Mike Gulliver, University of Bristol: UK
Gill Harold, University College Cork: Ireland
Austin Kocher, The Ohio State University, US
Geographical inquiry is making increased headway into understanding the realities and experiences of the world’s Deaf communities in areas as wide-ranging as the social and (signed) linguistic practices of the Deaf community (Valentine & Skelton 2003), the historical territories and forms of Deaf space (Gulliver 2009, Kitzel 2014), the spatialities of power and oppression experienced by Deaf individuals (Harold 2013), the role of space in everyday Deaf lives and in Deaf imaginations (Kusters 2010), embodied ontologies and productions of culture within a Deaf-centred built environment (Sangalang 2012), and the theoretical stakes of this research (Gulliver & Kitzel 2014).
These investigations speak of the creative potential of humankind to produce and inhabit spaces that are shaped by a predominantly visual perçu (Lefebvre 1991) and represent a powerful critical lens through which to destabilize notions of environmental, social, cultural, linguistic and physical “normalcy”. Together, they form what we loosely call “Deaf Geographies”: a body of work that offers not only an alternatively-centred approach to more familiar areas of geographical inquiry, but also a formidable critique of the implicit assumption in human geography that human subjects are speaking and hearing.
While existing work in the field provides useful foundations to Deaf Geographies, we nonetheless suggest that further inquiry into DEAF-WORLDS (Lane et al. 1996) can provide timely contributions to important questions that are of interest to a wide range of geographers. We are, therefore, keen to feature papers that focus on, but are not exclusively limited to, contemporary or historical aspects of:
- The production and politics of Deaf spaces; embodiment, sensoria, languages, agency and identities.
- The spatialities and mechanisms of Deaf subjects’ social inclusion or exclusion.
- Deaf spatial autonomy and its linguistic/personal/physical (and other) facets.
- Entanglements with and inhabitancy of hearing spaces and structures by Deaf people: justice, welfare, work, worship.
- The power and potential of explicitly transformational Deaf cooperative (or intentional/utopian) practices; how might Deaf persons and allies have organized to secure justice, freedom, recognition, autonomy etc.
- How best to describe and understand the spaces of what Bauman and Murray (2009) call “DEAF GAIN”.
Within the Deaf Geographies sessions, we are also keen to feature a panel discussion exploring the recent, and deeply significant emergence of Deaf space research methodologies. Within this panel, we would envisage topics and questions comprising:
- How Deaf space might develop, challenge and/or contribute to wider understandings of ‘knowledge spaces’ and academic praxis.
- What Deaf space parallels might exist to the anthropological ‘ontological turn’, or indigenous research practices.
- What the relationship of Deaf academic spaces, or sign language-mediated academic spaces might be vis-à-vis the hearing academic establishment.
- Where and how might methodologies developed within Deaf spaces differ from those adopted to conduct research with or on the Deaf community.
References:
Bauman H and Murray J (2009) Reframing: From Hearing Loss to Deaf Gain. Deaf Studies Digital Journal, Issue 1, Fall 2009. Available in translation at http://dsdj.gallaudet.edu/assets/section/section2/entry19/DSDJ_entry19.pdf
Gulliver M (2009) DEAF space, a history: The production of DEAF spaces Emergent, Autonomous, Located and Disabled in 18th and 19th century France. Unpublished PhD Thesis – University of Bristol: UK.
Gulliver M and Kitzel M B (2014) – Deaf Geographies, an Introduction. Available from https://deafgeographies.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/deaf_geographies.pdf
Harold G (2013), “Reconsidering sound and the city: asserting the right to the Deaf-friendly city” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 31(5) 846 – 862
Kitzel, M E (2014) ‘Chasing ancestors: searching for the roots of American Sign Language in the Kentish Weald, 1620-1851. PhD, University of Sussex, U.K.
Kusters A (2010) ‘Deaf Utopias? Reviewing the Sociocultural Literature on the World’s “Martha’s Vineyard Situations”’. In: Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Volume 15, Issue 1, Pp. 3-16.
Lane H, Hoffmeister R and Bahan B (1996) (2nd Ed). A Journey into the DEAF-WORLD. DawnSignPress: San Diego
Lefebvre H (1991) The Production of Space. Blackwell: Oxford
Sangalang J (2012) – What is Privacy in Deaf Space?
Skelton T & Valentine G (2003) ‘It feels like being Deaf is normal’: an exploration into the complexities of defining D/deafness and young D/deaf people’s identities. The Canadian Geographer / Le Géographe canadien 47, no 4 (2003) 451–466.
What to do now?
If you would like to present a paper at the AAG 2015 in response to this call, you will need to:
- Register for the conference, and submit an abstract by the 5th November. All abstracts are accepted, and you can edit them later.
- Take a note of the Programme Identification Number (PIN) that you are issued upon submission of the abstract, and send it to the session organisers (via: mike.gulliver@bristol.ac.uk).
- The session organisers will allocate your paper a place within a session that appears to best fit.
Notes:
- Currently, we are envisaging two paper sessions and a panel discussion. We could be persuaded to go a fourth session if there is good interest.
- If you have already expressed interest, and been contacted by the session organisers, then you can just go right ahead and register your abstract for the conference.
- If you haven’t yet been in contact with the session organisers, or have any other questions, then please contact one of them, via: mike.gulliver@bristol.ac.uk
- There will be an opportunity to publish papers from this session in an edited volume. However, papers will need to be in an ‘almost ready’ format prior to the conference so that publication schedules can be organised at the conference.
Deaf geographies sandbox 
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