194 Deaf Epistemologies, Identity, and Learning
in the faculty’s protocol, which required the thesis to be written as a dissertation or to
consist of published papers. Although this change was without retroactive effect and I
had transferred from another faculty, it was nonetheless applied to my case.
In addition, the scholar who had raised objections also brought up what were,
to my mind, irrational arguments: that it was not possible that I had written my pa-
pers myself and that, because I had worked abroad for a long time, I took a radical
stance in my work, which might be acceptable in the United States but definitely not
in Flanders. The first argument is familiar to many deaf professionals, as padden-
Duncan (2007) notes in the first study on deaf professionals’ experiences of the
glass ceiling in the United Kingdom, in which she draws on studies of discrimina-
tion against women and ethnic minorities. The glass ceiling can be characterized as
the outcome of a “taken for granted” dominant view on language in which linguistic
issues are invisible but insidiously oppressive:
One problem that is commonly encountered is that speakers of a minority
language may be perceived as less intelligent or less able than speakers of the
dominant language. Once again, this is a question of power, with minority
languages being devalued. (Thomson, cited in padden-Duncan, 2007, p. 143)
Verhaeghe (2011) writes that, as a consequence of meritocracy, internal ethical
awareness is no longer relevant. The only thing that matters is that the right pro-
cedures have been followed. Dependence on external criteria of evaluation, which
are continuously changing, leads to decreased certainty. Apart from the feelings of
insecurity, a personal failure to meet the standards is also experienced as frustrating
and humiliating. Verhaeghe (2011) observes that this structure is even more oppres-
sive for minorities but notes that comprehensive analyses of the effects of gender,
ethnicity, and other axes of difference have not yet been undertaken. The present
work is an attempt to fill this gap by exploring the axes of deafness primarily, while
touching on gender and age.
Evidence of systemic audism was found in a study in Canada by McDermid (2009),
who interviewed instructors from five ASL-English interpreter training programs
and four deaf studies programs in that country. Audism has been defined as “the
lack of power and social capital experienced by deaf individuals and the oppression
they face” (Lane, cited in McDermid p. 226). McDermid also notes the existence
of a “Grand Narrative of Hearing” (p. 228) stemming from a sound-based ideol-
ogy, which defines the academic role, including expectations to publish in English,
thus negating sign language–centered practices and deaf epistemologies. From a
postcolonial perspective, he notes that while deaf instructors in interpreter training
programs should benefit from increased social capital, they are expected to accept
subaltern designations. This phenomenon is even more prominent in contexts with-
out deaf studies or sign language programs; for example the challenges faced by
deaf UgSL instructors, which are described in Chapter 1. Ladd (cited in McDermid,
2009) adds that deaf instructors are constantly forced to “battle” for legitimization
of their language and culture.
Regarding the intersection of gender and deafness, I was shocked to read about
the struggle of deaf women to defend their authorship of their autobiographies, as