The business of hearing

Abstract

A controversy surrounds the use of cochlear implant technology as a ‘cure’ for deafness. The deaf community has argued that proponents of speech and hearing (known as oralists) have imposed this technology on deaf people as part of their mission to eradicate deafness and therefore the deaf community. The use of power is at issue within this debate, where power may be taken to mean something that is possessed or something that is exercised. For the deaf community, cochlear implants have come to be used because oralists simply had the power to do so. This article contests this position. It offers a description of the development of the social process that has permitted and legitimated the production of a form of social relations that privileges the use of cochlear implants over sign language. Within this analysis it can be seen that the oralists’ capacity and opportunity to act resulted from their ability to build collaborative networks with a variety of actors, both individual and institutional. This understanding of power as exercised, forms an integral part of a broader framework for understanding the governance of deafness.