Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I feel bad that I haven't been updating as regularly as promised!
I will summarise the two weeks briefly. (I wonder what my idea of brief is!!!)

Week Six

* Vivien- Globalisation
* Hilde Haualand
* Vivien- Deaf Community/Deaf Culture/Deaf World
* Ole- Communication/Argument Skills/Conflict Management

I will go in brief detail on each lecture. Not letting you get off that easy!

* Vivien- Globalisation

We talked about disapora.

"Diaspora signified a collective trauma a banishment where one dreamed of home but lived in exile" (Robin Cohen;1997)

There are different kinds of diaspora:

* victim
* labour
* imperial
* trade
* "homeland"
* cultural

After much discussion, we found links between these different kinds and deaf people.
Other definitions were explored, way of living through force settlement or immigration and intercultural communication. We then focused on deaf people, is deaf culture national or trans-national?

We had many discussions on various topics, what culture is based on, differences between deaf people and hearing people and whether hearing people could be a full member of deaf culture? We tried to define deaf community and deaf culture and tried to make clear what was different between the two.

* Hilde Haualand

Hilde Haualand is an anthropologist from Norway that came to talk to us about anthropology and transnational communities (focusing on the deaflympics and other deaf-related events)

Anthropology is the study of human beings and social anthropology is the study of the social human being, how they interact with other people and their role & expectations.

The beginning, the process and the end of a deaf event: i.e- Deaflympics

Establishing a Deaf space:

* Travel- building a Deaf city
* Deaf 'takeover' of a place
* Hearing people get a grasp of gestures, pen and paper
* Deaf people expect increased service level

Liminal state:

* A temporary 'play world' (Holland et al 1998) of Deaf people is established
* The restricted time gives intensity to the experience
* Normal rules are in abeyance and is replaces with a close and egilitarian 'communitas'

Termination:

* Farewell party
* Decreased frequency of observed signing people
* The visual community 'dissolves'
* The Deaf communitas is replaced with the invisible web of power of the hearing majority.

She also explained a bit about globalisation, challenges and opportunities and raised some questions.

* What about Deaf people from developing countries?
* Deaf community- only for an elite with time and resources to travel?

Hilde's presentation was fantastic and I enjoyed it a lot.

* Vivien- Deaf Community/Deaf Culture/Deaf World

We spent a lot of time discussing how to put a line through deaf community, deaf culture and deaf world & what the differences between the three and who could be a 'member' of whichever group. We have decided not to announce what we decided on until the end so you will have to be patient!

* Ole- Communication/Arguments/Conflict Management

We had Ole on both Thursday and Friday for the same topic

We were spilt up into groups and given four brainteasers that we had to solve as a group. Half the us were given various shapes and they had to make squares out of the various shapes, giving others their pieces without communicating. It was very funny to watch them trying to make the squares without communicating.

We talked about one way & two way communication and the advantages & disadvantages! Ole got Sarah and Ronan to debate the topic of whether we should bring in six more Frontrunners 'tomorrow'. It was purely theorictial. Ronan was the negative side and Sarah was the affirmative. When they left the room to prepare, Ole told us all to 'back' Ronan and 'diss' Sarah to see what their reactions would be. Their reactions were hilarious. Sarah got rather mad during the debate cause we were scoffing at her and not focusing. Ronan had a surge of confidence but was kind of suspicious why we didn't challenge him like we challenged Sarah! In the afternoon, we went golfing to refresh ourselves for the next day. It was a lot of fun.

Friday held a day of conflict escalation, conflict management and a movie! Ole explained the esclation process and showed us 'One flew over the cuckoo's next' - 1975 movie with Jack Nicholson and asked us to identify the stages that he'd already explained in the movie.

Week Seven

* Ole- Conflict Management/Empowerment/Constructing Deafness

* Peter Niemela- "The Highway to Deaf communities"

* Vivien- Project

*Ole- Conflict Management/Empowerment/Constructing Deafness

We began with Constructing Deafness. Ole gave us photocopies of the 2nd chapter the week before and we had to get into groups and study one part of the chapter and summarise then explain to the group using examples from Hilde and Vivien's presentations.

For Empowerment, we defined empowerment and talked about the two different kinds of empowerment.. self empowerment and someone 'giving' you empowerment..

* Peter Niemela- "The Highway to Deaf Communities"

Peter arrived late so we basically told jokes until he arrived. He mainly focused on Deaf History, starting with drawing a circle saying 'Deaf World' and asked us what was inside that circle. Politics, Sport and Culture. He explained a bit about Deaf sports and showed us stamps. I was embarrassed to see that Australia only had one stamp and it was of a cochlear implant!

* Vivien- Project

Vivien gave us 26 hours to make a short documentary or commerical. I was in Team One (Christophe, Sarah, Filip, Minna, Jerry and I). We made a movie, I won't share what about but you can find some pictures of it on the website within a week. We will not be sharing the movie just yet but a lot of fun was had! It had to be pro-deaf and minimum of three minutes.

That's all for now...I won't be able to update until after we get back from Copenhagen and thats not for another 10 days! We're going to Copenhagen for a week to visit various Deaf organisations....and to...shop!!!!!!!!!!!

Ciao!