quality of having a full language, a language to be used with force—to compel, to make ironic statements, to empower, to please, and to perform all the functions in language. First and foremost, this learning process was rewarding because it enriched her sense of self as deaf. This was in many ways the start of my new experience of being deaf, a new sense of deaf identity. I had been proud of being deaf before, but I had no good overview. I was still quite ignorant. I started to realize the power of ASL poetry in particular. I had never learned to analyze a poem, never experienced its spiritual stimulation. It was a bodily experience as well, a feeling on the skin and in the flesh, which gave a strong sense of being able to grasp something precious or hidden. But at the same time, I had the sense of loss; this was something I had been bereft of for years. This embodied conversion, even if rewarding, did hurt. This time she didn’t try to heal the wounds by individual means. Her response was of a more collective and political kind. “The first year, I learned a lot about myself: about empowerment and identity. Things started to change inside of me, and I became politically aware. I started to realize how much oppression there was, how much hearing people tried to make us fit for their purposes, not for our own.”

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On her way into Deaf politics, she was hampered by standards of perfection and excellence within. Gallaudet was tough in that respect. Being at Gallaudet was problematic. There was a lot of cruelty and status hunting. To have deaf parents gave you a position. I had nothing. My parents were hearing and I was foreign, my English skills were poor. So I experienced marginalization there as well, and I was not considered cool enough. But again, I wanted to fight. I was there in order to be taught, to develop myself. I started to join the organized political arena at Gallaudet. There were a lot of discussions, parties, and organizational work, and I was trying to claim my place in that setting. But there was a problem. In the students’ political body, which was highly ranked and prestigious, you had to reach a certain degree of perfection to succeed. First of all, you should have deaf parents, or full mastery of ASL and high qualifications in politics and organizing. The most important factors were excellence in ASL and being strong and funny. There was a high threshold for being considered a candidate. She had nothing to lose, so she moved on: I was able to join the media group. It was not easy, that’s for sure. Nine persons were selected, and I was one of them. We planned to make campus talk shows on TV. Some had deaf parents and others were persons with a high ranking. More than one wondered what I was doing there “on the top.” We made six successful “talk shows.” This was the first time this happened at Gallaudet. I functioned as both stage manager and producer. The talk shows were of a political nature, with a lot of discussions on hot topics. The name of the show was GUTS, and that was what it was about! After a while, show time was over, and Lisa and her crew sat down, a bit sad, and thought, “What now?” With the new “guts” she had acquired she was, however, able to cope. I wanted to continue on that track. The new initiative was to create another kind of late night show. I was appointed stage manager

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and producer again, with a new group of students with mixed qualifications and varying guts. Some of them had to be pushed, but in the end we managed to establish really good teamwork. We divided ourselves into several groups: one on advertisement, the second on scene design and finally a group of actors. This was a really big thing for me, because I had the job of picking out the best actors. The big difference between Norway and USA was well exposed. Over there, the tradition of self-exposure and competition was so strong. I was in charge of all this and having good times, but I was also planning for my return to Norway. With this empowering belief that “We Deaf can do whatever we want,” she felt well equipped to give herself a second chance back “home.” Gallaudet was, however, not uniformly an empowering place. However, after the success of the DPN campaign, things were on the verge of change. “DPN influenced me a lot. That protest made us set the standards. One of the results was that many qualified deaf persons got top jobs, such as principals for deaf schools.” This is well documented (Cohen 1995), but differs from the situation in most other countries, including Norway. Lisa was and is fully aware of that: “When some hearing person quit such a job, why not employ a deaf person? That would have enriched the Deaf community in several ways. But as long as the doors are closed, how can one expect deaf persons to engage in long-term education?” Lisa’s questions indicate a common frustration among the deaf people in Norway. Most top jobs in “their own” environment are managed by hearing people. However, Lisa is eager to state that at least two parties are responsible for the closed doors: “How can we expect hearing persons in position to open the doors when we make them believe it is a hearing world everywhere.” By this, she is also directing strong criticism inward, to those deaf employees working under their hearing leaders, for their cowardliness related to smoothing and adjusting to the needs of their hearing boss. When Lisa returned to Norway, she was going to face this problem by herself straight on. She was not only better equipped than before, but she had had to face some specific problems.

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From the States with Guts Back in Norway, Lisa started to work at the Deaf Video and Broadcasting Unit (DV) at Ål. I had changed from a quiet and modest deaf and naive girl to a Deaf political woman. I gave strong messages, and I was pro Deaf culture and contra CI. I believe that this was the reason why people were confused. But my transformation did trigger some positive reactions, especially at Ål where there were other equally politically motivated persons. At her new workplace however, things were different: I asked a colleague of mine how he perceived me, as deaf or as hard of hearing. When he said hard of hearing I was shocked and thought: Is that the reason why he tries to change me to the one I was before: an unknowing, hard of hearing look-alike person, dependant on hearing aids. I didn’t want to be as before. Another colleague, my boss, meant I was hard of hearing as well and that I was in need of hearing aids to support lip reading. I said no. That’s not how it works. I was shocked. He was himself deafened, and couldn’t understand what I experienced as deaf. When I went home that evening I was filled with anger and sorrow. I went through my personal files to find evidence for my deafness, and I found a doctor’s statement: “Lisa L. is totally deaf.” I was about to let them see it for themselves, but I had lost my strength. I just kept crying and I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t find the healing tears either. It was as if I was strangled. I couldn’t breathe. This was a single episode, but indicated a more thorough and escalating problem. She was labeled in a way she could not manage. The inside transformation acquired abroad was not enough, and her previous ambiguous position in the Deaf community haunted her. I was challenged almost everywhere. I was not taken seriously. One of the reasons was that I had attended a school for hard of hearing pupils as a youngster. But Ila was not like that. A lot of deaf kids attended the school. We used sign language in the

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breaks and some of us had good contact with the deaf community. But the school had a rumor of not being deaf. This rumor prevented us from getting full access to the community. But some persons at Ål understood that this was unfair. The breakdown after returning to Norway stands in sharp contrast to Lisa’s aspirations before her arrival: I looked forward to coming home and using my skills. I felt I was filled with guts, resources and ideas. But I was hampered. I tried to discuss, but without any serious response. They didn’t give me a chance. Maybe it was their fault, maybe mine. Maybe there should have been more compromises, but I felt it was a dead end. I started to become a psychic wreck. After work, I was desperate. I cried and it became worse. I felt strangled and I dreamt of drowning. I cried till there were no tears left. Today, she approaches her breakdown as a result of a collision between her acquired and precious identity as Deaf woman trained in America and the philosophy at DV, which was not supportive of the values she promoted— among them a pure sign language environment: But the picture is very multi-facetted. I was given different roles, and some employees didn’t fancy that. I switched from a job as program secretary to producer, which meant having my previous leaders under my command. They certainly meant well, giving me opportunities, but sadly, it didn’t work. Then I also realized my incompetence, the empty spaces in my mind, which are so typical. I have lost so much: how to cope in work life, how to adjust to co-workers and how to use social skills. I never learned these things which hearing children get for free. I learned a lot at Gallaudet. But it takes time to acquire such skills. It should have been part of my upbringing. I often feel so blank in this regard, and the feeling of loss is tremendous. I would therefore like to announce to parents: Forget integration! Because, if you integrate your children they will become lonely and unskilled! This appeal is important for Lisa, and one of her strongest drives in revealing her own traumatized childhood—and what she perceives to be integration damage haunting her up to the present time.

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Imagine Christmas Eve! A little deaf child walks around. On TV, a lot of animated cartoons run with Norwegian voicing. Nothing is captioned. The parents talk. What does the child lose in all that? How shall they compensate? Think about how people around the child behave? The child cannot capture much, and is certainly not part of the sharing of family memories. How shall this child come to learn of mistakes when they have no access to their parents by asking? Acquiring self-confidence was clearly challenged through her shaky situation at Ål. A lot of hearing technicians and cameramen would not learn sign language or improve: It was all so embarrassing when the team went out to shoot sequences with deaf persons involved, and the cameramen couldn’t communicate. Not with me and not with those invited. But I had to struggle with them, lip-read them, and try to understand. I was even forced to use my voice, and they got everything free. It was terrible. In addition, we arranged a big meeting, and there was no interpreter. They used sign + speech, but I objected: “I cannot do it!” They talked and talked with their added signs and Norwegian syntax. But where was the quality of such communication, where was the depth? I stood up and demanded an interpreter, a good one, not the one they used ad hoc from the staff. By this, I insulted them, and it became even worse to continue. First of all, it was an insult to say right out that the internal interpreter was not good enough, secondly to say that sign plus speech was not adequate. Her working environment did not follow her, and she admits she could have been more sensitive; introduced the topic during a meeting, explained more of her concerns, and searched for allies. However, it was too late, and maybe such added efforts would have been in vain anyhow. I realized that deaf culture was not alive at work, and I felt in a sudden that I was losing all I had in life. I had worked so hard to get an education. I had worked so hard to get this job, in order to make good television for the deaf in Norway. To quit was the biggest disappointment I have ever experienced in my life!

