Deaf Identity Revisited 145
be no longer in control, whether singly, severally, or collectively—and to make
things still worse we lack the tools that would allow politics to be lifted to the
level where power has already settled, so enabling us to recover and repossess
control over the forces shaping our shared condition while setting the range of
our possibilities and the limits to our freedom to choose. (Bauman, 2007, p. 26)With global risks such as the economic crisis, terror threats, environmental change,
the breakdown of the nation state, and the world “cosmopolitanizing,” Ulrick Beck
wonders, “What is the meaning of the global events unfolding before our eyes?”
To capture what is happening, and provide an inadequate social science with new
vocabulary, he proposes the term “metamorphoses of the world,” which “is about
people and institutions that get involved in the change of certainties and how they
get through it” (Beck, 2015, p. 78). The cosmopolitan perspective he calls for in
response to global risk takes into account the consequences of decision making for
citizens able to participate in this process. Metamorphosis is modernization, neither
progress nor apocalypse, but a phenomenon between these. However, the other
side of this uncertainty and threat is an “emancipatory catastrophism” (p. 78), a
reflection and reflexivity that aims to be “a 21st century compass... different from
the postmodern ‘everything goes’ and different from false universalism” (p. 83).
As I have mentioned, in view of major transitions in current times, deaf commu-
nities also face uncertainty. How to respond sustainably to these transitions has been
explored further from different angles and disciplines in the edited volume Sign
Language, Sustainable Development, and Equal Opportunities (De Clerck & Paul, 2016).
To further this discussion, here I look at deaf identity in this stage of transition from
the perspective of Deaf Parliament.
Responding to risks of increasing inequality and democratic deficit, platforms
for participatory citizenship have sprung up around the globe, enabling collec-
tive consultation through argumentation. This enables citizens to learn about
each other’s perspectives through debate and formulate responses to the chal-
lenges of contemporary societies (Dryzek, 2000; Hofman, 2011; Huyse, 2014; Van
Reybrouck, 2013). In alignment with these initiatives, and particularly relevant
given the community’s historically limited access to democratic practice and in-
creasing call for participation, the Flemish Deaf Parliament provided a space for
“debating futures” (for further discussion of its methodology and of deliberative
citizenship, see Chapter 4, “Debating Futures in Flemish Deaf Parliament” in De
Clerck & Paul, 2016, which includes examples of deaf indigenous practices of de-
bate and collective decision making; see also Chapter 8 of the same volume; De
Clerck, 2014; Reynaert & De Clerck, 2013). The first public political debate in
Flemish Sign Language took place in October 2012, by candidates for municipal
elections (Reynaert & De Clerck, 2012); in 2014, a selection of debates on TV pre-
ceding the national elections became accessible for the first time through sign lan-
guage interpreting. Live Flemish Sign Language interpreting of national TV news
also started in 2012. Although Fevlado and deaf clubs have disseminated political
and electoral information for a long time, especially in areas of advocacy, discus-
sion of democratic practice or initiatives of participatory citizenship has been an
area that deserves further attention.