Poster & Paper: Empathy Projects

 EVERYONE HERE SPOKE SIGN LANGUAGE

Anthropology & The Disabled

·         Genetics of deafness

·         Sociolinguistics

·         Ethnography

·         oral & written history

·         ethnohistory of deafness

~traditionally, disabilities have been analyzed primarily in medical terms, or by social scientists in terms of deviance. (apart from the majority population) NOT NORMAL

DEAFNESS IS:

·    socially isolating (sign language is not known by hearing)

Handicap is defined by the community in which it appears. Here, deafness is NORMAL

DISABLED vs HANDICAPPED?

A disability may be the cause of a handicap. For example, if a person has a disability that prevents them from being able to move their legs, it may result in a handicap in driving. Disabled people do not have to be handicapped, especially if they can find a way around their disability.

• Stigma Reduction and Stigma Terminology: The two terms most commonly used to describe a person who has a limitation are "handicapped" and "disabled." ... The correct term is "disability"—a person with a disability. Person-first terminology is used because the person is more important than his or her disability

When writing or speaking about people with disabilities it is important to put the person first. Catch-all phrases such as 'the blind', 'the deaf' or 'the disabled, do not reflect the individuality, equality or dignity of people with disabilities.

Listed below are some recommendations for use when describing, speaking or writing about people with disabilities.

Some examples of appropriate terms:

• Term no longer in use: the disabled
  Term Now Used: person with a disability or persons with disabilities

• Term no longer in use: wheelchair-bound
  Term Now Used: persons who uses a wheelchair

• Term no longer in use: confined to a wheelchair
  Term Now Used: wheelchair user

• Term no longer in use: cripple, spastic, victim
  Term Now Used: disabled person, person with a disability

• Term no longer in use: the handicapped
  Term Now Used: disabled person, person with a disability

• Term no longer in use: mental handicap
  Term Now Used: intellectual disability

• Term no longer in use: mentally handicapped
  Term Now Used: intellectually disabled

• Term no longer in use: normal
  Term Now Used: non-disabled

• Term no longer in use: schizo, mad
  Term Now Used: person with a mental health disability

• Term no longer in use: suffers from (e.g. asthma)
  Term Now Used: has (e.g. asthma)

(NDA Guidelines on Consultation)

HISTORY OF MARTHA’S VINYARD

·    1644 first European settlement

·    Not easily accessible from the mainland so sparsely populated at first

·    1710 immigration ceased but birth rate was high and death rate low on the island, population increased

·    Subsistence is in fishing and farming and the island was largely self-sufficient

·    20th century: fishing industry is taken over by tourism

ORIGINS OF DEAFNESS ON THE VINYARD

·    Hereditary deafness

§  Normal except for their hearing (recessive)

§  Originated in Kent from where the immigrants came to Cape Cod

§  Must have been widespread throughout the Kent population

§  Intermarriage was common in Kent & Martha’s vineyard which spread the deaf mutation quickly (endogamy)

·         Concentrated settlement patterns encouraged this

·         High birth rate spread gene pool

·    Sign language was used in Kent and this transferred to the Vinyard. It was also learned by hearing individuals

·    Genetics of vineyard Deafness

§  Travel from the island was haphazard, especially in winter (isolation)

§  Residents rarely moved off-island (more to China than Boston in the 19th century)

§  Continued isolation well into the 20th century

§  Distinct dialect

·    Island as a genetic isolate

§  Up island and down island are two subcultures and marriage populations (a days travel before the car)

§  Travel between adjacent towns was even infrequent.

§  People most likely to marry someone from their own town or adjacent town

§  Inbreeding

·         First cousins were known as “own cousins” (no taboo) & 2nd& third cousins frequently married -96% married relatives through the 20th century

The Mashpee Tribal elders 
Click HERE for article on Indigenous Martha's Vinyard

·    Distribution of Deafness

§  With the exception of Gay Head, whose population was Indian, there was a significant distribution of deafness throughout the island.

§  Deafness NOT a reason NOT to marry. Marriage occurred between hearing and deaf, and also between deaf with no stigma

§  Few people interviewed mentioned whether someone was deaf, unless asked specifically! Then sometimes they could not remember.

§  Knew that deafness ran in families, but not what specifically caused it, since deaf and hearing alike produced deaf children

·    The END of Island Deafness

Click HERE for an article about the influence of Alexander Graham Bell

§  established residential schools off-island for the deaf 1820’s to 1830’s

§  began marrying off-islanders

§  new groups of people also arriving on the island as it became a vacation spot

§  improved transportation within and around the island

§  RAPID DECLINE IN DEAF POPULATION ON THE ISLAND

The Deaf Community; Defining Deaf Culture

·    3 faces of stigma…(moral careers)

§  Deaf children born to deaf parents

§  Deaf children born to hearing parents

§  Deaf children of families where another member is deaf

·    Moral Career of deafness

§  Hearing lost early in childhood or before language

§  Acquired deafness in late childhood

§  Acquired deafness in adulthood

·         Stigma denial

·         Depression

·         Lack of cultural association

§  Elderly

·         Rejection of hearing aids

·         Depression, low self esteem

·         Adaptation to hearing loss and old age

·    Deaf do not view themselves as disabled or handicapped, but rather as a CULTURE