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Lisa’s breakdown resulted in her inability to continue her work. It was also a concrete manifestation of her lost opportunities. She saw this job as her opportunity to contribute and serve. When it failed and her project crashed, she could not see any easy way out: Where should I go in order to use my competence? To the hearing world? I wouldn’t dare to hope in that direction. It would imply even more struggle to stay with hearing non-signing persons. I couldn’t continue with that. I was determined to find a job in the deaf world, and I looked ahead for possible re-education. I applied for admission to a linguistic course in sign language at the university. Again, I hit the wall; the course was cancelled before it started. This situation has, however, changed, as she recently finished this course, and she took her exam. She is still in a state of confusion, but she seems to be more relaxed in her outlook on life now than before. Recent Changes, Revision of Life One main change in Lisa’s life, which has occurred quite recently, is her changed relationship with and attitude toward her own mother and other family members. In an early interview, she expressed a lot of anger, frustration, and bitterness related to family life, because she was both misunderstood and isolated. The rage was mainly directed toward her mother. Today she wants to give a more varied picture. My mother gave me a lot of freedom, and helped me become self supported. She has been a good mother, and I believe she did the best she could. She chose oralism, but it was not her fault. If society had accepted sign language at that time, I think she would have done otherwise. But in essence, I was lonely. That is for sure. Therefore I often had to escape. It is difficult for Lisa to discuss this issue with her mother, but Lisa can see that she tries to make family gatherings tolerable. By now there is a tacit agreement on her escape when the communication situation becomes intolerable.

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Now, she understands why I have to leave. In family situations when we gather, I can say: you’re just talking. I leave. When the situation becomes explosive, I cannot stay put. But last Christmas Eve, they managed to make it a good evening for me as well. We were just a few persons, my brother, my sister, my mother, and my grandfather, one of my uncles and I. It is in fact much better today than one year ago. She has, in fact, moved back home, and lives at her mother’s place, but only temporarily. Her own maturation and her mother’s new willingness have nothing to do with a total reconciliation. At best, it makes family life more tolerable and a little bit more relaxed. Besides, she is doomed to communicate on their terms, because none of them master sign language: “Oh, I have encouraged them to learn signs, but it has been futile. They have been at Ål a few times, but they need training, and that is lacking. They never approach other deaf persons. If we had begun from the start, it could have worked.” One of the best things she got out of her empowering period is a certain sense of self-confidence. This has also made it possible for her to revise and reinterpret previous experiences. One significant change she tells about is related to the opportunity my project has implied, by challenging her to expose her own lived experiences. There was so much skepticism towards me when I came from the States. But after the DAF meeting at Ål in 1999, when you lectured, and I told about my experiences and background, it was as if I was understood. They started to understand why I have struggled so hard and held so strong political views. I feel more accepted now. There is nothing left of their tense attitude. When I returned from the USA, I had changed. It was a phase of loneliness, accompanied by my directness and militancy. And I had the same mentality as those at Gallaudet and the Deaf College at Ål. I was an observant gatekeeper, taking care of precious things for myself. But I am more relaxed now; because when you experience more you understand more. I am still occupied with politics and Deaf consciousness, but now the personal dimension has to be added. I can see how people understand more of my concerns, when I expose a little bit more of my life.

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Exposure of one’s own life story certainly has several functions, and healing is one. What the life story does, however, as told and created, is to provide the protagonist with heightened self-reflection. For Lisa, it is also interesting to see how she realizes the power of narrative arguments in politics. This is not only utilized to regain a legitimate subject position in a figured Deaf world, but it is also a resource in communicating with present and future parents of deaf children. Her Mission and Compelling Concerns Reflecting on her miserable childhood, Lisa brings to the fore one of her most compelling concerns: an appeal to parents of deaf children to think twice. “Just imagine me as a child; hoping to become normal and always receiving the adaptive message; be nice, be pretty, be normal, do not complain.” She strongly wants other deaf children to have better opportunities for self-realization and not to develop a robot type of personality, preoccupied with passing as something beyond reach. It is all-important to focus on spiritual and psychic development. I myself have experienced psychic breakdowns, as many other deaf persons. The worst thing is when parents choose to have their deaf kids mainstreamed. This produces psychic pain, which often turns to mental illness. When the pain has got a hold on you, it is not easy to repair the damage. It becomes a burden you carry alone. The child needs a sign language environment. Today, parents too easily defend themselves and their wish for a “healthy” child: “It is my child! Don’t you dare interrupt!” It is a pity. They are so sound-oriented. It is as if hearing/not hearing becomes the most important trait with their child. It is OK to let the kids play with sounds. Give it a try, but don’t focus too much on that. It must be better to go to a deaf camp for deaf kids. That is my message. Don’t push them to become puppets and clowns. Lisa also invokes another published life story to make her arguments clear. It is Asbjørn’s story (Midtskogen 1998), which was presented earlier in this book. “Absbjørn’s story is a strong tale, employing strong symbols and metaphors. There are many similarities with my story, in fact: the

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loneliness, the disappointments, and the bothering. But he went deeper into his mental crisis than I did.” Lisa is not only targeting parents, because their choices are dependent on other factors as well, such as how the medical and the Deaf communities approach the subject matter. At the present time, she believes that the deaf associations are weak, and she calls for a politically focused struggle. The medical professions are almost totally unaware and insensitive to the needs of the deaf child and his/her community. The recipe is clear: more deaf awareness on the curricula for the medical professions and a more empowered Deaf community. I want to move to Trondheim, maybe soon. It is easy to live as deaf in that town. They have a strong community up there, and I want to spend more time with my deaf folks. We can do whatever we like, because it is possible to communicate at the same time. It is simply stimulating. I need to be part of a milieu where I can communicate and be myself, instead of a puppet on a string. Some of her reasons for heading to Trondheim are related to the negative experiences she has had within the Oslo Deaf community. However, they are equally a result of her vision of Trondheim as a good place to live—as deaf. The “cultural magnetism” of Trondheim certainly works. Even if Lisa looks upon herself and is seen as being one of the militants, she wants a more tolerant Deaf community where differences are more accepted. However, she has no intention on compromising sign language. I believe that one of the difficulties in having the hearing majority understand us is related to how we present ourselves. Many of our leaders who negotiate with majority representatives use their voice. But if one doesn’t express the language in contact situations, how can we then expect to be understood as deaf, not to say be taken seriously. How can we make them realize that we use a totally different language? Another related difficulty is the small numbers of sign language users. Lisa states that the Deaf environment could be bigger in that respect. “If the deaf community had been stronger, we could create a good environment, also including deafened persons. Nowadays a lot of deafened persons

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look down at us because of the group size and the low status we have in society. This attitude is a pity both for them and for us.” Lisa is skeptical of deafened people inside the Deaf community as well: But some of the deafened are smart. They walk into the deaf community and learn sign language. They read the power game and switch between sign language and Norwegian. One acquires a powerful position inside the deaf community and utilizes it. The problem is that they seldom show how proud they can be on behalf of sign language. It is not so that they don’t support the deaf case. They often do, but they do not behave as us. They are “nicer,” more “civilized,” since they more frequently prefer to mingle with hearing persons. We can both feel and notice their snobbishness. To combat this trend, as both Lisa and Bill want, is another case. Lisa gives an example how not to do it, because confrontation might imply an undue harassment of individuals. “I remember a girl. She was deafened, and she was not treated well at Ål. She learned sign language but was never allowed to become part of the environment. In fact she was harassed because of her hearing status. The result has been that she now wants revenge.” This girl is by now in a position where she deals with Deaf issues. Lisa is afraid that she can cause damage, because she both knows the field and has developed a negative attitude. For Lisa, this instance indicates that there should be a stronger unity between deaf and deafened people, but this is by no means an easy task. One of the repeatedly mentioned conditions Lisa has put on the agenda for better development has been to strengthen sign language in the schools, at home, in leisure, and also in contact situations as a political means to demonstrate unity. Again, this is all related to her biography and her concern for the future of deaf children and Deaf communities. She therefore appreciates the new tendencies reflected in deaf students younger than herself: There are differences between people, for instance between some younger deaf co-students and me. One of them is twenty years old, and she is highly competent in sign language and written Norwegian and English. She has already completed her English

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course at university level in England. She is a Skådalen trained girl, because her parents were aware of the benefits of having sign language in school. Her parents have been backing her up throughout childhood. But myself, I am in my mid-thirties and I am beginning to lag behind also physically. If I had a similar start as her, I would certainly have managed better. But now the time is running so fast, and it is as if I need a walking stick. LISA AND BILL: SAME PERSPECTIVES, DIFFERENT LENSES There are a lot of similarities between Lisa and Bill, and their stories. From an outside perspective, their positions are even more similar, because both of them are labeled as “militants” and “Deaf conscious” and for some this also implies “single-minded.” Besides, they had to fight for their Deaf status against a normalizing phonocentric majority. The battle was also directed inward, because much of the normalizing forces made imprints on their own minds and bodies from early childhood. These can be said to be elements of the Deaf communities’ self-understanding as well— a topic that is well exposed by both Bill and Lisa. Both claim that the Deaf communities in Norway, and, in particular, the representative body NDF, are relatively weak. Their criticism of NDF points in the same direction, namely to the problem with the deafened segment, which is more interested in equal rights as they define it than in a strengthening of the sign language communities in their own right and as a goal in itself. The stories are, hence, strong testimonies of two nearly spoiled lives. Both provide intriguing appeals to several actors on the deaf stage. Particularly, hearing parents are targeted and are asked to reconsider their plans for their deaf children. Together with the other stories told in the previous chapters, they contribute to our painting of nuances and variation in deaf identities, community concerns, and power relations. This variation also makes it possible to understand many paradoxes in the field and how difficult it is to identify both the boundaries of Deaf communities and to identify where the Deaf center resides. Who is on the margin and who is at center stage in the deaf world? This seems to be a matter of dispute, because it is a matter of situational characteristics and ambiguous power relations in flux.

