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<font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:11pt">-- <br>
</span><font size="2"><span style="font-size:10pt">Associate Professor Adam Schembri<br>
Director, National Institute for Deaf Studies and Sign Language<br>
La Trobe University | Melbourne (Bundoora) | Victoria | 3086 | Australia<br>
Tel: +61 3 9479 2887 | Fax: +61 3 9479 3074 | www.latrobe.edu.au/nids<br>
</span></font></font>
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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--><div lang="EN-AU" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div class="Section1"><div><div class="section1" align="center" style="text-align:center"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt"><hr size="2" width="100%" align="center" tabindex="-1"></span></font></div></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><b><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold">From:</span></font></b><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma">
Erich Fox Tree [<a href="mailto:efoxtree@hamilton.edu">mailto:efoxtree@hamilton.edu</a>] <br><b><span style="font-weight:bold">Sent:</span></b> Friday, 11 March 2011 3:37
AM<br></span></font></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><br><o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Times;font-weight:bold">Call
for Papers </span></font></b><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:
11.0pt;font-family:Times">for the American Anthropological Association (AAA)
meetings in<b><span style="font-weight:bold"> </span></b></span></font><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on"><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Times">Montreal</span></font></st1:city><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times">, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></span></font></st1:place><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times">,</span></font><b><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Times;font-weight:
bold"> </span></font></b><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Times">November 16-20, 2011:</span></font><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Times"> </span></font><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Times;font-weight:bold">DECOLONIZING
INDIGENOUS AND VILLAGE SIGN LANGUAGES </span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Times;font-weight:bold">BY
SEEING THE SILENT</span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Times"> </span></font><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:36.0pt"><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Times"> “Immature,”
“inchoate,” “less complex,” “limited in range,” “primitive,” “of
peripheral importance,” or at a lower stage in the “normal” developmental cycle
of sign languages: Recent academic descriptions of the sign languages of
indigenous groups or of small, bimodally-bilingual rural communities with high
incidences of deafness, are distressingly reminiscent of missionary-linguists’
characterizations of the spoken vernaculars of colonized Natives centuries ago.
What similar colonial relationships do the modern claims encode?</span></font><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:36.0pt"><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Times"> Since Stokoe (1960) proved
that American Sign Language, ASL, was a real language, with a systematic
structure and grammar, scholarship has contested the general colonization of
the Deaf by challenging claims that signers are intellectually deprived or
socially immature. It has also invigorated efforts to gain recognition and
support for national sign languages, and thereby helped change patronizing
oralist models of education for many deaf people not only in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place></st1:country-region>, but in
other industrialized countries. </span></font><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:36.0pt"><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Times"> Yet the indigenous and village
sign languages that constitute much of the diversity of the world’s natural
sign languages have not enjoyed important advances made by national sign
languages. They face intensifying marginalization, domination, and
endangerment, and scholars have scarcely studied their plight, let alone their
structures and usage. Indigenous and village sign languages are crucial not only
for scientific and humanistic understanding of human language (Nonaka 2003),
but for issues of linguistic, indigenous, and human rights, especially as their
predicament may be driven not only by hearing hegemonies, but also by those of
national sign languages. </span></font><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:36.0pt"><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Times">This panel brings together
established and new cultural scholars to examine this double-colonialism ofindigenous and village sign languages: colonization both AS SIGN LANGUAGES and
BY SIGN LANGUAGES. Case studies question how advancements by official and
aspiring national sign languages sometimes come at the expense of other sign
language. They ask how scholarly claims of isolation, minority status,
and recent origin reduce the legitimacy of indigenous and village sign
communities. What do new theories about the development of sign languages mean
for anthropological ideals of cultural survival and relativism? Does advocacy
for national sign languages replicate nationalists’ imagining of communities
around single spoken vernaculars? Can sign languages persist without Deaf
schools, modern technologies, and video capitalism? How does denial of
existence, complexity, and rights, or premature classification as “minority”
languages help suppress linguistic, ethnic, and cultural diversity? Does promotion
of “modern” features, such as signed alphabets, create a hierarchy of sign
codes, while aiding standardization of <i><span style="font-style:italic">spoken</span></i>
languages? In short, how do hearing authorities and promoters of national (or
international) sign languages collaborate to “silence” indigenous and village
ones?</span></font><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:36.0pt"><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Times"> Through its focus on the
invisible “voices” of indigenous and village signers, this panel aims to help
them. Diverse case studies from North America, to Asia, Africa and <st1:place w:st="on">Mesoamerica</st1:place> advocate more intense study of indigenous and
village sign languages. Going beyond description of linguistic contact,
competition, and conflict, papers support increased collaboration between
advocates of national sign languages and indigenous or village signers to
consider how law, scholarship, and economic practices might better empower both
communities. </span></font><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Times"> </span></font><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Times">TO HAVE YOUR PAPER CONSIDERED FOR THIS PANEL, contact Dr.
Erich Fox Tree (</span></font><a href="mailto:efoxtree@hamilton.edu"><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Times">efoxtree@hamilton.edu</span></font></a><font size="2" face="Times"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Times">). </span></font><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><br>
-- <br>
Prof. Erich Fox Tree<br>
Department of Religious Studies<br><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Hamilton</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype></st1:place><br><st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">198 College Hill Road</st1:address></st1:street><br><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Clinton</st1:city> <st1:state w:st="on">NY</st1:state>,
<st1:postalcode w:st="on">13323</st1:postalcode></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></font></p></div></div></o:smarttagtype></o:smarttagtype></o:smarttagtype></o:smarttagtype></o:smarttagtype></o:smarttagtype></o:smarttagtype></o:smarttagtype></o:smarttagtype></o:smarttagtype></div></blockquote></span></body></html>