Introduction
PatrickFootnote 1 could well remember when he first met other deaf people communicating in Ugandan Sign Language (UgSL). It was during the time of war in northern Uganda and Patrick was still a boy. He had started school in his village of Bwobo Tochi together with hearing students, but due to the war his family had been forced to move to one of the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in 1996. Living in a camp meant living close together with other people in a precarious security situation. For Patrick, it also meant that he was no longer able to attend school since the schools close to the camp did not accept deaf students. One of his nine (hearing) siblings got to know about an organization for people with disabilities, including deaf people, in Gulu town, approximately 14 kilometres from their camp. The two walked to Gulu town to visit the compound, as Patrick remembered. ‘Then we went around and there were many deaf people. I was looking at them: old ones, children, they all used signs I did not understand. I was quiet. They looked like monkeys to me.’Footnote 2 Despite his first impression, he started to learn UgSL at that compound in Gulu together with other deaf people. Only one year later, in 1997, he became one of the first deaf students of the newly founded section for deaf children in a primary school in Gulu town.Footnote 3 Patrick belongs to the first generation of deaf UgSL learners in Gulu. This first generation of UgSL signers in Acholi shared the experiences of war, displacement and encampment and they became members of the new and growing disability rights movement in Uganda; this involved targeted planning to introduce and spread UgSL as a tool of deaf development. The Ugandan deaf movement took shape with the impetus of deaf activists, advocates and researchers, mainly from European countries and the USA, who aimed to enhance deaf people’s equality and participation through national recognition and support for sign languages (Murray Reference Murray2015). However, the realities of deaf people, as Murray writes, have proven to be different. What did the introduction and acquisition of UgSL mean for Patrick and other deaf people in Acholi? How did the acquisition of UgSL transform their lives? How did it change their being-in-the-world?
UgSL was introduced in Acholi as part of disability-centric development programmes launched and promoted by the Ugandan disability movement during the 1990s.Footnote 4 The first UgSL programme reached Acholiland in 1996 at a very specific historical moment. Internationally, the understanding of disability was changing from an approach focused on the individual to a social understanding of disability as a cause and outcome of poverty, especially in low-income countries such as Uganda (Eide and Ingstad Reference Eide and Ingstad2011). Nationally, a new political structure was introduced after President Museveni took power in 1986. His party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), strongly shaped the Ugandan disability movement and its integration into the Ugandan political landscape. At the same time, Museveni’s coming to power is regarded as marking the beginning of another violent conflict in Acholi. During the brutal war between the government forces and the Lord’s Resistance Army (1986–2006), more than 90 per cent of the population was forced to live in IDP camps, heavily dependent on food rations and international aid (Branch Reference Branch2013; Finnström Reference Finnström2008; Muyinda Reference Muyinda2008). The brutal acts of the LRA included violent ambushes and the kidnapping of thousands of children to become child soldiers.
In 1996, the government of Uganda forced the population of Acholi to move to IDP camps, of which the largest, Pabbo, peaked at around 60,000 displaced people. Before encampment, most of the population was scattered across villages and homesteads; deaf people rarely knew or met one another, let alone felt close to each another. If they did happen to know another deaf person, some of my interlocutors remembered, they rarely communicated, nor did they identify with one another as deaf people. The first more sustainable relationships between deaf people were fostered through workshops and meetings arranged by aid organizations in cooperation with disabled persons organizations (DPOs).
This article illuminates the significance of UgSL from the existential perspectives of deaf people in Acholiland, as well as from instrumental perspectives at international and national levels. The philosophical text The Question Concerning Technology by Martin Heidegger (Reference Heidegger and Heidegger1977: 3–35) is taken as a starting point for the analytical framework. According to Heidegger, an ‘instrumental perspective’ is guided by the idea that technology is a means to an end and a human activity: ‘For to posit ends and procure and utilize the means to them is a human activity’ (ibid.: 1). I show that the ‘instrumental perspective’ dominates rights-based approaches, treating sign language as a technology. Sign language is thought of as a kind of instrument of sustainable development that, once implemented, automatically creates new opportunities for deaf citizenship and equality (Lutalo-Kiingi and De Clerck Reference Lutalo-Kiingi, De Clerck, Cooper and Rashid2015b: 58). I outline the supposed causalities of the technology of sign language within the rights-based approach, a perspective I build on by using the conceptual framework of ‘travelling models’.
