Intersectional Deaf Communities – Friday 24th September 2021
“Intersectionality is a framework for understanding how social and political identities combine to create experiences of discrimination and privilege, and can include aspects such as gender, sex, race, disability, sexuality, religion and language. There is an interesting intersectionality for Deaf communities in being both a cultural-language group and members of disability populations. This intersectionality is highlighted in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that outlines disability rights and linguistic and cultural rights for deaf people.”
Multicultural and intersectional aspects of identity are crucial components of human psychology. Yet, correctly understanding and accounting for these factors can be challenging. Although we each construct our identities to some extent, society does, too.
Our identities affect the way we interact with the world.
Our identities affect the way the world interacts with us. Author: Dr Priscilla Butler
We must not forget our Maori in New Zealand and Aboriginal in Australia as these people were in the lower recognise than any other country.
D/deaf people and D/deaf with other disabilities people struggle to overcome instead of being oppression or the lack of awareness in the countries such as Africa, developing countries these factors include:
- Religion
- Socioeconomic status
- Sexual orientation
- Gender identity
- Physical ability
- Marital/relationship status
- Parent or childless
- Family size and composition
- Education/Career
Each person has a different identity, which produces intersections within identity categories like the graph shown here.
We can not let other people take our local sign language away and use another sign language such as ASL (American Sign Language), BSL/NZSL/AUSLAN in the Pacific Islands through teaching and communication in the community. Jean saw many dangers when she travelled to other countries while many D/deaf children learned to use ASL/FSL/ISL, which was due by the Missionaries of the USA and other Missionary.
What about the people in the developing countries through COVID? Let look at the photo of a family with young children in a poverty home.
This family received no help from medicals such as hand sanitiser, vaccination, electricity and from the Government. Here is an interesting article – Multiple Jeopardy: COVID-19 and Indigenous LGBTIQ+ Lives from Univerity of Melbourne, Péta Phelan. https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/multiple-jeopardy-covid-19-and-indigenous-lgbtiq-lives
There is an exciting video which shows strongly impact anyone, even you. Deaf people in developing countries experience more challenges than in high-income countries. Author Barbara Earth summarises the literature. “Deaf people experience discrimination in every country. However, Deaf people experience more challenges in developing countries than in high-income countries. In response, author Barbara Earth reviewed what the literature says. Therefore, she explains what she has learned.”
