Deafhood: Paternity and Patrimony
Paternity and Patrimony are anthropological concepts that refer to the biological and cultural bases of any culture. I explain how these two concepts apply to us as Deaf people and Deafhood, with a side trip to why I use the capital “D” to refer to all Deaf people.
MM said,
August 16, 2008 @ 1:42 am
I don’t think the learnt ‘patrimony’ means you gain the two ‘Ps’ that give you any ‘cultural’ status. According to deafhood you cannot gain culture unless you are born with being deaf and done the educational and lifestyle approach from day one. Most supporters of the ‘deafhood’ concept reject those who claim a ‘Deaf’ ID afterwards as valid.
It is good to see others like yourself coming around to the view we have held since day one, in that the ‘d/D thing was a major contributor to division and prevents any sort of unity or acceptances taking real root, they HAVE to go first. I’m fourth generation in my family as we know, that went deaf after a hearing start. Not one of us went to a deaf school or integrated with other deaf people, I was the first to attempt it.
Perceptions of what deaf are no longer apply,the old system has gone in the UK most deaf are in mainstream and we all have a lot of access now we never had before, deaf are moving out, this is good, this is positive, the deaf are no longer restricted to the old systems. Deaf culture was a necessity in the past, because there was nothing else, now there is, and the deaf have to deal with it. Deafhood suggests individual deaf ID’s as averse to the collective, although Mr Ladd still hopes the collective will win through so his writings are confused, and points confusing as HE struggles to come to terms with it.
Acquired deaf are best placed to ease the passage from a solitary deaf culture apart from mainstream to an integrated one where we can all accept each other, we demand this from hearing people, we can do nothing less ourselves or be hypocrites. Deafhood is Ladd’s ‘journey’, it isn’t neccessarily anyone else’s. He has simply tapped into the insecurity deaf feel about change. Unfortunately he then has no control over how people will interpret what he wrote as we see. He wrote for hearing, and for the ‘Deaf’ he was unprepared for the majority with loss to take deafhood to task via being ignored.
He blew it with the D/d thing which still touches raw nerves, we are here, we won’t be sidelined.
DrDonG said,
August 16, 2008 @ 6:59 am
MM–
Deafhood does NOT state that you can’t gain Deaf culture without having been born Deaf. There are many people out there that have developed the cultural sense after having become Deaf, like you (late Deafened, not saying you have the cultural sense, although I think you do a little bit, even though you deny it).
Your family, would daresay, probably developed, or with you, has developed some sort of late-deafened Deafhood… I’ve seen that pattern with a few other families. Have you read Mark Drolsbaugh’s blogs? His family has a similar pattern.
I think that Paddy’s writing about the collective and individualistic nature of identity reflects what we see in other groups — I’m working on a vlog that attempts to describe this phenomenon, I think you’ll understand a bit better after seeing it.
Paddy did use the d/D thing, but more in a definitional way at the beginning and seemed to be trying to eliminate it with Deafhood, which as I said, does not make that distinction.
MM said,
August 17, 2008 @ 1:33 am
In lauding an ‘Deaf’ ID you can diminish the ‘deaf’ one, There are winners and losers via deafhood, not conducive to unity. The D is held as the absolute, and deaf culture, all else is secondary. In reality all else is the primary majority. A deaf culture (If it exists), comprisies of anyone and everyone deaf a well as HoH, and without fear nor favour. Since deafhood tries to debunk that, it is pitted against those being left out by decibel, by mode and by the fact they didn’t get educated the same… all that is discrimination. To establish what you are, don’t the ‘Deaf’ KNOW yet ? doesn’t demand you de-estblish anyone else. I thought we had overcome the ‘not deaf enough’ viewpoint and labelleing everyone an audist ? Ladd’s D,d reference is a barrier to reading further into his defahood it wouldhelp if he had removed the reference and not bought in to it. Neither sign language or background now constitutes the basis of culture , its all in flux, why else are the ‘Deaf’ all so concerned ?
DrDonG said,
August 17, 2008 @ 6:32 am
MM –
The d/D distinction has been the “standard” since the 1980s, after Woodward, and then Padden and Humphries started proposing it. For Paddy not to establish that at the beginning as a common reference point would have been to compromise his scholarly integrity, which it is clear from first impressions (the size of the book) to second impressions (the comprehensiveness of his coverage of the topics, especially of the Deaf history and the theories of culture, which I can attest to). But as we have discussed, he attempts to demonstrate throughout the rest of the book that it is a false dichotomy, as I said in the vlog.
You dispute the existence of Deaf culture. Being married to a Deaf woman as you are, I am sure you are around Deaf people enough to have seen that Deaf people do have different norms, values, behaviors, as well as a language from that of Hearing people. So there is a Deaf culture.
However, you refer to the Deaf community, which as you indicate “comprises of anyone and everyone Deaf as well as HoH and without fear nor favour”. This is true. The community consists of both those who are culturally Deaf (whether enculturated natively or not) and those who are audiologically Deaf or HoH. Paddy’s conception of Deafhood, as I explained here, attempts to remove the distinction between culture and community by making a more inclusive vision of all “Deaf”, “deaf” and “HoH” people as possessing Deafhood.
For further discussion, see my response to “Degrees of Deafhood”
Shel said,
August 17, 2008 @ 8:06 am
Don,
While I agree with the thrust of your discussion, I have a problem with the terminology you used: Paternity and patrimony.
You chose paternity to indicate genetic, or birth of an individual as Deaf, for the sake of your discourse. The term I would recommend is congenitality, because you are Deaf by birth. Paternity, to me, especially after I double-checked the definition, means fatherhood, or the connection of biological fatherhood.
Patrimony has to do with legacy or inheritance. Your proposal to have that term mean the process of enculturation or acculturation is jarring for me, and clashes with the rest of your content.
I attempted to find the definitions of paternity and patrimony that you proposed. I could not. Could you please point me to these particular definitions?
Shel
DrDonG said,
August 17, 2008 @ 10:22 am
Hi Shel,
If I recall correctly, this usage is anthropological in nature, so you probably would find it in the anthropology literature. Again if I remember correctly, I found this terminology in one of Erting’s articles (derived from her dissertation) and republished in The Sociolinguistics of Deaf communities (the first one, with green cover) edited by Ceil Lucas.