Negotiating deaf bodies and corporeal experiences

Throughout socio-history, nonmedical definitions of the “body” have become “defined and treated as medical problems, usually in terms of illness or disorders” (Conrad, 1992:209).  There are many examples of these definitions in the name of race (the “one-drop rule” for African-Americans), ethnicity (the 1/16^th rule for American Indians), sex (having certain physiological properties), and disability (“limitation of a major life activity”) including deaf populations.  However, unlike deaf populations, these “medical” definitions now have been demedicalized while deaf people remain very much confined in the medical framework of humanity.  The medical language, as the power to name bodily dysfunctions, creates the “problem” for the deaf person through disciplinary techniques of bio-power (Hughes & Paterson, 1997).  The notion on what it means to be deaf based on social constructions also includes the role of technology to shape cultural identities and corporeal experiences.  The evolution of technological devices for the ear has provided diverse ideological perspectives concerning what it means to be deaf and normal.  What is missing from these discussions is a nascent critical theory of deafness leading to critical systematic study on social constructed “bodies” for the deaf in a theoretical framework; a framework that moves from emic aspects toward healthy etic aspects of deafness in ways that open dialogue and collaborative inquiry on larger important issues such as what it means to be human.