The Deaf Collective: Opposition, Organisation and Difference

The Deaf collective: Opposition, organisation and difference by Kate Attfield Cardiff University This thesis is submitted to Cardiff University in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR IN PHILOSOPHY August 2013 DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed …………………………………………………………. (candidate) Date ………………………… STATEMENT 1 This thesis is being submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PhD. Signed …………………………………………………………. (candidate) Date ………………………… STATEMENT 2 This thesis is the result of my own independent work/investigation, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. Signed …………………………………………………………. (candidate) Date ………………………… STATEMENT 3 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed …………………………………………………………. (candidate) Date ………………………… ii Acknowledgements I would wholeheartedly like to thank my supervisor Professor Andrew Pithouse. I would further like to express my gratitude to my examiners Dr Paddy Ladd (Bristol University) and Dr Colin Young. I am also grateful to many SOCSI staff members. A prominent colleague Paul Scott’s stimulus has been critical and I have been stirred by an eminent role model Doug Alker. My enthusiasm was originally kindled by Kelly Baxter. I am sincerely grateful to my parents, Leela Dutt and Professor Robin Attfield for their vital involvement. I want to express gratitude to colleagues Christala Sophocleous, Ann Jones and Claire Batchelor for their essential resource input. I thank accommodating associates Ally Fitzpatrick, David Davies and Dr Rachael Talbot for their significant practical help. I am also grateful to Paul Leonard and Clare Rowthorn for their backing. I am most thankful to the ESRC for my Cardiff University SOCSI sponsorship award which gave me this opportunity. Whilst I cannot name them, I am immensely grateful to all those who generously allowed me to interview them for this research. iii Abstract UK society and the mainstream social sciences typically share the assumption that people need to hear and speak in order to function effectively in the social world. Hence, d/Deaf people are perceived as vulnerable individuals with sensory impairment, social disability, and biological invalidity; d/Deaf people are accordingly eligible for individualised welfare intervention. By contrast Deaf Studies, which this thesis draws upon, critically explores the relativity of linguistic conceptualisations and cultural norms and asserts that Deaf people are members of a purposive, political culture, with an independent British language and identity, comprising a British as well as an international collective, and are without impairment, disability or invalidity. The key research question that my research asks is what is the social position of Deaf people within British society and likewise what is the social position of the Deaf collective in the UK policy-making and political arena? That is, on whose terms is the societal inclusion of Deaf people and the broader Deaf collective to be based and understood? The scope of my inquiry comprises primarily (a) the personal views and professional ambitions of 13 senior executive office-holders of Deaf-led third sector organisations across Wales and England, and (b) the perspectives of 9 senior officers of relevant hearing institutions, and their understandings of their institutions' policies and funding practices in regard to Deaf people and Deaf organisations. Data from these organisational elites was subjected to detailed narrative and thematic analysis which drew upon key concepts within interactionist and post-modernist thought. The thesis will uncover how third sector Deaf-led organisations face fundamental dilemmas in asserting their collective presence in order to promote their political aims. Deaf organisations operate to an extent by government funding streams which typically impose conditions upon their actions. Those organisations without funding conditionality can promote their chosen agenda; they may also struggle to operate or to survive where funding cannot be secured. By contrast, those who accept conditional funding also must accept the externally bestowed status of representing the ‘medical deaf model’ whereby they are deemed to be operating within a welfare/ disability frame of reference and allied actions. Also, the welfare system as mediated in the views of key hearing respondents fails to question the objectivised values that inform the ‘medical deaf model’. The analysis will suggest that the iv Deaf Collective both intellectually and operationally exists in a relatively non-intersecting system, without the wider institutional world