210 Deaf Epistemologies, Identity, and Learning
In the methodological approach I have developed during my fieldwork,
particularly in my work in Cameroon (see Chapter 5), I have combined these two
strength-centered approaches—(1) documenting deaf (indigenous) practices
of knowledge, wisdom, culture, education, and language and (2) recognizing
the strengths and resources present in these processes, in individuals, and in the
community. Riger (1997) critically argues for an emphasis on both empowerment
and connection that balances individual and collective development: “We need
to consider differences but also similarities; those things that separate and also
those we have in common; agency and also communion; empowerment and also
community” (p. 290).
In working toward strength-centered ethnography, I have attempted to respond to
research ethics, more particularly to the question, “What ways of living would this
individual and this community want to design for themselves, and how can individ-
uals and the community be respected and supported in this process in terms of who
they are?”
After my 2007 visit to Cameroon, which was subsequent to my stay at Gallaudet
and resulted from the invitation of a Cameroonian Gallaudet alumnus, I thought
the Cameroonian deaf community should be exposed to deaf cultural rhetoric. But
by the time I returned to Cameroon in 2009 for fieldwork, I had put aside this pre-
scriptive perspective in favor of an orientation toward concepts that were actually
being used in the community and practices that had been developed by the commu-
nity over time. I wanted to know how Cameroonian deaf people managed their lives
collectively, interpersonally, and individually and to explore ways for collaboration
and knowledge exchange (see also Chapters 5 and 8 for discussions of a communi-
ty-based and participatory methodological approach).
I had developed a culture-sensitive approach to deaf studies (see Chapter 2)
through being inspired by the practice of cultural comparison in discussions among
international deaf people at Gallaudet, deaf people’s movement between differ-
ent contexts and complex constructions of identity, my own increased intercultural
competence and awareness of axes of difference (as young, deaf, European, aca-
demic, etc.), and the expertise of my department in cross-cultural comparison. In
addition, my experience of moving between Belgium and Gallaudet and returning
to Belgium and the continuous negotiation processes of diversity and equality at
Ghent University contributed to the need for an open notion of empowerment that
could be contextualized and that could enable people to look for their own solu-
tions and have these recognized.
The reflections in this chapter also illustrate a movement toward a more rela-
tional ontological perspective in my work (see Chapter 6) —the sense of connection
illustrated in the drawing of Jiayi, the woman I met in China, and the “focus on eth-
ical virtues of generosity, kindness and love” in human encounters in Nussbaum’s
work (2012, p. 165).
Narayan (1993) writes that instead of thinking in terms of native versus non-native
dichotomies, it may be more fruitful to “view each anthropologist in terms of shift-
ing identifications amid a field of interpenetrating community and power relations”
(p. 2). She argues for an “enactment of hybridity”; that is, “writing that depicts