Others besides Heidegger have criticized the view of technology as a primarily functional tool for producing a certain result, as a means to an end. Murray (Reference Murray2015), who outlined the linguistic human rights discourse in deaf community activism, points to the fact that legislation, which could be seen as a technology, tries to offer a simple solution for complex problems. Against this, research has shown that sign languages vary in the degree of acceptance and recognition worldwide; legal recognition does not automatically provide a simple solution (Murray Reference Murray2015: 375; De Meulder et al. Reference De Meulder, Murray, McKee, De Meulder, Murray and McKee2019). This phenomenon – that culture defines the artefact’s function, not the artefact itself or the technology – has been described by Pfaffenberger (Reference Pfaffenberger1992: 496). In his theoretical text, Pfaffenberger lays out the concept of sociotechnical systems, which involve the social, economic, legal, scientific and political contexts of technology (ibid.: 498). If technology has a function that is not dictated by the technology itself, but rather by societies using such technologies, then the ‘result’ of its appropriation cannot be the same everywhere (ibid.: 499). I will show the double instrumental significance of UgSL: namely, how the sociotechnical systems of economic empowerment and development were accompanied by a technology of national political power – a narrative too often overlooked in the success story of Uganda’s disability movement.
Sign language is presented in the rights-based approach as a development tool. I begin by critically scrutinizing these connections. This idea is central to the analysis that follows. I then turn to sign language as ‘a way of revealing being’ (‘eine Weise des Entbergens’) in Heidegger’s sense and suggest that it shapes how people see reality. Thus, we not only live with technology; we also live through it, as Gunkel (Reference Gunkel2017: 350) states.
I consider this contrast by focusing on the experiences of deaf people in Acholiland. What did the introduction, appropriation and use of UgSL mean for them? Technologies are both the source of interpretation of the world and the outcome of it. To what extent did UgSL transform their being-in-the-world, together with their social relationships, their economic possibilities and their livelihoods? According to Heidegger, being-in-the-world is comprised of one’s relations to and positions towards social entities. How, then, did sign language shape deaf people’s being-in-the-world?
Instrumental perspectives on sign language
Sign language as a technology in the rights-based model
With the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), sign language has become a significant instrumentum (Heidegger Reference Heidegger and Heidegger1977: 2) or technology in the context of ‘sustainable development’, as set out in the Preamble to UNCRPD, and it is discussed in a broader framework of disability that began with the WHO and World Bank. For deaf people, regarded in this context as people with disabilities, sign language has increasingly been promoted as a tool for development and as a linguistic human right. The recognition of sign languages, in this discourse, serves to overcome challenges faced by many people with disabilities, including underemployment and a lack of access to education or full participation in society.
A re-emergence of sign languages in the mid-twentieth century and the empowerment of deaf people in the USA and European countries, which arose from academic work and deaf activism, were momentous developments in the history of deaf people.Footnote 5 These developments served as a matrix for the creation of a new model, with a focus on sign language and deaf culture as part of the rights-based approach. And while the use of sign language, especially in educational institutions, had been regarded as a hindrance to full citizenship, in the new discourse it paved the way to full citizenship (De Meulder et al. Reference De Meulder, Murray, McKee, De Meulder, Murray and McKee2019: 49).
Models, according to Behrends et al. (Reference Behrends, Park, Rottenburg, Behrends, Park and Rottenburg2014: 1), are understood as analytical representations. Since the late 1980s, sign language has increasingly become a representation removed from any culturally specific context. In the new rights-based framework, sign language is highlighted as a solution to the problem of discrimination for deaf people worldwide and as a ‘technology’ to enhance their lives.Footnote 6
Sign languages have increasingly been recognized in national legislation. Uganda’s prominent position is often pointed out, as it was only the second country worldwide to recognize sign language officially. In this rights-based model, sign language became a means of deaf development, supporting deaf people’s education and economic empowerment and their participation in society. A central role has been given to the education of sign language interpreters and teachers in order to increase access to institutions for deaf people as well as the establishment and strengthening of deaf activities and organizations. Lutalo-Kiingi and De Clerck trace the development of sign language institutions, with special regard to DPOs and educational institutions for interpreters in Uganda. Their focus includes organizations, partnerships, capacity building and empowerment through programmes, the standardization of a dictionary, development training programmes, and how these developmental practices can ‘support and promote the implementation of human rights in support of the equality of all deaf community members on the African continent’ (Lutalo-Kiingi and De Clerck Reference Lutalo-Kiingi, De Clerck, Cooper and Rashid2015b: 59). NGOs/DPOs, universities, the private sector, deaf sign language communities and national associations of the deaf (NADs) can all be seen as important actors (Lutalo-Kiingi and De Clerck Reference Lutalo-Kiingi and De Clerck2017: 48).
