Shield at the entrance to the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital which houses the library – wording reads ‘Audient Surdi, Mutique Loquentur’ which roughly translates as ‘the deaf hear, the mute speak’.
Wednesday, taking advantage of a trip to London, I found myself in the UCL Ear Institute and Action on Hearing Loss archives.
It struck me sitting there, that although I’ve known about that archive for some 10 years, that was the first time I’d ever been in it – and I wondered why.
And I realised that it was because all the way through my time at Bristol University’s Centre for Deaf Studies, although the library was acknowledged as just about the best public archive on deafness in the UK, there was no encouragement to go to it because it was the “RNID” library.
For those not steeped in UK Deaf history, this might not mean much, but the RNID, or the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (now known as Action on Hearing Loss) is the ‘welfare’ and ‘hearing restoration’ counterfoil to the community/language/culture-oriented Deaf-oriented British Deaf Association.
For those in the US, it’s the A.G.Bell Association, and the BDA is the NAD.
As such, the RNID plays a characteristic role in the Deaf history that I was taught. Having been around for just over 100 years, it is the powerful hearing-run organisation that has the ear of the government on all things ‘deaf’, grabs all the money… and then refuses to acknowledge that it may have done anything wrong.
So it’s no surprise that – as students on a Masters course that aimed to further the emancipation of the Deaf community through a postcolonial cultural/linguistic/recognition agenda, we weren’t encouraged to visit its library… or make use of any of its information, or services, or support any of its activities or work for, or with it, in any way.
For what it’s worth – I don’t think that was an explicit decision, I think it just played out that way in people’s mental representations of what information sources were to be trusted and encouraged.
And yet, I found in the archive a wealth of historical information on the 19th century Deaf community. Information that is fundamental to an understanding of the UK Deaf community, but that has rarely made it into any kind of public forum, except the library’s own blog!
And it made me wonder what else we’re missing out on because we consider the risk of encouraging it simply too great… the larger and better funded resources of disability historians, medical historians, educational historians, and the like.
And it made me wonder if it wouldn’t be an enormously important thing to do, to ‘infiltrate’ these ‘other’ sources of information and resources, and disarm them from within – embracing them, subverting them, transforming them… laying them, and their histories, and their backgrounds open to examination along with the information that they contain.
Isn’t that a recognised postcolonial strategy?
Isn’t that, for example, what Doug Alker did when – following his ill-fated period as CEO of the RNID, he used his Golden Handshake to set up the FDP? (1)
Or, is that too political – can’t we just, maybe… use them?
After all, that’s what they’re there for.
And, I’ll be honest, having met the staff of the archive, any thought that they might have a politics other than to preserve and encourage use of the archive, has disappeared… They are lovely people, immensely knowledgeable, and eager to engage with anyone interested in the history.
I suspect, should we begin to engage with those in fields that have traditionally Othered the Deaf community, that we might find the same.
(1) Alker’s ‘Really Not Interested In the Deaf’ is his story of his time as CEO of the RNID – it makes for very interesting reading.
Originally published on Mike Gulliver’s blog: http://mikegulliver.wordpress.com
Mike Gulliver is a linguist and geographer with a particular interest in the history of the Deaf community. He has worked in the UK and overseas as a language teacher, and interpreter/translator. His PhD, which he completed in 2009, describes Deaf spaces through history, focusing particularly on the Parisian Deaf community and their emergence from the school for deaf children founded by the Abbé de l’Epée. He lives in Bristol with his wife and two young children.
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nanafroufrou
May 10, 2013
I remember the collection when it was held in Gower Street. I used it frequently then. It also used to run excellent off-site services. I hope it still does, but I have to confess I haven’t used it for some time- possibly because it no longer feels like it belongs in a community -related place.
And yes, whilst I’m obviously hugely fond of Bristol, I can’t resist pointing out that it has for many years enjoyed a reputation for self- othering (the academic equivalent of self-harm?), as if no other institutions in the UK were embracing or teaching a postcolonial cultural/ linguistic/ recognition model.
Just saying..