6 INDIVIDUAL DILEMMAS AND COLLECTIVE OBSTACLES

Deaf people, as sign language users, make up linguistic minorities. In each of these minorities, there are developed traditions and ways of being, characteristic of that community but with many cultural aspects in common. Differences in this respect mostly are due to local and national, past and present differences, which in various degrees have limited or hampered the establishment of social bonding between deaf people. The longstanding Deaf practice of transborder cooperation and congregation, such as the World Congresses and the Deaflympics, is increasingly embraced by Deaf people around the globe. The sense of global connectedness is also fuelled by increased contact, both face-to-face and virtually, through the Internet. This is confirmed by the deaf life stories in previous chapters, in which the importance of sign language and translocal practice is made obvious. Quite often, and increasingly, this extends to a transnational practice of social bonding, which is a key to a better understanding of contemporary deaf identity management. As potential and actual members of a transnational community, deaf people enter into identity matters in ways similar to members of other transnational communities and social movements. Because of this, the feminist movement, the gay and lesbian movements, the African American movement, and the disability movement can be used for comparative

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illumination. The rhetorical power in deaf identity formation has borrowed heavily from these movements, as well as from ethnic minorities and first nations, and relates to the legitimization of diverse and somehow conflicting claims. I focus on the challenges and paradoxes, which are made visible through the life stories presented previously, where the construction of a paradoxical field of belonging, beyond territorial fixedness, is central. COMPARING POLITICS As a strategy of illumination, I compare deaf identity politics extensively with the gay/lesbian situation—as I see both interesting parallels and important differences. The Deaf gay and lesbian communities serve as a link here, as well as the strong presence of gay/lesbian leaders and individuals in some arenas of the Deaf world. The existence of phonocentrism (Wrigley 1996) within the “straight and hearing” gay and lesbian communities similarly points to the problems inherent in many “new” identity movements, namely the “one difference is enough”–policy, which, hence, is also part of deaf identity markings. Besides these diversity problems, there are other similarities as well. Central challenges face both movements. Being a minority is one thing, which is a condition they share with so many others. However, as Jankowski (1997) points out, the difference between Deaf communities and many others is that “most Deaf people are not born into their community. This creates an automatic gap not problematic in most movements, with the possible exception of the lesbian and gay movement” (170). This gap indicates a huge challenge for intergenerational continuity, which I discuss in the following sections. Further, it is possible to detect a similar resistance against mainstreaming and integration in both movements. Much of this normalization or straightgeist (Sinfield 2000) prevents or delays most Deaf individuals, as well as most gay individuals, from “readily entering the community” to which they are supposed to belong. Unlike other marginalized people “who can resort to the home as the sanctuary from the oppressive world, many Deaf people did not have this same refuge” (Jankowski 1997, 105). For both deaf people and gays and lesbians, their own homes could even signify exaggerated oppression. Even in quite tolerant

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environments, these individuals never have any guarantee of their parents accepting, much less celebrating, their difference and departure from family values. Home, as a cherished value and an aspect of belonging, certainly has a different meaning for many deaf people as well as for gays and lesbians. They mostly feel “at home among strangers.” There are other reasons for this comparison. For one, some of the narrators have pointed out similarities and connections and have led me to look into life stories by deaf gays and lesbians (http://www.deafqueer.org and Luczak 1993). Central topics, such as coming “out of the closet,”– appear, in some of these stories, to be connected to both the disclosure of their homosexuality and their cultural deafness. This theme, “coming out as Deaf,” is also present in some of the previous life stories. The Deaf World Congress This comparison is also motivated by the experiences from the Thirteenth Deaf World Congress. At this impressive event in Australia in 1999, the presence of Deaf gays and lesbians was noticeable. Noel Tovey, in his keynote speech at the congress, “Survival of Minority Cultures,” established a strong link between the Deaf struggle and the gay empowerment movement.1 The presentation made evident the connections between the Deaf and other oppressed minorities in general, the Aboriginal Australians and gays and lesbians in particular. Tovey’s speech evoked strong emotions and was extremely well fit for the purpose of unifying the diverse gathering of deaf people in their anticipated common pursuits. He said that for a minority culture to survive, it has to have three ingredients: strength, pride, and commitment to achieve equal rights. He used several examples, such as the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, which annually gathers more than 750,000 people from all over the world and has been a huge financial success for the city itself. In his conclusion, Tovey encouraged

1. Noel Tovey is an Australian choreographer. He has been learning sign language for several years and is well respected by Sydney’s deaf community. He became interested in civil rights at an early age and was engaged in the Stonewall riots in New York in the late 1960s.

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the transnational Deaf movement to continue to fight for recognition and learn from both the gay and lesbian experiences as well as from the first nations. His evocative use of historical references, comparisons, and personal experiences moved those present at the congress. Deaf and Gay Diaspora—Similarities and Differences In a recent article, Sinfield (2000) describes gay identity in terms that come close to my own way of understanding deaf identities. A deaf colleague read it similarly: “Exchange the label gay/lesbian with deaf, and you’ll have a fairly good description of our situation.” Sinfield starts his article by presenting gayness as a possible ethnic trait. The idea goes back, Sinfield believes, to the book The Homosexualization of America (Altman 1982), where Altman observes that gay men in the United States have, since the 1970s, adopted an ethnic mode of identification. Ethnicity as a framework for identity politics is one of the key factors establishing commonalties between Deaf and gay communities. This is especially true in the United States, where it provides a fertile ground for more or less obsessive identity focuses. The rhetoric of “deaf empowerment” (Jankowski 1997), which is heavily grounded in the “ethnic mode of identification,” can be observed in several instances, such as in the politically infused discussion on cochlear implants. There are different responses within the Deaf community to this challenge. Some promote a relatively clear-cut “ethnic” response against CI, whereas others expose ambiguity. Ethnification is also related to more positively framed aspects of deafhood, such as the beauty and practicality of sign language and the need for an early entrance to a signing community. This further relates to other aspects of the same field: the making of boundaries and strategies and the estimation of group size viewed from different perspectives. In the gay context, Sinfield discusses possible conflicting frameworks or ideas. The first is “minoritization” and the second is “universalization.” “In the former, lesbians and gay men constitute a fairly fixed minority, as an ethnic group is supposed to do; in the latter, virtually everyone has a potential for same-sex passion” (95). The same logic holds for the Deaf community, with a few qualifiers. Both minoritizing and universalizing ideas operate in the field of deafness. There are historically and situationally fluctuating boundaries among

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categories of “severe or profound hearing loss” (deaf ), “hard of hearing,” and “hearing.” Each individual is categorized on this scale, or continuum, based on hearing tests. This procedure often functions as a way of dividing the population into two camps: one for those perceived in need of special education, disability allowances, and so on, and the second for those rendered nearly as good as hearing and passing as such in one or more respects. Those who clearly do not benefit from this normalization are sometimes classified as “oral failures,” and allowed to join “special” settings such as the deaf schools. The size of the deaf population varies, then, in accordance with the perceived success of the normalizing effort. The phonocentrism of such a position is, however, obvious. From within the Deaf communities, the picture is often totally different. The cultural aspect of deafness is in forefront. It is those who identify themselves as deaf and signing, and at the same time are recognized as such, who constitute the Deaf community. This actual population is often small. If, on the other hand, in a universalizing vein, the possible deaf population is perceived, one could include all those using sign language, including hearing people. Because all hard-of-hearing individuals may need sign language or benefit from learning it, the community could be big—about ten to fifteen percent of any population. Utopia and the Constructions of New Forms of Belonging There are different versions of a Deaf utopia available on the scene, focusing on different aspects of deafhood. The historical examples of smallscale Deaf communities come close to some utopias. Among the most notable is Martha’s Vineyard, an island outside of Boston, where there is reported to have been a community with a higher incident of hereditary deafness than elsewhere. The hearing and deaf members of the community shared sign language, and deafness was neither considered a stigma nor marked in any specific way. The ability to interact without hindrances was taken for granted within that community (Groce 1985). This version of Deaf utopia is certainly a cherished dream among many deaf people, but not shared by all. This dream also puts at stake some of the forces of the present bonding factors in Deaf communities, and the fear of being “watered down” as a minority.

