Deaf protagonism in an amazonian region: school life experiences

Abstract

This study aims to understand how school experiences lived by Deaf people influenced the construction of their political, cultural, and linguistic protagonism. Deaf protagonism is recognized as a political, cultural, and linguistic position of difference that permeates all life experiences. The work aligns with Deaf Studies by situating subjects in their linguistic–cultural singularity, converging with the Philosophy of Difference by affirming difference as a productive and plural element and by rejecting universal and fixed categories. The research took place in the context of an event that discussed Deaf education in the region based on the school experiences of Deaf adults. The identification of protagonists occurred through the local Deaf community association, research groups at the Federal University of Western Pará, and members of the external community, guided by criteria of institutional/public recognition and trajectories of subjectivation. Seventeen Deaf protagonists were identified; the five most frequently indicated, residents of Santarém, Pará (Brazil), were invited to the event and to the study. All presentations were recorded for subsequent translation and discourse analysis from a Foucauldian perspective. Participants reported experiences of exclusion, highlighting ableism and the imposition of oralism as a normative criterion of belonging in family, social, and educational spaces. The institutionalization of exclusionary discourses reinforces the normalization of conduct and promotes historical and structural inequalities. The study also evidences processes of re-signification of Deaf identity, with protagonists assuming active roles in reconstructing their educational and professional trajectories.