Deaf Empowerment

This book makes a strong case for distinguishing the Deaf movement from social movements occurring in the disability community. It should be read by anyone who wants to know why this political and ideological split between deaf people and people with other types of physical impairments is occurring.

The impetus for this volume is the growing awareness within the mental health and larger community of a culturally affirmative model for understanding and assisting deaf people. In contrast to the "medical-pathological" model which treats deafness as a disability, the "cultural" model guides us to view deaf persons in relation to the deaf community--a group of people with a common language, culture, and collective identity. A primary tenant of culturally affirmative psychotherapy is to understand and respect such differences, not to eradicate them. The contributors to this volume present a practical and realistic model of providing culturally affirmative counseling and psychotherapy for deaf people. The three dimensions of this model have been delineated by the multicultural counseling literature. These dimensions assert that culturally affirmative psychotherapy with deaf persons requires therapist self-awareness, knowledge of the deaf community/culture, and understanding of culturally-syntonic therapeutic interventions. The first to exhaustively delineate the implications of the cultural model of deafness for counseling deaf people, this book is essential reading for anyone who works in an educational or counseling capacity with the deaf. This audience includes not only psychotherapists, but also vocational, guidance and residence counselors, teachers, independent living skills specialists, interpreters, and administrators of programs for the deaf.

Over the past decade, a significant body of work on the topic of deaf identities has emerged. In this volume, Leigh and O'Brien bring together scholars from a wide range of disciplines -- anthropology, counseling, education, literary criticism, practical religion, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and deaf studies -- to examine deaf identity paradigms. In this book, contributing authors describe their perspectives on what deaf identities represent, how these identities develop, and the ways in which societal influences shape these identities. Intersectionality, examination of medical, educational, and family systems, linguistic deprivation, the role of oppressive influences, the deaf body, and positive deaf identity development, are among the topics examined in the quest to better understand deaf identities. In reflection, contributors have intertwined both scholarly and personal perspectives to animate these academic debates. The result is a book that reinforces the multiple ways in which deaf identities manifest, empowering those whose identity formation is influenced by being deaf or hard of hearing.

"You are about to enter the realm of Deaf culture, a world that may be completely new to you. Intriguingly, insiders and outsiders to this world may regard it in two completely different fashions. Let us examine this contradiction with the proverbial glass of water that can be viewed as either half-full or half-empty"--

Ground-breaking scholarly volume on Deaf people's actions to decolonize the hearing world and make it accessible on all levels to the Deaf community. Table of Contents Acknowledgments I, Donald A. Grushkin Acknowledgments II, Leila Monaghan. Preface, Donald A. Grushkin 1. Deaf Empowerment: Toward the Decolonization of Sign Language Peoples, Donald A. Grushkin and Leila Monaghan 2. National Deaf Empowerment at Whose Expense? A Guatemalan Parable of New and Aspiring National Sign Languages in Indigenous Communities, Erich Fox Tree 3. Community and External Naming of Deaf People: A Study of Identity, Labeling and Resistance, Donald A. Grushkin 4. Empowerment and Stigma: Redistribution/ Recognition Dilemmas at the South Dakota School for the Deaf, Abigail Rosenthal 5. Empowerment of Elderly Deaf in the Netherlands: Residents of De Gelderhorst United, Anja Hiddinga and the Beyond Hearing. Cultures Overlooked Research Collective 6. The Deaf Way Out of No Way: Adaptation of a Culturally Relevant Arts Education Model in a Deaf Community Devastated by Cultural Linguicide, Joanne Weber 7. The Legitimation of Brazilian Sign Language in Internet Videos, Ana Gediel and Molly Bloom 8. Evolution of Deaf Collective Resistance: The Deaf Grassroots Movement as a Case Study, Kathleen L. Brockway and Donald A. Grushkin

The essays in this book explore the vital role translation has played in defining, changing and redefining linguistic, cultural, ethnic and political identities in several nations of the South Pacific. While in other parts of the world postcolonial scholars have scrutinized the role and history of translation and exposed its close relationship with the colonizers, this has not yet happened in the specific region covered in this collection. In translation studies the Pacific region is terra incognita. The writers of this volume of essays reveal that in the Pacific, as in all other once colonized parts of the world, colonialism and translation went hand in hand. The unsettling power of translation is described as it effected change for better or for worse. While the Pacific Islanders' encounter with the Europeans has previously been described as having a 'Fatal Impact', the authors of these essays are further able to demonstrate that the Pacific Islanders were not only victims but also played an active role in the cross-cultural events they were party to and in shaping their own destinies. Examples of the role of translation in effecting change - for better or for worse - abound in the history of the nations of the Pacific. These stories are told here in order to bring this region into the mainstream scholarly attention of postcolonial and translation studies.

This volume explores conceptualizations of indigeneity and the ways that indigenous philosophies can and should inform educational policy and practice. Beginning with questions and philosophies of indigeneity itself, the volume then covers the indigenous philosophies and practices of a range of communities—including Sami, Maori, Walpiri, Navajo and Kokama peoples. Chapter authors examine how these different ideals can inform and create meaningful educational experiences for communities that reflect indigenous ways of life. By applying them in informing a philosophy of education that is particular and relevant to a given indigenous community, this study aims to help policy makers and educational practitioners create meaningful educational experiences.

‘Empowerment’ is a term in widespread use today and one that is often considered to be a self-evident good. Here, McLaughlin explores its emergence in the 1960s through to its rise in the 1990s and ubiquity in present day discourse and interrogates its social status, paying particular attention to social policy, social work and health and social care discourse. He argues that a focus on empowerment has superseded the notion of political subjects exercising power autonomously. This innovative volume: - Discusses the relationship between concepts of empowerment and power, as they have been understood historically. - Analyses changes in the conception and meaning of empowerment in relation to the shifting social and political landscape. - Acknowledges the positive impact empowerment strategies have had on those who have campaigned to be empowered and also on those who have saw their role as being to help empower others. - Highlights ways in which talk about empowerment can actually work in such a way as to further disempower those already marginalised. Critically examining how ‘empowerment’ has become embedded in contemporary social and political life, this work offers a discussion of the term’s multiple meanings, what it actually entails, and how it constructs and positions those being empowered and those empowering.