The Deaf Heritage Collective: Collaboration and Critical Intent

Jamieson, Kirstie

Abstract

Deaf people refer to themselves as both a minority and an ethnicity (Lane 2011; Ladd 2003), a cultural designation underwritten by the BSL (Scotland) Act 2015, which formally recognises the linguistic and cultural lives of Scotland’s Deaf communities. The Act presented a mandate to the museum and heritage sector to consider Deaf Culture not as a disability, but as a lived culture, whose history and heritage has remained marginalized through institutional, medical and cultural typologies and bias. The BSL (Scotland) Act 2015 presented a critical moment, wherein curators, and heritage professionals are asked to revise categories of disability, inclusion and participation to think instead of representation as a right, marginalization as oppression and to see heritage through an ethical frame. The paper reflects upon the Deaf Heritage Collective (a Royal Society of Edinburgh funded project) and its aims to create a working relationship between Scotland’s Deaf community and museum and heritage professionals.

The paper reflects upon two curated workshops and the cultural dilemma of not being Deaf-Led. By analysing the collaborative aims and structure of the workshops the paper critically reflects upon how the Collective’s outsiderness relates to questions of authenticity, agency and authorship. The historic juncture provided by the BSL (Scotland) Act 2015 is contextualised by a further backdrop, that of the prevailing ‘museum as activist’ discourse. The paper concludes

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: ICOM: Museums as Agents of Change Conference
• Start Date: Apr 24, 2019
• End Date: Apr 26, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jul 19, 2023