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Learning about Hearing People in the Land of the Deaf: An Ethnographic Account

This article is a personal account, grounded in some concepts of postcolonial/cultural studies (Bhabha 1990, 1994; Hall 1992), interactional sociolinguistics (Gumperz 1986; Jacob and Ochs 1995), and in theoretical and methodological ethnographic perspectives (Agar 1980, 1994; Erickson and Shultz 1981; Hammersley and Atkinson 1983; Anzul et al. 1991), describing my journey in the land of the Deaf - Gallaudet University. Even though I came to this place to learn about Deaf people's lives, in relation to their culture(s), language^) and identity(s), what became more interesting to me during my stay at Gallaudet was hearing people's behavior, which in turn, revealed a lot about Deaf people's lives as well. In this sense, I consider that in some situations both hearing and Deaf individuals might overlap in their cultural, linguistic, and identity experiences. Therefore, I want to start by stressing the importance of a variable that is important in ethnographic studies - time. I believe that time might work as a useful "tool," helping us to see things through a different light: changes only occur through the passage of time, and the changes I am referring to have mainly to do with my own personal/academic growth and understanding during this process. Linked to this view, I follow the notion that the "happenings," i.e., "[any] form, interpretation, stance, action, activity, identity, institution, skill, ideology, emotion, or other culturally meaningful reality [italics added]" within any social context (globally or locally ) are "co-constructed" through social interaction among the participants (Jacob and Ochs 1995,177), and they are "un-linear" (Bhabha 1990, 1994) - even though the historical narrative has to be told linearly due to written language limitations, the social happenings might overlap. In this sense, the discussion in this ethnographic account (whether speaking about individuals, identities, languages and/or cultures) is composed of layers and levels (and is not characterized by homogeneity) and by continua (as opposed to dichotomies). These assumptions become relevant because they help us to escape from an essentialist view2, and therefore, act against the tendency to construct stereotypes. Entering the Field I arrived at Gallaudet University as a visiting researcher through the Gallaudet Center for Global Education (CGE),3 and I was supported by the Brazilian government agency CAPES Foundation (Coordination of Higher Education and Graduate Training) . I decided to pursue my research at Gallaudet under an anthropological perspective, because I was interested in broadening my view of Deaf people's lives; Gallaudet University appeared to be the ideal place to pursue this interest. To have a better sense of the institution and the people who comprise it, I decided to live in one of the campus residence halls and take my meals at the cafeteria. I also participated in many of the student academic activities: I took a course in ASL for beginners as a regular student and audited some other classes. Even though my formal status was that of a researcher, I believe that I was identified by my peers as an international hearing graduate student. During my stay at the university, I followed the daily routine of the other students, and my data are derived from that activity. Data Collection This investigation relied on ethnographic research methods. According to Hammersley and Atkison (1983), the primary goal of ethnography is the "detailed description of the concrete experience of life within a particular culture and of social rules or patterns that constitute it" (8). To understand what is going on in some of the social interactions, I investigated and analyzed the local meaning perspectives of the people involved in the context where interaction occurred (Gumperz 1986; Wardhaugh 1992). The data for this study, then, were generated from field notes taken during the fall semester of 2004 at Gallaudet University. …