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Other versions of utopia, with a more separatist flavor, have also existed for a long time. This dream of a place, a territory, a homeland where the deaf people themselves are in charge, has been present in the Deaf world since the eighteenth century (Lane 1984) in France. Around 1850, this was eagerly and seriously discussed in the Deaf community in the United States, where “for instance John Flournoy proposed that one should establish a separate deaf state” (Wallvik 1997, 259). Flournoy wrote letters to deaf individuals in America and Europe to gain support for his grand idea. He pointed out the oppression of deaf people in the hearing world, where deaf people were ridiculed and not taken seriously. To change this, he suggested that a Deaf state should be established in the western part of the United States by gradually establishing a government for the deaf people. The idea gained much positive response, and influential people in the Deaf world considered the plan reasonable and desirable. However, there was antipathy and skepticism as well, and practical problems were exposed: What shall we do with our hearing children, siblings, and parents? What about the intellectual stimulation from the hearing world? The whole idea soon became an object of jokes and mockery. Caricatures of “Deaf-Mutia” or “Gesturia” flourished.2 Aspects of this place-orientation are present in contemporary deaf identity and community making. The places and occasions where deafness can be celebrated, and not rendered at stake, are continually sought, protected, and fought for. As such, these are also paradoxical places. Earlier, residential schools for deaf people and Deaf clubs functioned as such refuges, providing a kind of safeguard. Nowadays, other transnational or translocal events for gathering increasingly take over that function. The ethnicity-and-rights model has, as we have seen, been applied for a long time in the Deaf world: a model that, Sinfield claims, aspires to two main spheres of political efficiency. The relevant one here is the “claim for space within which the minority may legitimately express itself ” (2000, 98). For gay men, this was the Castro district of San Francisco, and in many respects they managed to do what they intended, and Castro gay leaders

2. In the novel, Islay, Bullard (1986) describes much of the seriousness, craziness, and humor of this idea.

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spoke proudly of a “liberated zone” (ibid.). Later, however, intercommunal hostility developed in and around the Castro district. One reason for this was the raised property values resulting from gentrification of the area: the affluent white gay population moved in, in large numbers, thus squeezing out other, mainly black and Latino, minorities (Castells 1997). This is related to another phenomenon that causes tension: the tendency for both gay and Deaf leadership and organizations to be represented and dominated by white, male, middle-class people and values. These accusations from within show that these elites neither accept nor celebrate the diversity within their communities. Cruikshank (1992), for instance, discusses the practice of “outing” as a middle-class strategy that represents “the misguided action of white men,” and claims that minorities risk more than others by being exposed in public. Empowerment is here put up against coercion. For deaf people, outing is neither possible nor practiced, because deaf identities cannot be hidden in the same way. However, it happens, frequently, that people who some feel should have been more deaf are questioned as potential traitors [“because they are so God damned fond of their mouthing and ability to cope with the hearing stuff ” (Bill)] and pretenders, and are challenged to prove otherwise. This practice, however, is often counterproductive for similar reasons as outing. Because of this, some might find the option of “Deaf culture” too restrictive for their passion and even wage war on Deaf culture (Bertling 1994). There is, however, a growing recognition of the multiple and conflicting loyalties that make identity politics anything but clear-cut. One of the reasons for the problems in establishing territorial communities among both the Deaf and the gay segments of the population can also be seen in this light. The difference between the Castro district and a Deaf state is obvious. The first one has been experienced, and the other remains a dream. However, the reasons why neither the Castro district nor the Deaf state succeeds, as might be the case, seem to be parallel: the “clashing of competing interests is endemic to the ethnicity-and-rights model” (Sinfield 2000, 98). Claiming Rights To claim rights as a collective, both gay/lesbian and Deaf movements seem to struggle with some of the same challenges related to ethnification.

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This is partly because “we have constituted ourselves in the period when ethnicity, following the precedent of the Black civil rights movement, has offered the dominant paradigm for political advancement” (Sinfield 2000, 95) and has become “the default model for all minority movements” (Warner 1993). The culmination of this trend is to provide “objective evidences” and “immutable characteristics” to support ethnic claims (Sinfield 2000). However, the problem of establishing the group as a minority in this extremely strong sense, by searching for the “deaf gene,” similar to the “gay gene,” limits the size of the group by making it extremely exclusive. This position also opens the way for genetic engineering and control. Such an extreme essentialism of identity, however, is not the only option; the construction of genetic sameness is only one alternative. Establishment of same history, same experiences of the world, same sensual orientation, same language or mode of communication, and same culture are also used and often are more apt for practical negotiations of identities. However, the ethnic model seems to be inherently problematic. By adopting the model of “biological determinism,” one might help to establish legitimate claims, but the dangers are also massive. Other arguments used to legitimate minorities’ right to exist are, for instance, the claim that human variation is an unquestionable benefit (Solvang 2000). Societies that accept this also show examples of acceptance and prosperity for individuals and groups making up the diversity. Diversity within the minorities, however, is not addressed. In the gay/lesbian movement, the ethnic model has come under new kinds of questioning, writes Sinfield. He makes reference to White’s wondering whether I myself might not have been bisexual had I lived in another area. The post-Stonewall drive to be gay limited him: “I denied the authenticity of my earlier heterosexual feelings in the light of my later homosexual identity.” (Sinfield 2000, 96) This goes to the heart of the problem of perceiving diversity within Deaf communities and deaf individuals. Even if much of this unification may be seen as a necessary collective strategy to win battles, such as the Deaf President Now protest at Gallaudet University in 1988, problems remain. The suppression of mixed feelings, mixed loyalties, and so on is

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quite evident and well exposed in the life stories presented in the previous chapters. Purification, “feel-good-or-else-politics” (Simpson 1996) and “one –difference –is –enough –and sufficient” politics are certainly as much of a challenge in deaf identity formation as in a gay/lesbian identity discourse. A strong process of ethnification thus can put individuals who are on the fence, or in a state of ambiguity, in a difficult position. They are easily rendered as not good enough, merely on their way, or as unreliable and potential traitors of the right cause. Both the Stonewall riot in New York in 1967 and the DPN protest in Washington, D.C., in 1988 are key episodes in the construction of contemporary identity politics in the gay and the Deaf movements, respectively. In most accounts, these episodes are considered as the most positive and empowering instances that inspired and have continued to inspire further empowerment and a “can do” spirit in both movements transnationally. The Gallaudet revolt is extensively described elsewhere (Gannon 1989, Jankowski 1997). One of the few critical remarks comes from Padden who writes that the DPN campaign was “largely a revolution of the middle class” (1996, 95). Lisa, in the previous chapter, points toward a similar criticism when she describes the strong Deaf people with a hegemonic position at Gallaudet. Elitism and middleclass values in Deaf identity politics are also evident in other spheres. One such sphere, which is also well explored through the story of Lisa, is the war that is waged against peddling. Peddlers/beggars are accused either of taking undue advantage of their deafness or of pretending, that is, being hearing people pretending to be deaf. The issue is complex, but it is central to the present argument of elitism to point out the heritage within Deaf politics on the importance of not being “classed with any group of people who were not self-supporting” (Van Cleve 1997). The Deaf empowerment movement, which arose in the aftermath of DPN, concentrated on collective cohesion and strength, a process that had both positive and negative outcomes for the deaf people involved. The increased pressure to demonstrate loyalty and political correctness did indeed produce trouble, and therewith also suppression of diversity. Suppression of an individual’s own complex identity, as a sacrifice for a “better” cause, or for the benefit of collective cohesion and strength,

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causes trouble. Inside both identity movements there is a growing resistance to this suppression, as is differently evident in both the Queer Nation reaction and in the “movement” for reclaiming “muteness,” as a more “thorough resistance to regimes of the normal” (Warner 1993). Queering and Muting: The Trouble on the Fence This more thorough resistance is equally present in both gay and Deaf discourses. Quite recently, there has been a revitalization of the label “deaf-mute” in parts of the Deaf environment in Scandinavia. The argumentation is complex and paradoxical. The most common sign for deaf throughout the world implies both deafness and muteness, because the index finger or two fingers makes a move from the ear to the mouth. One exception is NSL, where the sign is modified to not include the mouth/mute part. The written term deaf (døv) has more widely replaced the old deafmute label. One reason given for replacement or modification of a sign/ word is that the old one implies a prejudice, an insult. Everybody should know by now, it is said, that deaf people are not mute, because it is possible to improve speech by training and therapy. In addition, because muteness as stupidity goes hand-in-hand in the old “deaf and dumb” phrase, it has been considered convenient to drop that part of the term. For a long time, Deaf organizations and deaf individuals have accused hearing, ignorant journalists of using a wrong and prejudiced term. In this context, the revitalization and reclaiming of the term “deaf-mute” from within is met with confusion and mixed sentiments. It is meant as a marker of a more pure and uncontaminated visual Deaf identity, and as a term against the collaborative segments of the environment that value and cherish their speech abilities. It is hence a marker of a “new” unwillingness to engage in oral communication, which disfavors the “genuinely” deaf person’s favored modality. This resistance against regimes of the normal within the Deaf community targets the people and groups who mingle too easily with the hearing world. By doing so, they are contributing to what some call a “distorted and false image of who we really are” (Bill). However, most of the reactions I have noticed run counter to the spirit of this. Trygve is one of them. He says that he does “not agree with the transition from Deaf to

