128 Deaf Epistemologies, Identity, and Learning
alternative pathways of critical deaf citizenship. This chapter explores the potential-
ity of these “spaces in between” in practices of deaf citizenship in Flanders.
The life stories of Flemish deaf people, which I have told across ten years of re-
search (2003–2015), have developed in the context of 21st-century practices of cit-
izenship and in interaction with evolving deaf studies research and notions of deaf
identity. Looking into these narratives of change, set against the background of cur-
rent societal and academic discussions of identity, enables me to revisit deaf identity
and conceptualize citizenship and empowerment as being intrinsically relational.
Drawing on theoretical perspectives from deaf studies, psychology, socio-cultural
theories of learning, anthropology, and gender studies, this chapter looks at the
overlap of epistemology and ontology in deaf citizen’s storytelling, exploring the
perspective of nomadic deaf citizenship.
In the 21st century, citizens creatively and generously employ diverse media for
personal and collective storytelling. During this period, deaf cinema and sign lan-
guage media have also been able to flourish in Flanders (Rijckaert, 2012). This
chapter discusses dialogues and exchange from and around two documentaries that
have been produced alongside research on deaf identity, respectively titled I Am a
Human Being, Too (VisualBox, 2012) and Flemish Deaf Parliament (VisualBox & Ghent
University, 2015). The first, which is related to empowerment, provides a chain of
life stories of Flemish deaf people of diverse ages and backgrounds, generating in-
tergenerational dialogue and highlighting creative and dynamic flights in the trans-
mission of cultural heritage; the second weaves the narratives of the participants in
the different regional gatherings of Flemish Deaf Parliament, creating an additional
virtual space for intragroup and intergroup exchange of views (both documentaries
are available at http://www.signlanguageprojects.com/en).
Due to the challenges that deaf citizens may experience when accessing the writ-
ten medium, new and multiple literacies (Paul & Wang, 2012) and virtual space
have been embraced for autobiographical purposes (Breivik, 2005; Brueggemann,
2009). Indeed, deaf life stories increasingly situate themselves within and between
different genres:These placements are, often as not, between places as the authors typically write
their way through the anxieties of identity and identification (with their deaf-
ness, with the deaf community); they work to identify the anxieties of their
very betweenity (Brueggemann, 2009, p. 73)This concept is explored in Brueggemann’s (2009) book Deaf Subjects: Between Identi-
ties and Places, where she introduces “a new epistemological and ontological between
space” (p. 3) and “a larger theory of ‘betweenity’” (p. 4) around “‘the deaf subject,’
particularly the modern deaf subject since the turn of the 19th century—the subject
that has more often than not found itself between” (p. 4). This includes exploring
“between spaces” in d/Deafness, in deaf worldviews, in the “deaf cyborg’s” relation-
ship with technology, and in the complex interplay of language and culture. For this
chapter, it is the between spaces of identity in deaf emancipation that are the focus;
these are examined through considering the “longing,” “belonging,” and “limits”
(Bruggemann, 2009, p. 2) in deaf storytelling.