Meaning Well is no Excuse: Deaf Sociality and
the Politics of Inclusion in Pedagogic Re-Imagining
the Politics of Inclusion in Pedagogic Re-Imagining
Craig, T. (Brock University)
Connolly, M. (Brock University)
Hardy, M. (Brock University)
This panel will explore how the lived experience of deaf sociality both interrupts and reproduces embodied complexities associated with hegemonic normalcy in ostensibly inclusive pedagogic contexts. We plan to use as guiding premises Maurice Merleau-Ponty's notion of perceptual faith and his explication of learning from La Structure du Comportment (The Structure of Behaviour), as well as Richard Lanigan's communicological explication of the body as sign. In La Structure, Merleau-Ponty
dismantles the atomistic and associational elements of prevailing learning theories. By introducing the notion of gestalt, or form, Merleau-Ponty argues that the whole of a system is not decomposable to a sum of isolated parts, but is rather defined by total processes in which the parts may be indiscernible from each other and where change in one part of the system affects both all other parts and the system as a whole. Rather than looking for the individual, physical event which releases what he calls the movement response, the situation as a whole must be considered, because physical events are always integrated into larger, structural processes. Our panel will work with several critical incidents, recent scholarship in Communicology and critical
Deaf Studies, and a proposed Deaf-sensitized curriculum to explore how inclusion and forms of embodiment can exist with both resonance and discord, regardless of the 'good intentions' of the designers and the well-intentioned implementation of curricular and pedagogic strategies.
Connolly, M. (Brock University)
Hardy, M. (Brock University)
This panel will explore how the lived experience of deaf sociality both interrupts and reproduces embodied complexities associated with hegemonic normalcy in ostensibly inclusive pedagogic contexts. We plan to use as guiding premises Maurice Merleau-Ponty's notion of perceptual faith and his explication of learning from La Structure du Comportment (The Structure of Behaviour), as well as Richard Lanigan's communicological explication of the body as sign. In La Structure, Merleau-Ponty
dismantles the atomistic and associational elements of prevailing learning theories. By introducing the notion of gestalt, or form, Merleau-Ponty argues that the whole of a system is not decomposable to a sum of isolated parts, but is rather defined by total processes in which the parts may be indiscernible from each other and where change in one part of the system affects both all other parts and the system as a whole. Rather than looking for the individual, physical event which releases what he calls the movement response, the situation as a whole must be considered, because physical events are always integrated into larger, structural processes. Our panel will work with several critical incidents, recent scholarship in Communicology and critical
Deaf Studies, and a proposed Deaf-sensitized curriculum to explore how inclusion and forms of embodiment can exist with both resonance and discord, regardless of the 'good intentions' of the designers and the well-intentioned implementation of curricular and pedagogic strategies.