Sign language is treated as a kind of objectified technology that can be created, used and moved and that can travel from one context to another. Sign language is represented as a means to an end, created by human activities; it can be understood as a technology in the instrumental sense (Heidegger Reference Heidegger and Heidegger1977: 2). Moreover, according to this perspective, technology is manipulating and mastering. Once applied, it is supposed to have a specific, often pre-formulated, effect: ‘wherever instrumentality reigns, there reigns causality’ (ibid.: 2). A cause brings something about; it obtains results and effects (ibid.: 3).
However, bringing-forth occurs when something concealed becomes unconcealed (Heidegger Reference Heidegger and Heidegger1977: 5). This bringing-forth, this becoming, is grounded in revealing. According to Heidegger, technology is a form of revealing. In his text, Heidegger referred to Greek thinking, craftsmanship and modern technology. According to him, the latter challenges nature to provide energy. The farmer who previously ‘cared’ for the land has become part of a food industry that challenges the natural resource – land – in a different way. There is a drive for the greatest possible use with the least amount of effort. One can critically question the ideal relationship of a premodern farmer to his land. However, the key point Heidegger makes here is that it is not just the ways in which agriculture is practised that are changing, but the nature of agriculture itself. Applying these thoughts to this context means that sign language is not only a new ‘technology’ for deaf development; it also provokes states, institutions and people to think, feel and act in new ways. Deaf researchers and advocates brought forward the legislative recognition of sign languages; in turn, ‘sign language legislation has sustained and emancipated that linguistic and cultural minority’ (Pabsch Reference Pabsch, De Clerck and Paul2016: 161). In countries of the global South, the priorities of sign language recognition include access to deaf education, adequate employment opportunities and poverty reduction (Haualand and Allen Reference Haualand and Allen2009) and thus aim to make deaf people competitive through schooling, training and work. It is thought of as a striving forward.
Models such as the rights-based approach shape reality for certain purposes (Behrends et al. Reference Behrends, Park, Rottenburg, Behrends, Park and Rottenburg2014: 2). They become objectified and carry specific causalities: ‘Models, however, do not diffuse by themselves and they cannot be transferred without being translated. Translating models means that they travel by being conveyed, carried, picked up, called for and interpreted by various actors or – as we will call them – mediators’ (ibid.: 2). How did the model of the rights-based approach, together with the technology of sign language, travel and translate into the Ugandan context?
Translation into national politics
As mentioned above, in 1995 Uganda became the second country in the world to recognize sign language as an official language in its constitution (Lule and Wallin Reference Lule, Wallin and Brentari2010: 114). This must be seen in the context of the emergence of the disability movement in the country under new political conditions. In the first twenty-five years of independence, Uganda was characterized by unstable national politics, alternating presidencies and political solidarities, and increasing militarization. Amidst this situation of political, social and economic insecurity, the coup of the National Resistance Army (NRA) in 1986 was promoted as a turn away from an unstable past and a shift in the direction of political stability, economic growth and peace in the country. The new president, Yoweri Museveni, introduced the NRM, extended ‘resistance councils’ from village to district level, and established what was claimed to be a new type of democracy as an important part of the movement. Idealized as being based on ‘African tradition systems’ (Crook Reference Crook1999: 114) and ‘principles of participatory democracy’ (Makara et al. Reference Makara, Rakner and Svåsand2009: 189), every adult was deemed to be a member of the NRM. When the NRM rose to power, Museveni officially used the rhetoric of human rights in his ten-point programme (Mutibwa Reference Mutibwa2016). The strong influence of international human rights treaties can also be seen in the definition of discrimination (Mujuzi Reference Mujuzi2012: 55), and people with disabilities became a new group increasingly regarded as experiencing discrimination. Based on the structure and ideals of the NRM, every person with a disability was also seen as part of the movement, and organizational structures were extended. Within this new framework, deaf people could be seen as people with disabilities.
