Narrativas dos surdos idosos: subjetividade e vínculos culturais

Abstract

This PhD thesis, entitled ELDERLY DEAF PEOPLE NARRATIVES: subjectivity and cultural bounds, produced on the research line of epistemological decoloniality, transgressive education and transformation practices within the Post Graduate Program in Education from the Federal University of Pelotas, analyzes elderly Deaf people narratives, focusing on their experiences, community bounds and different manners of Being Deaf. Through five (5) interviews with elderly Deaf people, we have sought to enable moments of exchange between the interviewer and the interviewees, allowing some bounds to be formed concerning community, family, educational and linguistic experiences. The interviews were carried out in Libras, then they were transcribed into Portuguese and analyzed using the theoretical framework within Cultural Studies and Deaf Studies. With the objective of reflecting on how elderly Deaf people narrate their history and establish cultural bounds, this study draws inspiration from the following concepts: Being Deaf, narratives, subjectivity; and it also uses some studies from gerontology and elderly people education. The narrative analyses were grouped into six categories: infancy, family, school, Sign Language, Deaf associations and elderliness. It is understood that the possibility of being together as a group allows cultural bounds to be formed. When sharing experiences, such as the ones concerning linguistic privation, the fight for rights, social strangeness concerning the concept of Being Deaf and the challenges of being a Deaf person on the third age, other manners of living as a Deaf person are created. The research shows that elderly Deaf people have suffered throughout their lives with interventions from institutions that understood the differences between Deaf people from distinctive theoretical orientations. For this reason, it is important to highlight on discussions about Deaf education that elderly people carry a legacy of resistance to be transmitted to young Deaf people and that it may inspire the school education.