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Deaf-Mute.” He is simply not willing to be policed by others and stop talking—a position that is supported by deaf-born subjects as well, such as Hilde and Sally. Trygve does, however, respect the opposite stance: “It’s fine with me, since it gives a pretty fair impression of his unwillingness to use a speech he has no control over. But it makes him quite inflexible. It is OK, as long as I am not pushed into the same position.” However, for some, this is a cultural struggle where the framing of the genuine Deaf culture as a threatened one is put in the forefront. This position leaves no room for compromises and creolization and indicates a possible split in the Deaf environment in Norway. What are we witnessing here? Deaf people who are born deaf and are not able or willing to engage in communication on the terms of the oppressors feel like a squeezed minority within a larger community. The gradual “takeover” of their organization by deaf and deafened people who use spoken Norwegian, speechreading, and signed Norwegian, poses a certain threat. From the others’ perspective, they feel degraded in cultural terms, not Deaf enough, and that this group of “militants” makes it more difficult to be deaf. This is a complex issue. In this context, it suffices to say that there are many groups and individuals who feel their own positions are at stake. To determine which ones are “on the fence” and which ones are “on center stage” is a difficult task. Both trends, ethnification and mainstreaming, are here involved in different and mixed veins. They seem not only to be in conflict per se, but also put individuals in conflict with one another and with themselves. This is evident in several preceding life stories, and one of the reasons why Deaf identifications are so politically charged and foster an extreme level of self-reflection. However, the situational character of identity must be remembered, because such a perspective allows for a possible and actual move between different and seemingly incompatible subject positions. This is obvious when one looks at individual life stories and investigates changing positions in relation to the contexts in which they appear. In everyday life, in hearing worlds, this implies using voice, engaging in compromises, and downplaying many Deaf concerns. In other instances, such as at transnational events where deafness and visual communication are the rule, a more cultural outlook emerges and the strong sensation of belonging appears. The living of a deaf life is thus a complex and pragmatic

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endeavor, and central aspects of selfhood are expressed and experienced at different junctures. The construction of center and periphery is extremely complex, both within the Deaf and the gay movements. The Deaf-queer segment, which crosscuts both movements, is a good case for further exploration and establishes the symbolic connection between queer and mute. On the website of the Deaf Queer Resource Center, there was a forum debate on the meaning of the term “queer,” which further strengthens this connection. “D.,” for instance, sees a direct connection between the queer/gay debate and the Deaf/deaf-mute debate. “There may come a day when the Deaf will find it useful and necessary to reclaim terms like ‘deaf mute’ and ‘deaf and dumb’ in kind of the same way.” However, to be sure, many are not ready to use the “new” labels. Both “queering” and “muting” strategies thus are invoked to oppose troubling tendencies within both movements. The queering strategy marks an opposition against the straight part of the gay movement, which seeks legitimating on the altar of normality by claiming the right to parenthood, marriage, and establishment of families, thus blueprinting the patriarchal structure. They “criticize mainstream gays for trying to define new norms of the ‘socially acceptable’, thus reproducing the logic of domination that oppressed gays and lesbians throughout history” (Castells 1997, 219), at the expense of sexual liberation. The muting strategy similarly opposes mainstreaming on hearing terms within the Deaf movement. At the same time, it opposes tendencies toward mixture, creolization, and flexibility of deaf identities as well. Hence, the strategy poses other challenges and problems to deaf people than queering does. Muting, in many respects, represents a stronger version of the already troublesome ethnification process and intensifies the problems of making hybrid identities accepted, if not celebrated. However, these strategies are difficult to evaluate in any clear-cut fashion, because conflicting and powerful forces from both within and outside keep the tensions alive, putting extensive pressure on the members of the movements to conform in one way or another. It is also so that “the pluralist myth which legitimates the ethnicity-and-rights model affords useful tactical opportunities” (Sinfield 2000, 100). Sinfield, thus, strongly argues “that we cannot afford entirely to abandon a minoritizing model” (100). In the Deaf movement, this would be true as well. However, the label subculture would be exchanged with the linguistic signifier: “We cannot afford

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to lose sign language—the cornerstone of deaf culture.” The ethnic model does force us to consider the multicultural challenge, further problematizing the presumptions of single movements, uniform identities, and clear boundaries. The Multicultural Matrix The literature on multiculturalism and politics of identity within an ethnopoltical framework is extensive and rapidly growing. One of the few scholars who discuss Deaf and gay identity politics within such a framework is Kymlicka (1998), in his rethinking of ethnocultural relations. He deals with the question, “Can multiculturalism be extended to non-ethnic groups?” His reason for raising the question is that the demand of ethnic groups for multiculturalism are part of a broader movement towards a “politics of identity,” in which a wide range of previously disadvantaged groups seek public recognition of their distinctive identities and needs. Among these groups are women, gays and lesbians, religious minorities, and people with disabilities. (90) In the United States, Kymlicka writes, this is more or less an integrated aspect of multiculturalism where all kinds of identity politics tend to be included. It is not so in Canada and elsewhere, where deaf and gay minority members mostly are excluded from “the language of multiculturalism,” even if there are occasional references to “Gay communities” and “Deaf subculture” (ibid.). In the comparison of Deaf and gay/lesbian groups on one side and ethnocultural groups on the other, he states that there are similarities. Both gays/lesbians and the Deaf are increasingly moving towards quasi-“cultural” conceptions of their group identity. . . . They often compare themselves to ethnic groups, and some gay groups have even adopted the language of ethnic separatism and minority nationalism. (ibid.) The language of separatism is also used within the Deaf movement. Kymlicka interestingly compares its slightly differing but otherwise similar rhetoric in relation to its possible positions within the multicultural matrix.

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First of all, he sees both the supposedly new tendencies toward ethnification and culturalization (from so-called nonethnic groups) and the new tendencies of de-ethnification within established ethnocultural groups. Gay/lesbians and the Deaf community have, respectively, come to share more than their questionable “biological disposition.” They have come to share some kind of commonness of identity, culture, history, and way of life. This is a convergence, which is highly interesting because this strengthens the claims from so-called nonethnic groups. “If ethnocultural groups are worthy of recognition because they provide people with valuable cultural practices and group identities, and not because they are united by shared blood, then why not also include non-ethnic groups that have developed a common culture, like gays or the Deaf?” (ibid., 97). The “occasional adoption of the rhetoric of nationalism” from these groups should be rendered neither desirable nor feasible, he continues. These “identity groups are in fact much closer to immigrant groups than to national minorities in their relations with the larger society” (ibid., 91). One reason for this is the lack of intergenerational continuity and territorial stableness. Gays and lesbians do not get gay and lesbian offspring and must therefore rely on adults moving in. An aspect connected to this is that these identities are products of “secondary socialization,” which he believes is less formative. Hence, gay communities and identity movements must deal with “already formed selves” that “already possess a variety of cross-cutting identities.” For Kymlicka, gay separatism is therefore not viable. He recognizes the “impressive institutional elaboration of gay communities in recent years” but states that “gay culture remains far from institutionally complete. There are no gay universities or governments, and gays lack in the territorial concentration to create such institutions” (ibid., 99). The situation of Deaf people is rather different, he says. “Many” deaf children are born and raised into Deaf culture and sign language and so exhibit the same tenacious commitment to their first language that other national minorities do, interacting with the hearing world only through interpreters, or via speechreading, which works only for a limited range of social circumstances (ibid., 100–101). Much of this is true, but Kymlicka overstates the intergenerational continuity. I side more with Jankowski (1997), who makes the continuity gap an important aspect. The sense of being at home is not installed as a result of territorial co-presence with

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hearing kin and neighbors during childhood. It often contradicts the commonplace of “spatial proximity as sameness” and “spatial distance as difference” (Lakoff and Johnson 1999). The significant others of many deaf individuals are more often than not deaf fellows from outside of the places where they have been raised, which reinforces the translocal and travelogue nature of Deaf identification. Kymlicka further overstates the importance of isolation and departure from the hearing world. To me it tastes too much of political correctness, as his reading is too close to the few and officially sanctioned texts on deafness (Padden and Humphries 1988, Sacks 1990). To write about the self-sufficiency and protectiveness of Deaf communities implies a simplification, resulting from a biased or limited knowledge of diversity within Deaf communities. However, Kymlicka has a point. The Deaf community does have the institutional strength lacking in gay/lesbian communities. There is, for instance, a Deaf university, Gallaudet, which serves not only deaf Americans but also the rest of the world. Gay and lesbian students can, however, go to universities with gay-sensitive reputations, but there are no safe refuges here, as there are for the deaf population. Kymlicka believes, then, that immigrant models of integration are more apt for gays than for deaf people. The Deaf community has, for a long time, fought even most ideas of integration, which, in addition, have put them apart from much of the broader disability movement that cherishes integration and often excessive mainstreaming (Campbell and Oliver 1996). The issue of integration is too complex to be treated in this way only. Integration means different things in different national settings. Besides, a positioning of Deaf and gay/lesbian communities within the borders of nation-states makes us lose sight of the transnational features, overstating the significance of territorial stability and the boundedness of social groups. However, the national sign languages make a difference, accounting for a more “institutionally complete societal culture” than gays and lesbians can arrive at. The Newness of Social Movements Both movements are often described as “new social movements,” along with peace groups, environment groups, and human rights groups (Beck