According to Lutalo-Kiingi and De Clerck (Reference Lutalo-Kiingi, De Clerck, De Clerck and Paul2016), UgSL was developed in Uganda and is regarded as having been influenced by American, Danish and Kenyan sign languages. According to Reagan (Reference Reagan2010), four activities can be differentiated in the establishment of sign language: status planning, corpus planning, acquisition planning and attitude planning. Initially, the development of sign language was promoted by only a few Ugandan disability activists. A development partnership between Denmark and Uganda was important in strengthening the Ugandan National Association of the Deaf (UNAD) and raising awareness. From 1992 to 2006, this partnership focused on UNAD’s capacity building, awareness raising about deaf people’s rights and their language, and the establishment of sign language teaching and interpretation training programmes at Kyambogo University. Corpus-based lexicographic research in UgSL was conducted cooperatively by Stockholm University and Kyambogo University and led to the production of a UgSL dictionary (Lutalo-Kiingi and De Clerck Reference Lutalo-Kiingi and De Clerck2017: 49).
The Persons with Disabilities Act of 2006, the main specific law on disability in Uganda, declared that sign language should be introduced into the curriculum for medical personnel and developed and used in all public institutions and functions, including television stations. ‘African sign language and deaf communities have been exposed to and influenced by what can be called “development work”’ (Lutalo-Kiingi and De Clerck Reference Lutalo-Kiingi, De Clerck, Cooper and Rashid2015a: 3).
Sign language here is a central technology of modernity and change in these national narratives, as well as the expression of a developmental ideal. Sign language was increasingly promoted by UNAD to enhance deaf people’s lives. It also became an important technology to integrate deaf people into national politics and at the same time extend the power of the NRM. The strong connection between the NRM, UNAD and the National Union of Disabled Persons of Uganda (NUDIPU), the umbrella organization for all DPOs in the country, can be seen in their representatives as well as in the elections themselves. UNAD, which received external funding and worked in cooperation with international organizations, created an elite of deaf people in the name of capacity building. At the same time, these newly appointed, often highly educated, young men served and supported the NRM. Within UNAD, political discussion and power struggles – as well as accusations of corruption against leading members – were and are key issues that have not been examined in the historical narrative so far but are important when looking into the appropriation of sign language. Suspicions about lost nomination requests from people who were more closely connected to other parties are only one expression of this. The disability movement and international human rights perspective were adopted in the national context and even supported the NRM system. DPOs were strongly supported by international organizations and grew alongside the NRM’s ideology and structures.
As these examples show, technologies are indeed both the source of interpretation of the world and the outcome of it. In both perspectives – one that regards sign language as a human right and one that sees it as a technology to integrate and at the same time extend political power – sign language is instrumental. It serves a specific purpose, is implemented with a specific aim, and takes specific causalities as its basis.
The technology of sign language, introduced into various institutions and organizations in Uganda, is usually seen as a success story for the country; there is a high number of disabled (including deaf) political representatives and schools teaching sign language. But technology, as Heidegger argues, is more than instrumental. The essence of technology is its power to mould something into a specific shape; the rights-based approach can be seen as a technology with the power to bring about political change. However, technology is also a way of revealing the world, according to Heidegger. What is important here is to analyse how such technologies do this within different societies – the extent to which they change the experiences of the environment, of social relations, of other people and thus of being-in-the-world.
