Understanding Deafhood: in search of its meanings.

2013

The authors argue that Deafhood (a term coined by Dr. Paddy Ladd) is an open-ended concept with an essentialist core. They describe how deaf people who have attended their Deafhood lectures and workshops have perceived different aspects of the Deafhood concept, and compare the basic tenets of Deafhood and criticisms on Deafhood to theories and criticisms on feminist essentialisms. The authors find that the vagueness and wideness of the Deafhood concept is one of its strengths, though they also find that it is in some respects problematic to combine and unite ontology and liberation theory in one concept. They further suggest that the ontological aspects of Deafhood need to be foregrounded. …