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1992). The newness, it is said, lies in their departure from old social movements (labor, farmer, and political movements) because they are not supposed to be rooted in “common interest” but rather in “common identity” (Beck 1992, Kymlicka 1998). Both the Deaf and the Gay movements do, of course, deal with identity, but so did the “old” as well, even if not that outspoken. Common interest seems to be as much a drive in new movements as in the old. The difference lies perhaps in other interest focuses and in novel ways of approaching previously pathologized identities. It is also so that some practices have become more identifying than before. Foucault (1978) states that there were homosexual acts, but no person or groups were “oriented” exclusively to same-sex sexual relations for a long time throughout history. After a long historical process of using behavior to define people and, later, groups, we entered a period where homosexuals were envisioned to constitute a statistical group, a random proportion of individuals affected by the medical “condition” or biological “orientation” of homosexuality. Later, in the early post-Stonewall era, the changes were rapid, as seen from both within and from outside. Gradually, and with increasing speed, homosexuals began to look upon themselves as something else and more. The shift from a “medical” to a “cultural” definition is reflected in the way gays distinguish cultural gayness from behavioral homosexuality. This shift certainly qualified for the term “new” at that time, and it still does in some areas. For the Deaf movement, the situation seems similar. The move from a medical to a cultural agenda is made clear in recent statements and life narratives. Asbjørn’s story, “From the Medical to the Cultural,” is one that figures this move as an individual struggle to find oneself. The relief came when the person moved into an already-established cultural Deaf setting that he had been denied access to before. The personal narrative further draws heavily upon master narratives available through “Deaf empowerment” and also establishes a homology between an individual route toward liberation and collective de-medicalization and culturalization. The Deaf communities have, however, for a long time seen themselves as cultural. From outside, the picture has been different; the pathological outlook has been pervasive and less changing. From a Deaf perspective there is another related aspect that enables us to discuss yet

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another argument on the newness of social movements. In disability politics, the establishment of Disabled People’s International (DPI) in 1981 is seen as an indication of something new. That “which distinguishes new movements from others, is that they often have international dimensions and that they raise important issues for the global community to deal with, not simply for the nation states” (Campbell and Oliver 1996, 174). This newness holds quite well for the transnational disability movement, but not necessarily for the Deaf movement. The Deaf community has always been a step ahead of other disability groups in organizational tradition and cultural awareness, and extensive “contact among Deaf people from different nations probably dates from the first International Congresses of the Deaf, beginning in Paris in 1889” (Lane, Hoffmeister, and Bahan 1996, 207). More permanent Deaf transnational organizations were first established in the field of sports in 1924 to host the quadrennial Deaflympics. The World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) was formalized in 1951, after several world congresses, to more effectively combat the transnational normalizing forces. In addition, the congresses function as important occasions for deaf people to gather and to promote Deaf ways of life. The same holds for other translocal events, which are reckoned as important sites of cultural performances, events that transform Deaf cultural awareness and regenerate cultural practice. The Deaf movement is a strong and fragile movement at the same time, and the strong normalizing forces from outside make it even more necessary for the community to be engaged in active cultural production. This is a regenerating practice, which has to be self-reflexive and alert. This leads us, first of all, to a focus on identity formation, transcending territorial fixedness. This means that the transnational and translocal character of Deaf identities must be reckoned, and new aspects of identity and belonging must be addressed. Translocal Orientation and Flexibility The expressive and performative qualities of identity formation, as enacted at different places and occasions, are one dimension to explore. The problem of such emerging forms of belonging is that they have been delegitimized

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from the outside and not thoroughly explored from within. The ethnic model has its drawbacks, even if it has paved the way for a new claiming of recognition within a multicultural framework. However, it is also possible to adopt a more flexible stance, which might counter some of the negative aspects of ethnification. Much of my writing in previous sections suggests a more hybrid stance. The term hybrid, despite its often negative connotations, is used with increasing frequency in the understanding of diaspora communities (such as blacks, Jews, etcetera), and theorists of ethnicity have for a long time been questioning to what degree those constructs offer a secure base for self-understanding and political action. Hall (1992) formulates this positively by framing identity differently, “not by essence or purity, but by recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity; by a conception of ‘identity’ which lives with and through, not despite difference; by hybridity” (254). Hybridity, then, speaks about disconnections and displacements. The experiences of homelessness and disconnection motivate people to reassemble the fragments containing traces of more or less coherent systems of order (Gates 1988). This also implies continual activity to create crossroads where cherished face-to face encounters can occur. The diverse search for fundamentals and the endemic impossibility of establishing them as “a secure base for self-understanding and political action” more than points toward hybridity. In practice, it is not easy to keep tradition and hybridity together in the same frame. As we have seen, the search for fundamentals is often politically important and hence should not be abandoned in principle. Pressure from both within and from outside the identity movements produces highly reflexive and politicized identities. They are strong and vulnerable at the same time and often for the same set of reasons. The expressiveness produced and necessitated by the collective search for recognition of difference often jeopardizes individuals in their necessary strategies of coping in their everyday life, which are not safeguarded by the ethnic pride models. Solutions are hard to find. The lived lives and stories of the deaf people I have been in contact with, however, suggest ways out of this conceptual mess. By following some of these narrators from one setting to another and being engaged in their autobiographical constructions and recrafting, it has gradually become clear to me that different aspects of self

INDIVIDUAL DILEMMAS

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and identity operate differently in different situations. In certain situations, some aspects of selfhood seem to be covered or slumbering or not considered of relevance, while others become highlighted and openly expressed. Shifting frames of relevance, moving in and out of contexts, and the ability to employ different frames simultaneously all point toward a need for a new understanding of selves and identities, as shifting, flexible, and alert to the necessities of the situation. The ethnic model must be seen in the same light, as a strategy calibrated to relevant situations and contexts. Sinfield (2000) discusses the term “strategic essentialism” as a way to retain the bonding and bridging effects as well as the political force in claiming rights. However, he is skeptical of how far the model can be pushed. The problems of being upfront all the time are massive. Even the most Deaf-conscious people will still experience frequent encounters with hearing people, showing that they also have to cope with phonocentrism. Being and Longing Both deaf and gay people often have to move away from one home and head toward another. This is seldom a travelogue of return, but rather a projection of a space of communion that can be temporarily and situationally realized at translocal events. The identity project is thus not a settlement quest but a quest of provisional belonging. Belonging is therewith both cherished and problematic. The beauty of the term belonging is that it makes it possible to approach the double aspect of identification, in particular the affective, emotionally charged one. The be-longing speaks not only about ontological being, but also about the affective dimension of longing. This is again an opportunity to focus upon dreaming, searching, projecting, and staging as central to the human quest. This is highly evident in deaf people who are clearly deprived of any granted home. Identity and be-longing are thus a process of achievement, projecting, and embodiment, “an effect performatively produced” (Bell 1993, 3) and narratively crafted through “shifting locations” (Gupta and Ferguson 1997) as a lived travelogue. This perspective is perfectly apt for describing the Deaf situation in particular, but also the gay/lesbian case. The status as culturally Deaf is something that must be achieved. It is a fragile state of being that is threatened, contested, and often delegitimated

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from outside and, to some extent, from within. It is a position that has to be recognized by significant others in order to count. It must be enacted and is only safeguarded in situational terms. The enactment is, to an increasing extent, conducted at translocal and transnational gatherings and crossroads. The enactment and recognition is further dependent on the embodiment of a specific, “always in the making” orientation in the world. In qualitative terms, performing deafness as signed communication practice occupies a position of social centrality for most deaf people. Participation at transnational Deaf gatherings and translocal Deaf clubs are therefore often referred to as “refill experiences” and as “being at Home.” This is further highlighted through key turning point events, as narrated in several life stories in previous chapters. A Memorable Ceremony and Closure My own entry into one of the center stages of Deaf transnational culture, the World Congress in Brisbane in 1999, forcefully demonstrated to me that the spot was not a place of local culture. What I did was to move, to travel, in the same direction as some of my “local” friends and storytellers in Norway—to grasp aspects of social centrality in the lives of deaf people. The world congresses certainly are such occasions. However, this is not to say that deaf people travel all the time. I do not question that most deaf people live permanently in neighborhoods, apartments, or houses. That is exactly what they do most of the time. However, spending massive amounts of time in local households or neighborhoods does not always produce feelings of home, roots, and belonging. At best, it contributes to a partial connectedness, which further highlights the trans- and multilocal dimension of Deaf identities, the scatteredness of Deaf belonging, and multiplicity of conflicting loyalties. Deaf identities are often constructed in limbo, in the no man’s land that can be everywhere or nowhere, but seldom fixed. This also points toward the strong longing aspect of deaf identity formation, described previously. As indicated, this produces conditions for active and engaged cultural work and a strong focus on politics of identity, because little can be taken for granted from tradition. The importance of the world congresses and other events are therefore obvious. Besides bringing large numbers of people together and facilitating