Studies focusing on deaf people in the global South are relatively recent and often fall into the wider rights-based approach by advocating for sign languages as a tool for development or sustainability (Pabsch Reference Pabsch, De Clerck and Paul2016). In these discourses, sign language is first of all a technology that can be used (or not), analysed, structured, implemented and transferred as well as created. These works too often stop at the level of programmes, institutions and organizations (see, for example, Lutalo-Kiingi and De Clerk Reference Lutalo-Kiingi, De Clerck, Cooper and Rashid2015b; Aina Reference Aina, Cooper and Rashid2015; Mbewe Reference Mbewe, Cooper and Rashid2015; Bjarnason et al. Reference Bjarnason, Stefánsdóttir and Beukes2012). Studies that focus on deaf people’s experiences (e.g. Friedner Reference Friedner, Burch and Kafer2010; Reference Friedner2011; Reference Friedner2015; Kusters Reference Kusters2014; Reference Kusters, Cooper and Rashid2015; De Clerck Reference De Clerck2011; Lee Reference Lee2012) in countries of the global South are still rare, especially in contexts with populations as large as Uganda’s and especially so in sub-Saharan African countries.
My intention in the next part of this article is to look at how sign language shapes the being-in-the-world of deaf people in Acholi. Or in other words, how do deaf people live through it?
Existential perspectives: creating new spaces
At the age of seventy, Juliet was the oldest participant in my research. She sometimes told me about her very sheltered childhood – of the cotton fields and how she, together with her family and other relatives, harvested the cotton. Juliet became deaf at a pre-linguistic age, probably due to malaria. She grew up in the countryside with five other siblings, never went to school, like most of her hearing peers, and was involved in female work in the fields and household. After her husband, who was not deaf, was killed in the war, she returned to the compound of one of her brothers. Having had two miscarriages, Juliet had no children herself, but she explained that she often took care of children. She was the only deaf person in her village; however, there was another deaf man in the neighbouring village. Her social contacts were primarily relatives and other clan members in the village, but sometimes she felt excluded. This was especially the case at major events such as weddings or funerals. At such events, many people and relatives who lived farther away would gather together; while they were busy exchanging information and chatting, as well as celebrating and participating in rituals, Juliet would often leave the crowds to be alone. Most of her social relationships were with people from her immediate environment, especially kin and other people living nearby. Juliet developed ‘home signs’ with her parents, siblings and other close relatives, as well as with the man who became her husband.
My interlocutors referred to UgSL as ‘sign language’. In comparison to UgSL, which they regarded as a real language, local signs were not seen as such. However, deaf people differentiated between local signs used mainly by deaf people in the urban areas in Acholi during the time of war and local signs used with hearing family and community members. The latter description is in line with the categorization of ‘home signs’ used by other researchers.Footnote 7 From the perspective of deaf signers in Acholi, such ‘home signs’ are a repertoire of signs and gestures often contrasted with sign language because they lack the complexity of the latter. What is significant is the reach of home signs. Most of the time, these signs and sequences are shared with very few people – often only one other person. This means that communication differs from person to person. However, some signs seem to be understood by hearing and deaf people alike. This repertoire is often denoted as ‘local signs’ and can be compared with what De Vos and Nyst (Reference De Vos and Nyst2018) call ‘rural sign language’. Such rural sign languages incorporate the conventional gestures and gestural strategies of the wider hearing community (ibid.: 481). In Acholi, the sharing of UgSL beyond deaf connections developed very recently. This happened with the introduction of UgSL to Acholi, and, since deaf people met in camps and workshops, the development and use of UgSL stemmed from deaf networks in more urban areas.
Many of my interlocutors had a close relationship with one of their siblings, with whom they had created their own communication system. According to many, these kinds of conversations were limited in nature and used home signs and gestures, which were iconic and developed in interaction with hearing people. But as part of the new UgSL, which was promoted as a real language using conventional signs, iconicity became a sign of simplicity and backwardness. The UgSL was promoted by UNAD and became the language used in schools as well as in interpretation services, on television, in speeches, in workshops, etc.
Moreover, depending on the age at which they had become deaf and whether they had learned a spoken language, and on how much time relatives had spent teaching them how to lip-read and pronounce words, deaf people used many different combinations of communication. These kinds of communication are based on social relationships, and thus social relationships largely determine not only communication but also mobility and (future) livelihoods.
