132 Deaf Epistemologies, Identity, and Learning
(see Chapter 3), can be further understood by the concept of “liminality” (Turner,
cited in Yang, 2000). Limen is Latin for “threshold”: “when ritual subjects are sepa-
rated from the familiar space, the routine temporal order, or the structures of moral
obligations and social ties, they enter a liminal time/space. In Turner’s imagina-
tive language, this is ‘an instant of pure potentiality,’ when much of what has been
bound by social structure is ‘liberated,’ and the transgression of norms and conven-
tions becomes possible” (Yang, 2000, p. 383). The course provided opportunities
for imagining alternative futures, for potentiality or for becoming (Braidotti, 1996).Then... there was a study trip to Denmark for a few days. I wanted to go. The
first day of our trip, my eyes were opened several times, and after that day,
I had had enough. The second day, I wanted to go home. It was too much to
deal with, too much that surprised me. If I persisted and continued taking
in all that information, I thought, I would lose myself. Because that first day,
I already was thinking such a lot.
After that, there was a week-long study trip to Gallaudet. It was really in-
teresting there. I started to think: “Actually, I have lost so many years.” I have
always been interested in politics; I like reading the newspapers. But, in Flan-
ders, there was no discussion about that. Gallaudet has a large library where
you can also watch movies and read books and articles. There was a man there,
and I looked at what he was reading, which was about politics. He started
telling me about it, and then I realized that I actually didn’t know a thing.
In Flanders, I felt well-read, but there, I knew nothing. That man talked and
talked, and I looked at him and got the insight. My children are deaf too....
That’s how it all started. Back in Flanders, I was really strong. I had changed.
I became really active and involved in parents’ advocacy for deaf children, and
in the federation, and I wanted all of us to become equal citizens in society.The empowerment of this identity transition resides in the validation of Jerry’s own
deaf epistemic practices, which had been subjugated in Flanders. This validation oc-
curred through deaf cultural rhetoric and the embodiment of equality in the places
he visited and in the lives of his international deaf peers (see chapter 3 for a further
description of this with reference to Foucault). The next fragment focuses on power
effects stemming from the lived experiences of Jerry, and the changing relations of
self and society before and after his awakening. Deaf cultural discourses and more
equal practices of deaf citizenship provide room for the emergence of a positive
notion of power, awakening Jerry’s human potentiality, as suggested by Braidotti:A thick and highly dynamic web of power effects is the factor through which
self and society are mutually shaped by one another. The choreography of
constraints and entitlements, controls and desire is the hard core of power.
This core is devoid of any substantial essence and is a force, or activity—a verb
that is, not a noun. Power as a positive or potentia is crucial in forming the sub-
ject as an entity enmeshed in a network of inter-related social and discursive
effects; here bio-power, or the power over living matter, is one good example
of this. (2006, p. 92)