Response to Comments by Andersson, Johnston, Monaghan, Street

Response to Comments by Andersson, Johnston, Monaghan, Street The ways in which the four respondents above have engaged with the issues and made positive contributions provide, I think, tremendous insights and illumination for advances in this field. I welcome the constructive way in which each contributor has offered refinements, refocused the issues, or given a different view of the topic. I remember Noam Chomsky saying in an interview that he would be devastated if someone hadn't show his own view fo be incomplete or wrong five years down the line, for that would mean the field wasn't interesting enough to pursue. A number of principles seem to emerge more or less strongly from this in-print symposium. They won't be stunningly new, but it is perhaps worth reiterating them in preparation for further research and development relating to the lives of Deaf people: 1.Deafperspective As is stressed in the comments, fully adequate accounts of being Deaf will never be achieved unless Deaf people "tell the way it is" for them. There is no dispute over this point among these authors, and it is a principle that has demonstrated its value in the work of Carol Padden and Tom Humphries, Barbara Kannapell, Ben Bahan, Paul Higgins, and many others. Deaf in America by Padden and Humphries (1988) makes itself indispensable by providing a powerful and scholarly "insider's" account. Nevertheless , as Higgins puts it: [T]aking their perspective, however, does not mean that there are not other perspectives as well.... Even among the deaf there are diverse views. Nor does it mean that hearing people cannot help us understand what it means to be deaf. The experiences of hearing people who are familiar with the deaf can complement and question, but should not be substituted for, the experiences of deaf people. (Higgins 1980:16) 2.Approachesto description One of the ways in which hearing people can contribute to the development of ideas is by bringing into the discussion theoretical frameworks drawn from the wider field that seem to have the potential to be fruitfully applied to discourse in this field. It is surely informative to know that Paul Gilroy's analyses of questions of race, ethnicity, and culture in the UK are bringing him to @1994 Linstok Press, Inc. Note inside front cover ISSN 0302-1475 149 SLS 82 a view of culture as "plastic" and "radically unfinished" (Gilroy 1993:61)-this in direct contrast to the sense of racial narcissism, absolutism, and essentialism that has become orthodox. Likewise our inquiries can be enhanced and stimulated by the knowledge that critical thinkers like Aziz Al-Azmeh are beginning to argue that "there is little that is generically Islamic about Islam" (Cited in Howe 1994:39). Bringing in fresh theoretical frameworks does not, however, entail abandoning the gains already made or denying the possibility continuing to glean insight in other ways. As Trevor Johnston usefully notes (p. 131), to identify apparent shortcomings in an analytical model is not to render it entirely meaningless. A blinkered cavalier approach to the generation of knowledge is unlikely to be as effective as a broad-minded but painstaking one that takes the time to attend to the appropriate range of application of analytical tools and methods, to be aware of where various strengths and weaknesses lie, and to be prepared to address concerns that may be raised. There is a time for everything: a time for deep abstraction and a time for thick description . The combination ofthe two has a power all its own. 3. Transparency& explicitness Whichever approach one chooses at any given time, laying out the way in which claims are generated is fundamental. In the present instance such value as there may be in using a checklist type of framework to provide a temporarily stable cultural blueprint becomes muted at best (nullified at words) in the absence of background material. Crucially, as far as the present issue under debate goes, we ought at least to know how, why, and by whom the items on check list or the criteria for choosing them were selected as Andersson points out. In the absence of such information we are entitled, and as analysts...