Mapping the Deaf community – 19th Sept
19th September – Brighton UK
Extended Seminar: “Mapping the Deaf community”
- CUPP in partnership with Geography at University of Brighton.
- 1pm to 5pm. Entry free of charge and open to community members and academics.
- Room G7, Grand Parade site, University of Brighton, Grand Parade, Brighton, BN2 0JY.
- Speakers incl: John Walker (Brighton/Sussex), Dai O’Brien (York St John), Mike Gulliver (Bristol).
Maps explore the spatial relationships between specific features the map aims to represent, such as political boundaries, population, physical features, natural resources, climates, elevation and economic activities. The Deaf community engage in different embodied spaces, where their experiences and consciousness are manifested in materialistic and spatial forms. The “Mapping the Deaf community” seminar brings together the current Deaf-related mapping initiatives in the UK.
MIKE GULLIVER 
I’ll believe it when I read it, if they are going via BSL and clubs/schools then it fails immediately since a deaf community by definition has to cover deaf PEOPLE, not, a minority of them. Wales has NO deaf schools and just 6 known regular clubs of BSL users,and, no-one has covered them yet, my area, they hadn’t even heard of the BSL Zone, good luck with mapping here lol. I suspect another put-up job by the deaf studies mafia…. propaganda in short.
I was talking to someone about this the other day… how do you even start to describe the modern Deaf community. Should we even try… should we just leave deaf/Deaf people be… Where *is* that majority, if they’re not in clubs and schools? Alone in bedrooms, online, somewhere else? With hearing mates..? Is Deaf Studies making up the problem to have an issue to justify its own existence?
I’m genuinely interested, and open to suggestions… and we have the opportunity to apply for funding and potentially find out. We even have good contacts in Wales… yes, they are mostly linked to the clubs, but with some imagination and contact with non-club deaf/Deaf people we could think about changing the story?
I could point out YOUR blog roll has a list of defunct deaf blogs, years old but….
It does, it’s true – I need to fix those.
In answer to your question where are they, I would start with social media. There is no dissemination point in Wales re info or data. Charities e.g. go online and guesstimate numbers. As we found out they only went to CARDIFF deaf club to do surveys or consultations, so little wonder most deaf in Wales are in blissful ignorance of what goes on. There are a number of lone activists (I’m one !), in wales, the rest don’t attend deaf clubs only old people do, the young deaf are not interested in that community set up, and operate apart, a number are integrated thankfully, there being no deaf community to pull them back in, and no deaf schools in wales. You won’t locate any significant number to get much feedback the young are in pubs, the old in deaf clubs the rest on twitter. There is so much apathy, a number of welsh campaigners no longer feel is worth the effort saving the community any more, if it exists its probably online now, good luck with that, I was banned 6 years ago for trying to kick them into action. !. If you can contact even 100 people in wales that would be a miracle. It would be the second coming to get them to do anything.. One suspects you will have to concentrate on the cities and England..
My Byddar Cymru blog contains probably the only up to date and reliable stats and Numbers in Wales, however WHERE they are and WHAT they are doing is anyone’s guess. Along with others I used FOI’s and everything to track them down, but, the system and even charities used section 15 and section 40 to prevent me identifying anyone. Factually I think it is a case of ‘think of a number, double/treble it,see if we can get away with it.” They did a census didn’t they ? and the BSL people wouldn’t accept the facts from their own people, which was 15,000 BSL people in all UK. Ironically, the BSL activists demanded the census question, obviously they didn’t like the answer.