In 1996, when the Ugandan government forced the entire rural population of Acholiland to leave their villages, people moved to IDP camps and fled to towns; those living closer to more secure places became ‘night commuters’. One of the most prominent places to take in ‘night commuters’ was St Mary’s Hospital Lacor. Every night, hundreds of people lined up in front of the entrance to sleep in the hospital’s compound, and every morning they returned to their fields and gardens. Instead of providing the security officially predicted by the government, the camps quickly became new targets for the LRA. For deaf people, as for blind people and those with mobility-related disabilities, the attacks by the LRA posed new challenges. Especially at night, when one’s sense of hearing is more important in order to recognize danger, deaf people were dependent on hearing relatives and friends. Juliet’s brother, who felt responsible for her safety, became aware of the Gulu Association of Persons with Disabilities (GAPD). As the administrative centre of the Acholi region and the headquarters of most of the aid organizations operating in the north, Gulu provided relative security against the LRA. When they heard about the compound of – and for – people with disabilities, some families started to bring their relatives to Gulu. IDP camps and the different places where hundreds of night commuters met all played a central role in disseminating such information.
GAPD in Gulu was a place where people with disabilities were especially likely to meet for the first time. Owned by a blind man, the compound functioned as a support centre for ‘people in need’ – those who were lame, old, etc. – and provided material support before the Ugandan disability movement, its ideologies and approaches (including UgSL) reached the region. As Simon, another interlocutor in my study, explained, he did not feel close to other deaf people or people with disabilities and had never entered the compound before sign language was introduced. With the advent of the disability movement, the ways in which development aid organizations structured their approach changed, as did the discourse. In this context, different offices opened – for the blind, for the deaf, for landmine survivors, for women with disabilities, for those with physical disabilities, etc. – and the focus was less on material handouts and more on awareness, capacity building and education. Programmes relating to deaf people and UgSL reached Acholi as part of the expanding disability movement, and organizations brought together deaf people for the first time. In 1996, ADD (Action on Disability and Development) International announced the first meeting for deaf people in Gulu. This was the start of workshops, meetings, and the spread of sign language in different institutions. In the beginning, projects often offered food to attract deaf people to their meetings. In those meetings, people learned sign language together. Sign language fundamentally extended Juliet’s social relationships, her being-in-the-world.
Juliet stayed in the GAPD compound for five years alongside other people with disabilities. The atmosphere was not always peaceful: one day, another woman who stayed in the compound approached her, but Juliet had difficulty in understanding her. A misunderstanding and quarrel ensued, escalating into a physical confrontation, and Juliet was knocked down and lost one of her teeth. Nevertheless, she said, she liked staying in the compound and made new friends. Staying in Gulu at the GAPD, learning some UgSL and being around other deaf people coming from different parts of Acholiland allowed her to earn money and get used to life in town. She started a small business selling chapatis, which enabled her to move into a rented hut close to the GAPD compound. Juliet used many local signs, and it was sometimes difficult to talk to her through my (hearing) translator, Robert, because Robert could communicate better in UgSL. In later interviews, with my knowledge of UgSL, I met with her together with other deaf people who were able to translate her signs into UgSL for me. She had friends in Gulu; they would meet up, cook and eat together, discussing problems and helping each other when money was needed. The last time I met Juliet in Gulu before she moved back to live with her brother, she expressed an interest in learning how to make bread or cakes in order to start a small business in the future; she also said she would like to sell popcorn in town.
Many aspects of Juliet’s story applied to other people who came to Gulu during the war; all of them had to create new social relationships, and all experienced a breakdown of their old relationships and difficulties in maintaining them. Becoming part of a new sign language-related social network and learning to understand a language shared by more than a few people were central aspects of the experience of deaf people like Juliet. In the establishment of this new network, the reinvented space of GAPD and its programmes played a central role.
After the war, having moved back to their family’s land, Juliet’s brother took her back home too. But Juliet’s life had changed, and she saw going home as a difficult experience; once again, she was surrounded by hearing people, far away from other deaf people and friends. But she had to go back, she told me; her brother wanted her to help at home. ‘It is difficult to work hard in the fields again and to have food only once a day. In Gulu I had enough to cook and eat three times a day, but in the village we sometimes eat only once a day. But that’s how culture is.’ And while many people use mobile phones to stay connected to other people, her inability to read and write makes it difficult for her to connect with her friends in Gulu. Once in a while, however, another deaf person comes to check on her, giving her updates and news through a wider deaf network that covers Acholi today.
