Deaf people on the move: Temporal dimensions

1. DEAF PEOPLE ON THE
MOVE: TEMPORAL
DIMENSIONS
Sanchayeeta Iyer and Amandine le Maire

2. INTRODUCTION
• This presentation focuses on the mobilities of deaf people across
international borders and how deaf people settle in a new
environment - MobileDeaf project
• Findings from two studies: a study of everyday lived experiences
of deaf migrants living in London and deaf refugees who were
forced to migrate to Kakuma Refugee Camp.
• We zoom in on the experience of temporality which happens on
different scales and has different temporal dimensions.

4. TEMPORALITY
• Migrants bring with them their patterns/set of roles, values, and behaviour,
which in time have adapted as they negotiate their identities within the
new context through the process of ‘assimilation’ / ‘integration’ (or resist)
(Cwerner, 2001)
• Migration trajectories are life course trajectories during which migrants
develop themselves, get older, and as a consequence revisit their
previous reason for migrating while planning/contemplating their future
(Bass 2018, Griffiths et al 2013)
• On the one hand, waiting is associated with sitting and doing nothing; on
the other waiting is an active and creative process (Tirado, 2019)
• Relationships of power and domination exist between the people who wait
and the agents. This subordination is created and re-created through
innumerable acts of waiting (Auyero, 2011)

5. DEAF MIGRANTS LIVING
IN LONDON
DEAF MIGRANTS LIVING
IN LONDON

7. INDIAN DEAF MIGRANTS

8. PARTICIPANT
BACKGROUNDS
• All moved to London on spouse visas.
• 3 got married in their early 30s (arrived in the UK 2014, 2018); 2 got
married in their early 20s (arrived in the UK over 10 years ago)
• All except one are from middle class backgrounds ('middle class' not
a fixed category)
• All their husbands are deaf British citizens (three born in the UK, one
came as a child and the other as an adult, and one is a returner
(grew up in Canada).
• Four from Mumbai and one from Kolkata
• Four have visited places outside of India before coming to the UK

9. METHODOLOGY
Visual
approach: self
portrait,
photos, etc
Online
participant
observation
(e.g. Facebook)
In depth one-
to-one
interviews (2/3
times)
Informal chats Fieldnotes

10. DEAF REFUGEES LIVING IN
KAKUMA REFUGEE CAMP

12. METHODOLOGY
Positionality
Participant
observation/fiel
dnotes
Informed
consent forms
In-depth
one-to-one
interviews
Mapping

13. Gender Age Nationality
Mobilities outside of the camp
and length of time in Kakuma
Moses Man 24 Sudanese
Arrived at Kakuma in 2002 and went
back to Sudan in 2008, returning again
to Kakuma.
Isse Man 31 Sudanese
Arrived at Kakuma when he was 3
years old in 1992 (28 years in Kakuma)
Amina Women 40 Somali
First moved to Dadaab in 2008 and
stayed for 8 years before moving to
Kakuma in 2016
Maya Women 34 Sudanese
Arrived at Kakuma in 1992 (28 years in
Kakuma)
Abdullahi Man 29 Somali
First moved to Dadaab in 2008 and
stayed for 8 years before moving to
Kakuma in 2016
Ann Women 20 Sudanese
Arrived at Kakuma in 2004 and went
back to Sudan in 2007, returning again
to Kakuma in 2013
Kuusa Women 20 Somali Arrived in Kakuma in 2009

14. DEAF MIGRANTS LIVING
IN LONDON
DEAF INDIAN WOMEN LIVING
IN LONDON

15. EXPERIENCES OF
BELONGING
• Transition into a new (gendered) household (shift in power
hierarchical as they take up their new role as a daughter in-law).
Invest time in the role - take up household duties such as cooking,
moving out, space to have privacy, expand family
• Interact with the British deaf communities - dealing with negative
attitudes and adapt to different social rhythms and schedules
• Participating in the labour market and experience of working -
constraints of course structure and interview process
• Their identities/subjectivities - what it means to be a deaf, Indian
and gendered person in the UK.

16. SIGN LANGUAGE:
THROUGH TEMPORAL
LENS
• Grew up as oral and attended an oral school. Learnt ASL in
school.
• Criticism from the deaf community over lack of BSL fluency
• Long working hours for 10 years then became a full-time
housewife with less time to interact with deaf friends
• Interactions mostly with parents of her sons’ classmates
• Class, attitude, language status, familial obligations, cultural and
economical

17. COVID PANDEMIC
• The impact of the pandemic on the process of making home in the
city
• Delay in forming relationships with the deaf community and entering
the labour market
• Immobile/being stuck in the city
• Timed out of everyday life
• Time to interact with people back home/s
• Tensions with husband’s family

18. COVID PANDEMIC

19. DEAF REFUGEES LIVING IN
KAKUMA REFUGEE CAMP

20. (IM)MOBILITY
• On a larger scale, deaf refugees are trapped in a state which can
be described as limbo.
• Protracted displacement where none of the three solutions are
working e.g. return to country of origin, integration into the host
country or resettlement.
• On a smaller scale, deaf refugees are mobile in their everyday
lives inside and outside of the camp.
• But Kakuma Refugee Camp is a massive camp which means
displacement in the camp is difficult - time and distance affect the
morphology of deaf meeting spaces.

21. EXPERIENCE OF WAITING
Outside of the Food Distribution Centre in Kakuma 1
Isse’s food distribution card with holes
• Fieldwork data - case study:
Food Distribution Centre
• Waiting incorporates a
relation of power and
domination (Auyero, 2011)

23. EXPERIENCE OF WAITING
• The process is very chaotic and highly violent, refugees are
fighting to be able to enter through gates and running between
every stage of waiting rooms.
• Deaf refugees experience anxiety and uncertainty during this
process
• Gender issues - too much violence and dangerous for women to
access the Food Distribution Centre - it is mostly men who are
responsible to get subsistence.
• Refugees are dictated by guards to sit and wait, the waiting room
is an area of compliance, a universe of waiting instead of
attempting to negotiate with authorities (Auyero, 2011)

24. CONCLUSION
• Temporal lens enable us to see nuances of (gendered)
experiences and practices of everyday life and how institutions
and structure shape people’s everyday practice and future
aspirations and how they in turn shape that experience.
• Migration pathway clearly denotes a trajectory across time
(experience and engage with their ongoing trajectories) (Baas
2018)
• Time which is constrained by structures and institutions (e.g.
waiting for visas), shapes migrants’ everyday practice and the
acts of agency by migrants show how they regain control of their
experience and their journey.