A constituição da comunidade surda no espaço da escola: fronteiras nas formas de ser surdo

Abstract

This research aims at problematizing how the deaf narrate themselves in the relationship existing between deaf school and deaf community, considering ways of being deaf in the present time. The research material analyzed is composed of 15 theses and dissertations written by deaf people who, on talking about themselves, evoke both the deaf school and the deaf community spaces in their narratives. By using post-structuralist studies and deaf studies, this research examines truths that are spread in deaf discourses about the deaf school and the deaf community, which are the following: the deaf community is a life place where deaf identities are formed; the deaf community is a deaf space which is safe and peaceful to live in; finally, the deaf community and the deaf school are spaces of deaf cultural translation which record in the deaf soul a form of permanently claim ing their rights. From the analysis, it was possible to conclude that: a) most of the deaf have their first contact with their peers at school; b) with the dislocation from the hearing norm to the deaf norm, the deaf school and the deaf community take on other forms, in a permanent crisis; c) from the notion of deaf norm, one can say that deafculture and difference, as well as the deaf community, are inventions made possible byour time; d) the deaf school and the deaf community, thought as peaceful, safe spaces to live in, become tensioned, as inside them the deaf live with the deaf norm, which does not respect difference; e) ways of life experienced by the deafboth at school and in their community are not very peaceful and safe, since boundaries have become increasingly blurred, and the inclusion risk has threatened community life.