Sign language and deaf networks extended the space of lifeworlds; people started to think about interactions beyond home, building their own perspectives, creating their own businesses, and even studying abroad. It gave them alternative future perspectives on work, family and visiting new places. Through sign language, deaf people created such spaces in addition to institutions and organizations. This offered a new mobility that was not only based on kin relationships but on deaf-related connections. Nevertheless, relationships with kin and other members of the hearing community continue to play an important role for deaf people. Family members often cannot understand UgSL, but they greatly appreciate it because it means new social relationships. The extension of social networks through the use of sign language, as well as the recognition of UgSL as a language, brought about a change in being-in-the-world for deaf persons. Deaf people started to feel close to each other and learned sign language from each other. Sign language offered new possibilities of connectedness, education, and being a deaf person through such social networks. At the same time, through such social networks, new future perspectives could be created and could come to life.
The introduction of sign language and the understanding of it as a means to an end, the goal of development, also resonate in the narratives. Moreover, sign language not only brings together deaf people as one category; it also differentiates and creates new categories between educated and uneducated, good and bad signers. Sign language is seen as a central tool for progress and education and an expression of both. In the institutional context, sign language became a central technology for promoting development. But for deaf people in their everyday lives, sign language also brings a new attitude towards life; it is the epitome of modernity and possibilities; but it also leads to new differentiations, as not everyone ‘benefits’ equally. The example of Juliet shows huge changes, but it also shows a difference between men and women. This is especially the case with regard to livelihoods.
Transitions of livelihoods: gender perspectives
In 2006, when the end of the war on Ugandan soil was officially declared – although the war continued in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan (Baines and Rosenoff Gauvin Reference Baines and Rosenoff Gauvin2014: 285) – questions about resettlement became of the utmost importance, especially for the deaf people who had acquired sign language during displacement. Among the deaf people I met in Gulu, many were younger men who remained after displacement. The spread of UgSL through workshops after the war motivated other deaf people to come to Gulu. However, women often went back home to their relatives or were sent home by their husbands to work in the gardens and take care of children. Schools in town are more expensive, and people required the produce from rural gardens for their own consumption and to sell for much-needed income.
My interlocutor Patrick went back to his land with his family. Patrick often took his bicycle to see other deaf friends in Lacor as well as in Gulu, while his (deaf) wife stayed at home, taking care of the children and garden. Her contact with other deaf people was limited compared with Patrick’s, and her wish was for Patrick to find another deaf wife (her first deaf co-wife had died), not only to help in the garden and to share the work but also because she felt lonely without someone around with whom she could easily communicate.
Young deaf men in particular decided not to go back to their villages, but instead stayed in Gulu or other larger trading centres such as Pabbo. Pabbo had been the biggest camp during the time of war and became a busy trading centre due to its central position on the road from Uganda to South Sudan. Here, a group of young deaf people was running a rice mill. Compared with men, women had fewer possibilities. While programmes and projects often focused on improving livelihoods through individual education possibilities, young men in particular created their own networks and economic access and extended sign language-related spaces outside disability and deaf institutions. A strong gender aspect can be seen in relation to economic activities. Patrick, for example, was involved in different income-generating activities, including photography and bicycle repair. He received support from organizations for school fees and also got help from the government. All of these channels helped his family in important ways over time, he emphasized. For some activities and grants, there was a requirement to apply as a group of people with disabilities.
Many of these opportunities were linked to one’s location and access to information, to other people with disabilities, and to projects and programmes. Deaf people’s proximity to town offered important additional income. They relied on deaf connections for accommodation and jobs, and those new to Gulu could find support and help through other deaf people in town.
Many of the jobs deaf people held were described as ‘simple jobs’ and translated as ‘pity-pity jobs’:
In Gulu, it is hard to get a paid job, but you can find pity-pity jobs, simple jobs, like carpentry, cleaning offices, loading and unloading trucks. But getting a paid job is hard, like governmental jobs. You need to have the qualifications. If you have the required qualification, you can get a job as well. But if not, sorry … You go back and dig and sell. You can cut trees and burn into charcoal and sell. You can take care of cattle and sell them. Some other people work in the rice and maize mills in Gulu town; others are farming, some repair shoes, others motorbikes and bicycles, some have mills for grinding maize. One, in Lacor, makes money with phone calls. Others who are lazy cannot get a job.Footnote 8
Most deaf people living in Gulu were employed on a daily basis or had a small business themselves. Formal contracts did not exist. Furthermore, some jobs were seasonal, such as work in one of the rice and maize mills in Gulu.