Mike Gulliver
May 16, 2013
Hi Nana,
It’s certainly not easy to find – up some back stairs, behind an unmarked door in the waiting room of the Ear, Nose and Throat hospital.
It’s a shame, because it’s a rich resource.
I hear your ideas on the self-Othering thing… Something I read recently makes me wonder whether it’s just a form of radicalism that has past its sell-by date.
I’ve recently followed an exhange between Simon Batterbury (http://simonbatterbury.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/where-have-the-radical-scholars-gone/) and Don Aitkin (http://donaitkin.com/the-radical-scholar-in-todays-universities/)… where one argues (amongst other things) for social engagement, and the other for academic detachment.
I wonder if the civil rights flavoured essentialism that so powerfully birthed organisations like CDS, has given way to a more critically neutral awareness that there are so many ways to construct a politics around Deaf emancipation.
And I wonder how to reconcile the past and the future – and where we might all be in a decade or two’s time.
simonbatterbury
July 27, 2013
Mike, the parallels are not quite there.
I was arguing that with the present, quite cosy position of academic radicals in the university sector that came about much later than the fiery 1960s [when they were first stirring things up, protesting at conferences, getting fired, etc.] it now behoves them to a) keep a critical edge, b) be engaged in and outside the university, and c) also be conscientious and good academic colleagues. This is because they are no longer on the barricades or fighting for jobs. Radicalism needs to be redefined.
Following this analogy,CDS and its form of radicalism became established in a mainstream, prestigious university over 30 yrs ago…. OK so they may have had some issues, but nonetheless the Bristol position did mean following the track of the social science radicals i wrote about (ie moving from margin to more central and stable status).
But look at what has happened over the last 3 years. Rather than continuing to enjoy the fruits of their more mainstream position and substantial following, they have been closed down by their own institution. What I have not understood is that so many people who could have at least opposed this are actually in the same line of work to the people I was writing about in the blog- academic radicals ostensibly committed to social justice. Bristol is literally teeming with them. I met a few this year. But not much anger or protest, frankly, or even any explanation of why it should not be forthcoming as the University crept up on CDS. Academic detachment?
This history can be read different ways by different people, as I am sure it will. And in the archives, somewhere.
Tim
May 10, 2013
These seem like reasonable points; there is not much sense in throwing the baby out with the bathwater, even if there is a lot more of the latter. It could be argued that all of RNID’s assets are really held in trust for the benefit of the Deaf community and we should therefore use them.
On the other hand I could understand if somebody were to argue that we are not at the postcolonial stage yet. Indeed, I think the re-branding of RNID to focus on hearing “loss” is a large step backwards to the oppressive medical model, which can be psychologically damaging to Deaf people.
Furthermore I could understand if any Deaf person were to be concerned that this might give the false impression that Deaf people are ‘OK’ with how RNID continue to oppress us.
So what’s the solution? Perhaps it is to use the resources while making it clear that we do not agree with everything RNID does.
Mike Gulliver
May 16, 2013
Tim,
I’m not sure there is a solution – maybe more, just avenues to explore.
Certainly, my experience is that – once the evidence is out there, and the data has been shared, then people are interested in that, and less in the archive, which becomes little more than a line in the acknowledgements.
But then, of course, as those who share the evidence with the wider world… the responsibility then falls upon us to weave that evidence into a story that is both fair and balanced, and that isn’t coloured by some of the same prejudice that we may have originally read into the archives.
I’ve tended to find that that responsibility makes me more wary of declarations of right and wrong… and more likely to depict history as simply one construction of events.
robertmduncan
May 10, 2013
It’s good to see this piece by Mike Gulliver in The Limping Chicken. He puts his finger on an issue that is not enough discussed – and therefore, I believe, not enough understood.
My personal view, however, is that infiltration is not the best model for achieving what the Deaf community wants.
I think infiltration, one way or another, was what Doug Alker was trying to do in the 1980s and 1990s. But much as I admire Doug, fully support his aims for the Deaf community, and think he was probably treated quite shabbily, his time in the RNID seems to have proved clearly that infiltration can’t work. The FDP was great – I’d love to see it revive – but to see taking a pot of money (just a tiny, tiny fraction of its budget) from the RNID/AoHL and setting up a ‘rival’ organisation as the way towards long-term progress is not a useful strategy.
