Understanding and Not-Understanding: What Do Epistemologies and Ontologies Do in Deaf Worlds?

Abstract

This article explores the role of understanding and not-understanding in deaf worlds. Using ethnographic data from fieldwork in urban India, ethnographic work by another scholar based in the United States, and an analysis of an advertisement campaign by a video relay service in the United States, the article argues that an effort to “make understanding happen” is a part of deaf socialities in India and elsewhere. Working toward and valuing understanding are components of deaf people’s epistemologies and ontologies. Deaf people’s (signed) language ideologies emphasize the importance of understanding, which helps produce deaf communities of practice. An explicit desire to make understanding happen—on multiple levels—demonstrates the importance of the work that understanding does in deaf worlds.