Deaf Identity Revisited 149
They found limited room for this in current identity politics, with its focus on deaf
people who meet the mainstream definition of “success.” The schools addressed
continued challenges of literacy acquisition in learners with cochlear implants
and paid special attention to the transition from primary to secondary education
and secondary to advanced education.
One school with a population of deaf mainstreamed secondary pupils experi-
enced positive responses to its extracurricular activities; some students learned to
sign and remained in contact after graduating. Another secondary school, with a
mixed population of signing and oral deaf children, had more difficulty in bring-
ing them together. Cultural diversity in the learners was also discussed, including
hurdles in making contact with families and dealing with different perspectives on
deafness; the schools also mentioned students with learning difficulties and cultur-
ally diverse backgrounds encountering barriers when trying to find their way to the
deaf community. After the conference, two schools asked for a workshop on deaf
identity to give their professionals further insight into the dynamics and formulate
suggestions on how to meet young deaf people’s needs (see more on this topic in
the conclusion to this chapter).
The next part of this section aims to respond to these needs, by imparting con-
temporary processes of identity in the Flemish deaf community, including dynam-
ics among deaf youth, but also from a broader intercultural and intergenerational
perspective. The phrase “You don’t know my story,” articulated by Agnes at the be-
ginning of this chapter, captures the “sign act” of a tale of second birth. Through
the telling of her own story in Flemish Deaf Parliament, Agnes demonstrates who
she is as a unique person. From Hannah Arendt’s perspective, which is employed
throughout this section, it is through entering the public stage that one is born a
second time. This process of showing who you are is unpredictable and occurs in
a dialogue with other people; as such, these stories also change human relations
and the collective narrative of these relations. This section discusses tales of birth
and community dialogues in the liminal time/space of Flemish Deaf Parliament,
because these convey individual trajectories of becoming, and shifts toward a third
stage of emancipation, with belonging in different groups. The tales divulged in
the sub-sections below concentrate in turn on challengers of the myth of individual
success and failure; community newcomers; deaf elders; and deaf migrants.Tales of Birth: Breaking Through the Myth
of Individual Success and Failure
Agnes illustrates aspects of exclusion in the collective emancipation story of the
Flemish deaf community. She challenges the neoliberal meritocratic ideology that
has become dominant in contemporary globalized societies and educational set-
tings, and has also gained entrance in the community. The grand narrative of this
ideology, which gives merit to effort, productivity, and efficiency in competition, has
installed a norm that considers any alternatives as deviant: “Little by little this idea—
not that human beings are makeable, but that humans should make it—slips into
our societies and as such into our identities” (Verhaeghe, 2014, p. 126, translation
mine). Standing up in Flemish Deaf Parliament and telling her own story, Agnes