§  Membership in this culture must be earned

§  Membership is not solely on hearing loss (shared values)

§  Reject stigma symbols and designation

DEAF SUBCULTURES (diversity)

·    Prelinguistic deaf

·    Parents of deaf children

·    Cochlear implanted people

·    Post-linguistic deaf

·    Interpreters (& other wise practitioners)

·    Wise others

*Deaf organizations are seen as empowering

EMPOWERMENT & DEAF TERMINOLOGY: "natural" versus "normal"

Many deaf adults and signing teachers referred to the "natural language of signs," but oralists believed that speech was the "normal" or "universal" way to communicate among civilized humans. The depth of feeling was great on both sides, and the conflict of ideas and values lead to accusations of dishonesty and hypocrisy. The terms "natural" and "normal" remain tangled up in this enduring argument.

• natural /normal

• handicapped/disabled

HEARING  LOSS IS CLEARLY SEEN AS A SOCIAL ISSUE AMONG THE DEAF RATHER THAN A PATHOLOGY THAT MUST BE MEDICALIZED

·    Most deaf are healthy people

·    Deafness is not seen as a disadvantage but sometimes a CHOICE

·    Problem is inability to communicate between populations/cultures, NOT deafness

EVERYONE HERE SPOKE SIGN LANGUAGE

Chapter 5-

Handicapped individuals have always been required to adapt to the ways of the non-handicapped (cover). The extent to which they do however is tempered by the community.

Factors:

·   Acceptance of deafness (just happens)

·   Puzzled by outsider’s interest

·   Quotes p51

·   Had less than flattering stories about mentally handicapped or mentally ill, unlike their recounting of the deaf

·   Nuisance rather than an overwhelming problem

Sign language:

·   Spoken language & sign mingled in conversation (shifting & mixing)

·   Learned in childhood even earlier than speech

·   No formal teaching remembered (native)

·   No deaf could read lips less than 50% manual alphabet (stigma on REAL Sign-manual alphabet (reflects rejection)

·   Pidgin sign system, used unique system on island & manual sign off island-1817

·   Never excluded deaf in conversations/silence was common

·   Used in prayer meetings, church sermons

·   Used in the absence of deaf people…like whispering or when spoken language was taboo, at a distance, as a reflex, fishermen on boats

·   As in other BILINGUAL communities, the use of language was a way to delineate who was and who was not a member of the community. Island people frequently maintained social distance from off-island by exchanging comments about them in sign (code switching)

·   British plus ASL in origin (creolized)

Development of Sign Language

·   Spontaneously created by isolated deaf individuals. Communication usually limited to family & friends

·   Systematized when deafness appears regularly, & will become more complex

Growing Up Deaf in the Vineyard

·   no language barrier and therefore no social barriers (or visa versa).

·   Parents acceptance & knowledge of sign

·   Role models

·   Support of the surrounding deaf community

·   Society functioned as an extended “deaf family”

·   CHILDHOOD

§  Went to deaf school in Hartford for 5 years, leaving the island, so many deaf ended up more highly educated than their hearing family & neighbors when they returned

§  Poor island, deaf students spent more time in school with state scholarships

·   Marriage

§  Unregulated

·   No apparent differences in marriage, family or occupational patterns between hearing and deaf

·   Fishing and farming: deaf did not do whaling

·   No difference in financial success, militia service , town affairs, legal responsibilities or social life

·   Subjects of practical jokes like hearing

·   NO DEAF SPECIAL ASSOCIATIONS OR ACTIVITIES or participate in state or national organizations for the deaf

New Attitudes with New Neighbors:

·   Deafness stigmatized by tourists and vacation home owners

·   Seen as evidence of inbreeding and “incestuous primitives”

·   Became objects of scientific inquiry by outsiders

·   Hated SUMMER PEOPLE (shoobees)

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON DEAFNESS

·   Deafness seem as “practical ignorance”

·   Not afforded rights of the hearing adult citizens

·   Deaf included as “defectives” in the census until1964

·   Isolated from the larger society

·   Religious sanction (Judeo-Christian), Aristotle-Speech is the vehicle for thought and education. Saint Augustine, deafness from birth makes faith impossible.

·   17th century: the deaf are capable of learning

·   18th century: deaf education---before this they were thought to rely solely on their “animal passions”  or “tabula rasa” (perfect blank) pp102-104

·   1870 Gallaudet College founded

·   Modern: attempts to mainstream the deaf in education

Handicapped???—arbitrary social category

·   Why were they not stigmatized?

§  Trait for deafness was carried by a group of colonists rather than by an individual or isolated family

§  Deafness was widespread and seemingly random

§  Use of sign language by the community

§  Subsistence was not prohibitive to the deaf (small scale societies often provide more participation and protection to the disabled, especially when they are egalitarian and group cooperation takes precedence over competition and productivity is much the same for all members).

§  Society adjusted to the deaf instead of the other way around

§  NO ONE perceived their deafness as a handicap

PERCEIVED CAUSES OF DEAFNESS

·   Maternal fright (anxiety &  upset nervous system)*

·   Environment (cold salty air)*

·   Will of god (retribution)

·   Contagious*

*Vinyard folks believed these along with hereditary causes in many casesEVERYONE HERE SPOKE SIGN LANGUAGE