Mapping deaf academic spaces

Abstract

This article focuses on the experience of signing deaf academics working in higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK. I utilise a research method previously unused in this context, eco-mapping, to explore the ways in which deaf academics see themselves and their involvement in their home HEIs and in the academic field more generally. I review the available literature of deaf academic experience in the UK before using extensive quotes from research interviews to illustrate how the burden of making their own workplaces accessible usually falls on the shoulders of deaf academics. I also show that there is a lack of appreciation of the emotional labour and time demands that such work requires from the academics' workplaces using a Lefebvrian understanding of time. I end with some reflections on the method used and on the implications of the barriers deaf academics and those from other linguistic minority communities can face in HEIs in the UK.

Theorising the deaf body: using Lefebvre and Bourdieu to understand deaf spatial experience

“…Deaf bodily gestures are visually mediated. They are visually motivated, such as the organising of furniture for visual access and sensory reach 53 ; they are visually inspired, such as the use of white gloves and signed language flags to mark out deaf space 54 ; they are visually interpreted, such as darkness or bright light acting as edges or borders of deaf space. 55 How do we incorporate the visually mediated gestures of deaf bodies into our theory using Lefebvre's analytical lens?…”