Reflections of a Deaf Scholar 209
This definition of well-being is in alignment with the cross-cultural epistemological
approach I have cultivated, and it leaves room for a naturalized epistemological stance,
the documentation of deaf flourishing, and the description of deaf perspectives.
Mathews and Izquierdo also explain the difference between the uses of the terms
well-being and quality of life, the latter of which occurs, for example, in the work of
Martha Nussbaum (e.g., Nussbaum, 2006) and Amartya Sen (e.g., Sen, 2001):In [Pursuits of Happiness], we use well-being rather than quality of life in that the
latter, in much of the literature, implies external observation and evaluation
alone; well-being, on the other hand, also implies consideration of people’s
own internal states of mind. (Mathews & Izquierdo, 2010, p. 4)From a social justice perspective, a quality-of-life and capability approach
illuminates the difference between people’s functionings, activities, and states of
being (Nussbaum, 2006; Robeyns, 2005; Sen, 2009). As illustrated by Maddox
(2008), who describes the perspectives of adult participants in a literacy program,
ethnographic research can document the effects of small changes in people’s lives
and contribute to a process of “testing” and obtaining further insight into the
capability approach.
From the perspective of an “engaged anthropology” (Janes & Corbett, 2009; see
also Chapter 5), connecting a capability approach with ethnographic research may
contribute to the refinement of this ethical framework, as well as facilitate consider-
ation of deaf people’s progress from the broad perspective of human development
(also see Chapter 1). This may also be beneficial to the discussion of ethical issues,
such as those surrounding cochlear implants.
From a naturalized epistemological stance (see Chapter 2), methodologically
I view this process of documenting elements that are present in deaf flourishing as a
strength-centered ethnography. Rather than a culturally situated, positively oriented ap-
proach, it is an approach that documents the strengths, assets, and knowledge that
individuals and communities bring to their pathways of sustainable development
(Diale & Fritz, 2007; Sillitoe, 2002).
This documentation leaves room for the advancement of research methods that
may support the sustainable development of deaf/sign language communities and
valorization of their indigenous knowledge (see Chapter 8 for further discussion).
Such methods include participatory approaches and critical pedagogy in communi-
ty-based research, which involves their communities in all stages and views community
members as coinvestigators (see also Chapter 5, as well as Chapter 8).
Identifying deaf people’s worldviews, ways of learning, linguistic and cultural prac-
tices, and sources of strength in their environments may help increase the psycholog-
ical, linguistic, cultural, and social capital (Bourdieu, 1990, 1998; Van Regenmortel,
2008) of deaf people and their communities. This call for an anthropology of deaf
flourishing necessarily completes what Farmer (2010a, p. 350) has called “an an-
thropology of structural violence,” which documents social dynamics of oppression,
in relation to agency and resistance, and is highly relevant in times of globaliza-
tion, when the need to understand other people’s worldviews is particularly strong
(Nussbaum, 2012, also see Chapters 1 and 2).