It's a Small World: International Deaf Spaces and Encounters

It’s a Small World explores the fascinating and, at times, controversial concept of DEAF-SAME (“I am deaf, you are deaf, and so we are the same”) and its influence on deaf spaces locally and globally. The editors and contributors focus on national and international encounters (e.g., conferences, sporting events, arts festivals, camps) and the role of political/economic power structures on deaf lives and the creation of deaf worlds. They also consider important questions about how deaf people negotiate DEAF-SAME and deaf difference, with particular attention to relations between deaf people in the global South (countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, with access to fewer resources than other countries) and the global North (countries in Europe, along with Canada, the US, Australia, and several other nations with access to and often control of resources). 

 

       Editors Michele Friedner and Annelies Kusters and their contributors represent a variety of academic and professional fields, from anthropology and linguistics to cultural and religious studies. Each chapter in this original volume highlights a new perspective on the multiple intersections that occur between nationalities, cultures, languages, religions, races, genders, and identities. The text is organized into five sections—Gatherings, Language, Projects, Networks, and Visions. Taken all together, the 23 chapters in this book provide an understanding of how sameness and difference are powerful yet contested categories in deaf worlds.

Annelies Kusters is Professor of Sociolinguistics at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK. She led the project "Deaf Mobilities Across International Borders: Visualizing Intersectionality and Translanguaging" (MobileDeaf) from 2017 to 2023, funded by a European Research Council Starting Grant. Fueled by her passion for ethnographic research, she has conducted extensive fieldwork across various locations such as Suriname, Ghana, India, the United Kingdom, and numerous international deaf events and workplaces since 2004.