Abstract

WITCHS, Pedro Henrique  and  LOPES, Maura Corcini. DEAF’S WAY OF LIFE AND ITS CULTURAL MARKERS. Educ. Rev. [online]. 2018, vol.34, e184713.  Epub Sep 20, 2018. ISSN 1982-6621.  https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-4698184713.

This article problematizes the constitution of cultural markers that transform the experience of being deaf in different ways and proposes to discuss deafness as a required condition for the existence of a way of life. To do so, it first demonstrates how deafness began to be interpreted in cultural registry, and then develops the discussion of the concept of way of life, together with Deaf Studies and Foucauldian studies in education, to analyze the first seven issues of the Ephphatha Journal, published by the Brazilian Association of Deaf-Mutes between 1914 and 1915. In these it is possible to highlight the constitution of markers related to deafness in a period that preceded the subscription of this experience in the register of identities. Thus, cultural markers were identified and discussed related to deafness as a primordial condition of distinction; to the soul in constant struggle and divided by (a)normality; to identity; to meeting in a physical or virtual space; to the look; to sign language; to visual-gestural experience; and to time. Also, the importance of the linguistic mark is highlighted in the constitution of a deaf culture, and it is observed that the arguments that support this notion can be strengthened when more cultural marks attributed to deaf’s subjectification process are evidenced. It is argued, therefore, that deafness determines something deaf in everything that expresses a subjectivity marked by it as the primordial condition of distinction.

Keywords : Deafness; Deaf people; Way of life; Cultural markers; Deaf education.

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