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a huge amount of face-to-face encounters among deaf individuals, the core and collective events of relevance are often widely broadcast to the entire Deaf world. In Brisbane, the different national Deaf magazines and television programs informed their respective audiences, before, during, and after the congress. Individuals attending brought their versions, greetings, and impressions back “home,” and through that they too contributed to a broader sharing of the transnational experiences. Old friends greeted each other, and strangers engaged in “small talk,” obviously ready to become more involved. Contacts were strengthened, established, and maintained in the aftermath through e-mail. The climate for making lasting relationships was perfect, as new lovers and possible life companions promised to keep in touch, and, as far as I know, many actually do. Many visit each other, and a few of them again move to the other’s place of residence and marry. Bridging between parts of the Deaf world in geographical and cultural terms was, hence, an important aspect of the congress. The theme “diversity and unity” and the multicultural spirit were well reflected in the congress menu of lectures, workshops, and artistic works. More representatives from the third world were present than before, and ethnic and sexual minorities were included. Strong aspects of unification were also present, because the growing recognition of internal differences cleared the air for unity in what is seen as the core of Deaf identity. Halfway through the congress, an evocative ceremony was enacted, a unifying and illustrative performance. It was the Ceremony of the Blue Ribbon: Candles were lit, lights dimmed, and Deaf history was enacted on stage by young and old, men and women, starting with the oppression of Deaf people, the forcing of deaf children to learn speech, and the banning of sign language. The story of assimilation that made them isolated was enacted, as well as Deaf people as survivors, who can communicate with each other through sign language, no matter where they come from: “We are strong and will grow stronger. The Nazis used the color blue to identify Deaf people, and now we have the blue ribbon as a symbol of our diversity and unity. The blue ribbon reminds us to keep fighting for our rights.” The most important thing here seemed to be the remembering aspect, which unified through and despite the acknowledged diversity. The staging of both the preciousness of sign language and the commonness of

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experiences evoked strong emotions. A Silent News reporter wrote a few days later: “The ceremony was so moving that there was hardly a dry eye at the end.” The ceremony also further strengthened the bonding aspects in the Deaf world, by creating bridges between generations and toward the future.

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✥ INDEX

academia: Bill’s story, 151; Hilde’s story, 26–27; Lisa’s story, 172–75; Sally’s story, 128–30; Trygve’s story, 52–53. See also Ål Deaf College; Gallaudet University adoption, 32–33, 39–40 Åfolkehøgskole for døve, 14 Albertine’s story, 107–22, 144 Ål Deaf College, 14, 121n; Bill’s story, 150, 151, 153; changes at, 126; Deaf consciousness and, 13, 29, 125, 158–59; Deafened students and, 46–48, 59–60; Deaf Video and Broadcasting Unit and, 153; Hilde’s story, 28; Klara’s story, 92; sign language and, 29 Alf (student), 47–48 “ålingene,” 28 Ålings, 28 American Sign Language (ASL),

12, 41; Albertine’s story, 111–12; as a foreign language, 111–12; Lisa’s story, 173, 174; Sally’s story, 134 Anita’s story, 32–42, 43, 44 Asbjørn’s story. See Midtskogen, Asbjørn. ASL. See American Sign Language. Association for the Hard of Hearing (HLF), 69, 158 autobiographies: Deaf identity and, 2–3; examples and types of, 8–11; Gallaudet University Press and, 8; literacy and, 3; signed, 3–4; therapy and, 80n; travelogue format and, 17 Avatars, 101 BBS. See bulletin board system. beggars/begging, 170–71, 193 Beijing, 132–33 belonging, 105, 203–4

213

214

INDEX

Bergen Festival, 14, 24 Bill’s story, 147–64, 184, 194 “biological determinism,” 192 Bjørkåsen School, 149 blending, 155–58 “born-again” experience, 23 Briskeby School, 51, 52, 58–59, 89, 113, 114 British Sign Language (BSL), 119, 134 “broken narratives,” 80 BSL. See British Sign Language. Bulgaria, 119 bulletin board system (BBS), 37n Carkins, Earnest E., 3 Castro district, 190–91 center/periphery dynamic, 18, 43–44, 194–97 Ceremony of the Blue Ribbon, 205–6 childhood: Albertine’s story, 108–10; Anita’s story, 32–34; Bill’s story, 147–49; Håkon’s story, 66, 71; Hilde’s story, 19–21, 19–22; Klara’s story, 82–84; Lisa’s story, 164–67, 178; Ragnhild’s story, 56–57, 65; Sally’s story, 122–24, 126–27; self-understanding and, 80; Trygve’s story, 48–49, 50 Child Sacrificed to the Deaf Culture, A (Bertling), 11–12 China, 132–33 cochlear implants (CI), 47, 173; Anita’s story, 40, 41; Bill’s story, 159; Deafened people and, 71–72; ethnicity and, 188;

Håkon’s story, 71–72; Hilde’s story, 29–30, 32; Klara’s story, 102–3; Asbjørn Midtskogen and, 4, 5–8; Trygve’s story, 55 “coming out,” 187, 191 Conservative Party, 39 convent schools, 85 Copenhagen, 119 coping, Klara’s story, 104 critiques, 11–12 Cry of the Gull, The (Laborit), 9–10 Cultural Festivals of the Deaf, 14, 24, 163 cyberspace, 100–2. See also Internet DAF. See Deaf Academics Deaf Academics (DAF), 118, 121n, 144 Deaf Adult Speaks Out, A (Jacobs), 8 Deaf Again (Drolsbaugh), 9–10 “deaf and dumb” syndrome, 22; Albertine’s story, 116; Klara’s story, 80 deaf children of deaf parents: Anita’s story, 32–41; Deaf identity and, 32 deaf churches, 38, 110 deaf clubs, 14, 75; Albertine’s story, 110, 118; Hilde’s story, 23–24 Deaf community/communities: autobiographies and, 2–3; center/periphery dynamic and, 18, 194–97; contemporary conflicts in, 120; deaf children

INDEX

of deaf parents and, 32; Deaf consciousness, 13, 54; Deafened people and, 45–46, 64, 69–70, 72–73, 74–77, 160–61, 182–83, 184, 195; deaf-mute label and, 194–97; deaf schools and, 152; difficulties of social life, 92–93; disability politics and, 13, 201; disturbing events at Ål College and, 46–48; elite leadership and, 191; foreign, 135–38; gay/ lesbian community and, 188–89; global connectedness, 185; institutional strength of, 199; intergenerational continuity and, 198–99; as linguistic minorities, 185; minoritizing and universalizing notions in, 188–89; mixed language and, 195; narrowness of social life in, 69–71; “nationalism” and, 54; prejudice within, 10–11; sign language competency and, 106; as smallscale and local, 75; transmission of cultural traditions, 2–3; transnational boundaries and, 12, 53; “tribal conformity” and, 120–22; village analogy, 141–42; written critiques of, 11–12 Deaf consciousness, 54; Ål Deaf College and, 13, 29, 125, 158–59; Bill’s story, 158–62; Deaf President Now campaign and, 159n; Gallaudet University and, 13; introduction of term, 159n. See also Deaf Power Deaf Cultural Festivals, 14, 24, 163 Deaf empowerment, 188

215

Deafened people: Ål Deaf College and, 46–48, 59–60; Bill’s story, 160–61; cochlear implants and, 71–72; Deaf community and, 45–46, 64, 69–70, 72–73, 74–77, 160–61, 182–83, 184, 195; Deaf identity and, 72–73, 77; Håkon’s story, 66–77; mixed relationships and, 67–68; prejudice against Deaf people, 70; Ragnhild’s story, 56–66; sign language and, 59–61; Trygve’s story, 48–56 Deaf European Soccer Competition, 118 Deaf gay/lesbians, 187–88 “deaf gene,” 192 Deaf identity: belonging and, 203–4; center/periphery dynamic and, 18, 43–44; deaf children of deaf parents and, 32; Deafened people and, 72–73, 77; difficulties in creating, 13; double identification, 49–52; ethnification and, 191–94; fluidity of, 77; hybridity and, 202; “life is a journey metaphor,” 2; metaphors of space and, 17–18, 20; multiculturalism matrix, 197–99; passage phase, 56; shift from “medical” to “cultural” definitions, 200; transnational nature of, 12; world congresses and, 204–6 Deaf identity politics: center/ periphery conflict and, 194–97; compared to gay/lesbian identity politics, 186–87; Deaf President

216

INDEX

Deaf identity politics (continued ) Now campaign and, 193; elitism and, 193 Deaf Magazine, 153, 154, 160 deaf marriages, 127 Deaf movement, 199–201 deaf-mute label, 159–60, 161, 194–97 deafness, stigma and, 33 Deaf Olympics, 14–15, 110, 111, 113, 118, 133–34 deaf peddlers, 170–71, 193 Deaf people: home and, 186; homelessness and, 78–79; peripheral wisdom/vision binary, 18 Deaf Power: Albertine’s story, 120; Bill’s story, 158–62; Deaf President Now campaign and, 159n; “nationalism” and, 54; sign language and, 125–26. See also Deaf consciousness Deaf President Now campaign (DPN), 4, 10, 192; Deaf consciousness and, 13; Deaf empowerment and, 159n; identity politics and, 193; Lisa’s story, 175 Deaf-queer community, 196 Deaf Queer Resource Center, 196 deaf schools, 6, 152–53. See also education; individual schools Deaf utopia, 189–90, 191 Deaf Video and Broadcasting Unit (DV), 153, 176 Deaf Winter Olympics, 118 Deaf World Congress, 187–88 disability label, 13, 55, 73–74

disability politics, 201 disabled people, 103, 104 Disabled People’s International (DPI), 201 “disembedding mechanisms,” 78 double marginality: Håkon’s story, 71–74; Klara’s story, 81–106, 104 Døves Tidsskrift, 14, 153 DPI. See Disabled People’s International DV. See Deaf Video and Broadcasting Unit education: Albertine’s story, 109–11, 114–15; Asbjørn’s story, 6; Bill’s story, 147–48, 149–50; Hilde’s story, 21–22; integration policy and, 152; Klara’s story, 84, 85; Lisa’s story, 167–68, 171; Ragnhild’s story, 58–59. See also academia “18 Hands,” 49 electronic communication, 142–43. See also e-mail; Internet elites/elitism, 191, 193 e-mail, 53, 62, 142–43 England, 118–19 epiphanies, 97 ethnicity, 188 ethnification, 191–94 European Deaf Soccer Championship, 163 exchange students, 111–13 Faberborg School, 171 family relations: Bill’s story, 162–63; critique of, 181;

