Deaf Identity Revisited 131
contact with empowered deaf peers and visits to deaf dream worlds (places where
deaf citizens have more equal positions in society) fueled the transformation of the
standard Flemish notions of deaf identity into alternative and dynamic figurations
of subjectivity. The role of the visual, both through “seeing” and through signed
storytelling, has been crucial here. In my first publication on this topic (De Clerck,
2005), I explored this process of moving beyond fixed subjectivities through the
lens of Braidotti’s (1998) theory of nomadic identities:The nomad is literally a “space” traveler, successively constructing and demol-
ishing her/his living spaces before moving on. S/he functions in a pattern of
repetitions which is not without order, though it has no ultimate destination.
The opposite of the tourist, the antithesis of the migrant, the nomadic trav-
eler is uniquely bent upon the act of going, the passing through. Nomadism
is a form of intransitive becoming: it marks a set of transformations without
end product. Nomadic subjects create politically informed maps for their own
survival. Nomadic travelers are oral geniuses, relying on memory and know-
ing places by heart. Hence the importance of “visiting” not in the bourgeois
mode, but rather as the attempt at sharing the same embedded location.In this section, I discuss consciousness raising or awakening through the narrative of
Jerry, a middle-aged man looking back on a period of “space” traveling in the 1990s
and the process of “becoming a nomad,” which emerged with the transitions in deaf
identity. In his story, he recalls key moments in visits and encounters that opened up
a new mindset and alternate futures:When I was 19 years old, we went to Sweden with the national soccer team for
two days. We played soccer in Stockholm, and after the game, we went out for
a drink. There were not that many deaf people from Sweden, whereas we had
come with a full bus. I met a girl there; I forgot her name. She was very inter-
esting, and we talked a bit. In Flanders, I was used to being, how can I say...
I signed and everyone looked up to me and nodded “yes” because I am a good
signer, my parents are deaf, and, compared to other deaf, I knew a lot more.
I also think that I had a strong personality. I could stand up for myself. Before,
in Flanders, there were no people who were ahead. But there, in Sweden,
there was that girl... I wouldn’t know about the present, but in former days
she was smarter than me. I could argue with her, and she answered back!
I wasn’t used to that. Back on the bus to Flanders, I really was thinking, and
kept on thinking for weeks. It was only short, just a two-day visit, but yet...
I discovered there were other deaf people who were more developed! That was
the moment when I woke up. But then I stayed in Flanders. I had a girlfriend
and got married. I worked in a factory then, on the assembly line. We had kids.
I always stirred in the same pot; I didn’t meet up with other people anymore.
But I accepted that that was the way it was. There was still soccer, but I didn’t
do that much; we were busy with the kids.The oasis-like character of Jerry’s inspiring meeting and encounters in the new
Flemish Deaf movement, which emerged in the beginning of the 1990s with trans-
national contact organized for participants in a deaf culture course by Fevlado