noticing its presence. The thesis considers the consequences of this for policy and practice and offers suggestions for a more progressive understanding and involvement of Deaf people and their collective. v Table of Contents Title page i Declaration ii Acknowledgements iii Abstract iv Table of Contents v List of Appendices x Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Background 2 Definitions of ‘D’eaf, ‘d’eaf, and ‘d/D’eaf 5 Terms used to locate Deaf / deaf / d/Deaf people 6 Definition of the ‘Deaf Community’ 7 Definition of the ‘Deaf Collective’ 8 How the ‘Deaf Community’ relates to the ‘Deaf Collective’ 9 Hearing colonisation 9 Deafhood 10 Social science disability literature 10 Medical, social and cultural /linguistic models used to describe Deaf people 11 Gender neutral terms 12 Audist language and audism 12 Thesis content 13 Chapter 2 History, Identity and Welfare: the case of the Deaf collective 18 Introduction 18 Deaf Communities and the historical eras 19 What is this community? 19 What does the community consist of? 20 vi An historical overview of five eras of Deaf community history 21 Pre-education to 1760 21 Sign language education with Deaf teachers 1760 – 1880 21 Oralist and social welfare colonisation century 1880 – 1970s 23 The Deaf resurgence from 1975 24 The need for Deaf Studies 26 The Neo-colonialist backlash of mainstreaming, cochlear implantation and genetic engineering 27 The social welfare context within which Deaf organisations are situated 28 Culture and language 30 A denial of Deaf culture 32 Identification and How Identity is Constructed 34 Cultural invisibility and Culturelessness 35 Cultural hearing norms 37 Social Injustice 39 Social Capital 41 Underpinning Principles of Welfare Service Provision 45 Current welfare policy guidance 48 Social work with deaf people 51 Conclusion 53 Chapter 3 Structure, Policy and Possibilities: Social Justice and the Deaf collective 55 Introduction 55 Social Justice 56 Aspects of policy and involvement 61 Third sector development 63 Governance and self-governance 66 Issues of identity and language 71 Conclusion 74 Chapter 4 vii Methodology and Methods 77 Introduction 77 Narrative research 78 Interactionism 80 Post-modernism 81 Social work research 82 Political and ethical concerns 83 The samples 85 The interviews 87 Researcher identity and status: 88 Elite interviews 91 Insider - outsider issues 92 The involvement of two languages 94 Interview recording 96 The translation of one language into another 97 Approaches to analysis: methodological aspects 101 Analysing the interviews: issues of method and bias 102 Conclusion 106 Chapter 5 “...people were communicating with their mouths like goldfish!” What it is to be Deaf: perspectives of Deaf collective elites 109 Introduction 109 Childhood: learning to be ‘different’ 110 School experience: learning to be ‘disabled’ 114 Becoming Deaf: issues of identity and transition 117 Learning to be Deaf: exclusion and discovery of collective challenge 120 Opinions as cultural indicators: 123 Culture in language 123 Disability 125 Cochlear implants 128 viii Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Act 2008 131 Conclusion 134 Chapter 6 “We don’t want funding , we want investment, and we don’t want to become hearing”: Deaf organisations’ structures, philosophy and direction 135 Introduction 135 Table – Summary of organisational properties and characteristics 136 Deaf agency vignettes 137 Organisations and vision 140 Organisational values 146 Organisational provision 150 Business philosophy and income 155 Political mobilisation 159 Professionalised level 163 Conclusion 168 Chapter 7 “You have to ...give the best value for what is tax payers’ money”: hearing policy, funding and public sector orientations to the Deaf 171 Introduction 171 Diagram – Hearing respondent bodies: public sector structure 172 Hearing respondent vignettes 173 The definition of Deaf 174 Deaf people seen as hearing impaired 176 Understanding or ignorance of the Deaf language 176 Deaf people’s ‘needs’ 177 Understanding of the social position of Deaf people 179 Deaf policy making and funding 182 Engagement with Deaf organisations 187 ix Deaf representation 191 Deaf support 196 Conclusion 201 Chapter 8 Discussion of key findings 203 Introduction 203 Dissonance and difference – the Deaf political agenda 203 Hearing respondents 205 The rationale of the three sets of data 205 A reflection on the role of ‘social welfare colonialists’ 206 A reflection on how some hearing respondents began to change their views of the Deaf collective 206 The Social Service and Well-Being (Wales) Bill 2013 207 Hearing colonisation

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