INDEX

Håkon’s story, 67–68; Hilde’s story, 30–31; Klara’s story, 82, 83–84, 85–87; Lisa’s story, 179–80, 181; Ragnhild’s story, 61–62; Sally’s story, 139–40 Flournoy, John, 190 “From the Medical Towards the Cultural” (Midtskogen), 4, 5–8, 200 Gallaudet University, 4, 112, 199; Deaf consciousness and, 13; Lisa’s story, 164, 165, 167, 168, 172–75 Gallaudet University Press (GUP), 8 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, 187 “gay gene,” 192 gay/lesbian communities: elite leadership and, 191; separatism and, 198; similarities and differences with Deaf community, 188–89; utopias and, 189, 190–91 gay/lesbian identity: belonging and, 203; ethnification and, 191–94; home and, 186 shift from “medical” to “cultural” definitions, 200 gay/lesbian politics, 186–87 gay movement, 199–201 genetic engineering, 192 group identities, 43–44. See also Deaf identity; gay/lesbian identity. GUP. See Gallaudet University Press. GUTS talk show, 174

217

Håkon’s story, 66–77 Half-way Home (Monette), 105 Handwave Publications, 9n hard of hearing, Anita’s story, 32–35, 41–42 Haugen School, 108, 109, 113 hearing-deaf marriages, 127 Hilde’s story, 42–43 HLF. See Association for the Hard of Hearing Holiday camps, 21 home, 105, 186, 204 homelessness: Deaf people and, 78–79; Klara’s story, 81–106; modernity and, 78; homicides, 121n homophobia, 10 Homosexualization of America, The (Altman), 188 Høyre, 39 humour, 146–47, 164 hybridity, 202 ICQ, 117 ICT. See information and communication technologies. identity: belonging and, 203; connotations of, 1; cyberspace and, 100–2; ethnicity and, 188; marginalized groups and, 104. See also Deaf identity; gay/ lesbian identity identity quest, 8, 104 I Didn’t Hear the Dragon Roar (Parsons), 8–9 imitation, 50 immigrants, 103

218

INDEX

information and communication technologies (ICT), 142–43 integration, 29, 152 International Congresses of the Deaf, 201 Internet: Anita’s story, 36–38, 42, 44; connectivity and, 142–43; Klara’s story, 100–2; Ragnhild’s story, 62–64; social life and, 36–38, 44, 62–64, 142–43; transnational experiences and, 42, 44 Internet Relay Chat (IRC), 62–64, 102, 117 interpreters, 26, 60, 74; Albertine’s story, 117; deaf schools and, 152–53; motivation and, 152–53; Sally’s story, 129, 136–37 IRC. See Internet Relay Chat I Was #87 (Bolander), 11 Josberg, Daniella, 119–20 language blending, 155–58 “Laughing Our Way Up” (Lind), 146–47 Lessons in Laughter (Bragg), 8 Lind, Lisa, 146–47, 164–84 lip-reading, 60 Lisa’s story, 164–84 Listening with My Heart (Whitestone), 12 literacy, 3 mainstreaming, 6, 65 Maoist Workers Party (AKP), 38

marginality, 43–44; Håkon’s story, 71–74; identity and, 104; Klara’s story, 81–106 marriages, 127 Martha’s Vineyard, 189 medical establishment, 33–34, 182 metaphors: for belonging, 51; “life is a journey,” 2; Lisa’s story, 164–65; Asbjørn Midtskogen and, 7, 50; of space, 17–18, 20 Midtskogen, Asbjørn, 4, 5–8, 42, 181–82 mimicry, 50, 58 minorities: Deaf community and, 10–11; identity and, 104 “minoritization,” 188 mixed language practice, 155–58, 195 mixed relationships, 67–68 mobile phones, 142 Moscow, 132 Mow, Shanny, 121 multiculturalism, 197–99 murders, 121n “muteness,” 194 “nationalism,” 54, 198 national politics, 38–39 NDF. See Norwegian Deaf Association. Nineteenth Deaflympics, 14–15 normalization, 186 Norwegian Deaf Association (NDF), 69; cochlear implants and, 30; criticisms of, 184; mixed language practice and, 155–56, 160–61

INDEX

Norwegian language, 114, 143 Norwegian Sign Language, 113, 114, 120 oral education: Hilde’s story, 21–22, 51; Trygve’s story, 51 Oslo Deaf Club, 14 outing. See “coming out” “out-of-the-closet” experiences, 23 paranormal abilities, 96–98 parenting, 139–40. See also family relations peddling, 170–71, 193 personal tragedy scripts, 8 phonocentricism, 189 poetry, 173 politics, national, 38–39 pretending, 58 puppet metaphor, 164–65 Queer Nation, 194 racism, 10 Ragnhild’s story, 56–66, 76, 77 rape victims, 12 Reading Between the Lips (Golan), 12 “refill experiences, 204 reflexivity, 144–45 relationships: Klara’s story, 89–80; Lisa’s story, 169–71; mixed, 67–68 respect, 96 Sally’s story, 122–41 Sandaker School, 51, 114, 171 San Francisco, 190–91

219

“secondary socialization,” 198 sedatives, 85–86 self-reflection, 144–45; Lisa’s story, 180–81 sexual abuse, 11 sexual harassment, 89–90, 92 shamanism, 97, 98 Sign Enhancers, 3 sign language: Albertine’s story, 111–12, 114, 116; at Ål Deaf College, 29; communication technologies and, 143; Deafened people and, 59–61; Deaf Power movement and, 125–26; improving status of, 30; issues of competency, 106; Klara’s story, 90, 106; Lisa’s story, 182; mixed language practice and, 155–58; public autobiographies, 3–4; Ragnhild’s story, 59–61; Sally’s story, 143–44; sign for deafmute, 194–97; social life and, 93; as transformational, 106. See also American Sign Language; British Sign Language; Norwegian Sign Language Sign Language Theatre, 30 Silent Alarm (Schrader), 8 Silent News, 206 Siri (student), 46–47 Skådalen School, 147, 151, 152 soccer, 118, 163 social benefit system, 13, 74 social competencies, 94–96 socialization, secondary, 198 social life: Anita’s story, 36–38; Deafened people and, 69; difficulties of, 92–93; electronic

220

INDEX

social life (continued ) communication and, 62–64, 142–43; experience of narrowness in, 69–70; Hilde’s story, 23–24; Internet and, 36–38, 44, 62–64, 142–43; Klara’s story, 90–93, 91–93, 94–96; narrowness of, 69–71; sign language and, 93; Trygve’s story, 53–54 social movements, 199–201 sound metaphors, 51 spirituality, 97 sporting events, 118–19, 163. See also Deaf Olympics Stonewall riots, 187n, 193 straightgeist, 186 “Survival of Minority Cultures,” 187 Sweden, 4 talk shows, 174 television shows, 174–75 text-messaging, 142 therapy, 80 Thirteenth Deaf World Congress, 14 Tovey, Noel, 187–88 translocal events, Bill’s story, 162–63 transnational boundaries, Deaf community and, 53 transnational events: Albertine’s story, 118–19; Deaf Olympics, 14–15, 110, 111, 113, 118, 133–34; Sally’s story, 133–34

travel: Albertine’s story, 118–20; Lisa’s story, 169–70; Sally’s story, 130–35 travelogues, 8–9; Sally’s story, 122–41 “tribal conformity,” 120–22 Trondheim, 66, 117–18, 151, 182 Trygve’s story, 48–56, 76, 194–95 TTY, Albertine’s story, 116–17 Ulan Bator, 132 “universalization,” 188 Usher syndrome, 11 utopias, 189–91 Venice, 133 Vetlegrenda holiday camp, 21 Voyage to the Island (Nieminen), 9 welfare system, 13, 74 WFD. See World Federation of the Deaf What’s That Pig Outdoors? (Kisor), 12 When the Phone Rings, My Bed Shakes (Zazove), 8 workplace: Hilde’s story, 25; Klara’s story, 99–100; Lisa’s story, 176–77, 178–79 World Congress (Brisbane), 204–6 world congresses, 201, 204–6 World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), 201 Wright, David, 3