To me, it’s a bit like a horse trying to infiltrate a herd of camels and persuade them that their best interest is to pursue the same goals as horses. They’re different – they’re camels. The fact that the camels themselves – or maybe I should say some of the camel herders – often don’t seem to know (or for ‘political’ reasons may even obscure) the difference shouldn’t distract us from the central issues.
David Brien, ex-Director of that other great Deaf Studies department at Durham University, reminded us recently of an opportunity which he – and a lot of us – think was missed, to negotiate a constructive way forward with the RNID. In 2008, Jackie Ballard, then the new RNID Chief Executive, said publicly:
“…with size and influence comes responsibility.
I know that in the past we [RNID] have not always exercised that responsibility well. At times we have appeared as a predator when we should have been an ally; a competitor when we should have been a collaborator. I want to change this.”
When I saw this at the time, it seemed to me a genuine offer to sit down and discuss the way forward. And I think an open discussion from positions of respective authority around Jackie Ballard’s proposition is the way forward:
“We’re horses – we represent the horses. You’re camels – you represent the camels.
Can we agree that in future we speak for the horses, you speak for the camels?
Leave the fields and meadows to us and we’ll leave the deserts and oases to you.
Not only that, we will publicly, strongly support your right to the best possible access to the oases.
OK? Agreed?”
And like friendly neighbours who are negotiating the borders and boundaries around their respective territories, of course they can be welcome visitors to each other’s territory – including the camel library, which just happens to have a lot of fascinating old horsey resources in it!
Mike Gulliver
May 16, 2013
Hi,
I really appreciate your comment – and, it’s interesting, this was previously posted on my own blog, and it just so happened that it was read by the (now) CEO of Action on Hearing Loss… with whom I will be having lunch in early July!
As a hearing academic, I’m no representative for the Deaf community – so I’ll be clearly pointing him to talk to Deaf people too, but what you suggest is essentially going to be my message – that AoHL largely caters to a bunch of horses, and that the Deaf community is generally a bunch of camels (please don’t quote me out of context on that one!)… and that the two should be active in respecting each other, and in directing horsey questions to the horses, and camel(ey?) questions to the camels.
Or is that too, too clear cut.
Because I think it’s useful to also discuss why it is that camely questions have, in the past, been given to the horses. Certainly, that wider appreciation for ‘how an archive got to be the way it is’ is a central part of exploring history, and an important story to tell.
And, while we’re about it, are there not camely horses, and some horsey camels? And others in the process of becoming the other, others able to be both at the same time and others who would rather be dead than be the other?
And *all of this* is the picture that is told by a larger view of Deaf history.
Sometimes the story of how history got to be the way it is, is actually a more powerful history than the story that it thinks it’s telling!
robertmduncan
May 16, 2013
Hiya Mike
I was actually thinking of the Deaf community as the horses! But it doesn’t matter, whichever way round, it amounts to the same thing. I won’t take the hump or say you neigh either way!
robertmduncan
May 17, 2013
Mike
In support of your general case… I sent a note to David Brien, ex-Director of Durham DSRU and Editor of the BSL Dictionary. You may like to know what he said – quoted with his permission: “I am dismayed that people may have failed to use the library because of the name over the door: books cannot be ‘owned’ in this way and the only people who are disadvantaged are those who do not avail of the resources in the collection. It is indeed an outstanding collection for the reasons suggested by Mike Gulliver. The first work I undertook for the BDA involved me spending some months there (when it was in Gower Street) researching nineteenth century references to the use of sign language in Britain for the introduction to the Dictionary (as it was then under the editorship of Alan Hayhurst). There was and is no other comparable collection in the UK. In relation to the major point you made in your comment, the BDA might have considered seeking sponsors to maintain and develop those sections of the collection that relate to ‘horses’ (such as Deaf history, Deaf Studies and sign languages) now that it is located in a university library.” David’s is always a voice worth listening to, from a much-missed Unit at Durham University.