Deaf identities in a multicultural setting: The Ugandan context

Abstract

Often located far apart from each other, deaf and hearing impaired persons face a multiplicity of challenges that evolve around isolation, neglect and the deprivation of essential social services that affect their welfare and survival. Although it is evident that the number of persons born with or acquire hearing impairments in later stages of their lives is increasing in many developing countries, there is limited research on this population. The main objective of this article is to explore the identities and experiences of living as a person who is deaf in Uganda. Using data from semi-structured interviews with 42 deaf persons (aged 19–41) and three focus group discussions, the study findings show that beneath the more pragmatic identities documented in the United States and European discourses there is a matrix of ambiguous, often competing and manifold forms in Uganda that are not necessarily based on the deaf and deaf constructions. The results further show that the country's cultural, religious and ethnic diversity is more of a restraint than an enabler to the aspirations of the deaf community. The study concludes that researchers and policy makers need to be cognisant of the unique issues underlying deaf epistemologies whilst implementing policy and programme initiatives that directly affect them. The upper case ‘D’ in the term deaf is a convention that has been used since the early 1970s to connote a ‘socially constructed visual culture’ or a linguistic, social and cultural minority group who use sign language as primary means of communication and identify with the deaf community, whereas the lower case ‘d’ in deaf refers to ‘the audio logical condition of hearing impairment’. However, in this article the lower case has been used consistently.

Association between parental involvement and academic achievement of deaf children at Mulago school for the deaf, Kampala, Uganda

“…11,12 Policies, however, provide for special needs education for the deaf children but parents are not aware of the effects of their involvement in school programs and how these may influence attainment of academic skills necessary for success 9,13,14. To contextualize environmental effects, deafness is not merely a disability one “suffers” from but it is a multi-faceted and vast physical, social and psychological phenomena which affects the child's growth, development and wellbeing 15,16. Expectedly, parents especially mothers are highly involved during the early stages of the child's development hence enabling their ability to notice when a child fails to respond to environmental cues like noise 17–19.…”

“…This could be regarded as a social functioning and problem behavior but it ignites the search for confirmatory answers especially from the health workers 20,21. Without distinguishing the different parenting effects on development, early childhood development, like poor cognitive development, profoundly affect academic outcomes 16,17,22. As such, we need to retrospectively acknowledge effects of the deaf children prior to school age when we are looking at the academic skills attainment.…”

“…Before parents identify the schools for their hearing impaired children, they will have noticed earlier between 0 to 3 years that the child had a hearing impairment either as one that is congenital or acquired14. Historically, deaf children have consistently lagged behind academically and socially at all levels 16,22,23. Poor performance in reading, spelling and arithmetic skills are common among deaf children but the associated factors are unknown in Uganda 17.…”

Success in Africa: People with disabilities share their stories

“…A detailed study of access barriers for people with mobility impairment in Zambia shows some of the reasons why people with disabilities are so often excluded from education, employment, transport and other social goods (Banda-Chalwe et al 2013). Similarly, there are barriers to participation for deaf people, as was found in Uganda (Mugeere et al 2015).…”

In the Long Run

“…Herbert Muyinda and I worked with a group of people engaged in a specific activity when we did research on disabled people in the cross-border trade (Whyte and Muyinda 2007), focusing on a cohort of enterprising men. A recent study on deaf identities in Uganda (Mugeere et al 2015) contacted respondents through national and district associations of deaf persons and conducted all interviews in Ugandan Sign Language (USL), thereby excluding those who were not members of deaf organizations and never had the chance to learn USL.…”