Especially for families, the town offered diversification through small jobs and agriculture, as well as new possibilities for deaf people to face challenges or uncertainties. Furthermore, the proximity to sign language-related socialities – and, consequently, information about possible governmental and non-governmental projects and funding opportunities – was seen as a huge advantage over living in a village, as Robert, who had permanent employment as a store manager at one of the rice and maize mills, emphasized:
I came back to Gulu town because there are so many deaf people here. The communication is very easy, and cooperation is easy as well. But if you stay alone, you will not become aware about [programmes]. When you are sick, it becomes difficult to communicate. In town you can read the newspaper, exchange information. Second, when there are projects for the deaf you will know about them and work together. It’s simple. But if you stay alone, you will not become aware of it.Footnote 9
Only a few people considered vocational training, such as carpentry or tailoring workshops, to be important. Getting a job and being able to earn income were not only based on formal skills; indeed, not many deaf people worked in a field in which they were formally trained. Many deaf people attended workshops and courses in subjects they did not want to learn. Nevertheless, such workshops were important to connect with other deaf people in order to deepen sign language skills and social relationships.
Considering these advantages experienced by deaf people living in town, land-related disputes were not the only hindrance to deaf people’s return to their villages. Some did not like to go ‘back home’ due to feeling misrecognized, used and oppressed. Furthermore, their families’ land was regarded as too far away from the deaf spaces that had become so important to them, so they rarely visited their families. The importance of deaf socialities for most deaf people living in Gulu is expressed in their decision to move there from different parts of Acholiland after the war ended. All of the deaf people I spoke with emphasized the importance of sign language-related socialities. These allowed them company, chat, and the exchange of news and information; the possibility to discuss issues, including personal issues, and receive guidance from other deaf people; the deaf connection, which could help people find a job in town; and access to projects and programmes. This shows that the social relationships of the past, the present and the possible future were all of importance in deaf people’s decisions regarding resettlement processes.
Socialities related to sign language led to new opportunities regarding where to live, as well as to a new diversification of household settings. Often, women lived on and managed the land, while men took on additional work in Gulu to have some extra income. This in turn meant that men were more likely to join deaf networks, while women had to deal more with kin and village relationships. Some of the women I talked to, including Juliet and Patrick’s wife, felt lonely in the villages, especially when no other deaf people or people who knew UgSL were part of their daily work.
However, men and women emphasized that hearing people were also interested in learning sign language, considering it to be very positive progress. New spaces in which deaf people worked alongside hearing people created new sign language dynamics. Through sign language, new meaningful social relationships were established. I found it astonishing that in many primarily hearing-related spaces in Gulu, I could always find people to translate – usually friends of deaf people who had learned UgSL. Many of them were very happy to have become part of such a network. Increasingly, hearing people shared the practice of sign language, extending social networks of friends and kin in meaningful ways.
Although my interlocutors sometimes expressed frustration when they talked about the situation at home and their difficulties in teaching relatives UgSL, both deaf people and their hearing family members regarded UgSL positively, as it offered the possibility to extend social relationships. However, this acceptance of sign language is not the case everywhere, as Friedner (Reference Friedner2015) describes in her work. According to her research, deaf people in Bangalore, India, felt increasingly disconnected from their families due to the new language and the creation of deaf socialities. In Acholiland, however, my data shows that creating and mending social relationships using UgSL became a new practice for building meaningful relationships and, thus, for extending not only deaf people’s social relational networks and competences for citizenship, but those of hearing people as well. For example, my interlocutor James’s sister was sent to a boarding school that included deaf children. When she returned, she knew UgSL and could easily translate for him. Furthermore, deaf people married other deaf people and households were created with at least two sign language speakers. Their children then learned sign language as well.
Furthermore, this diversification of jobs led to new household constellations of deaf people. Whereas before the introduction of UgSL, one’s living situation was mainly dependent on relationships within kin networks, new social relationships expanded to influence one’s decision to stay in a village or move to Gulu; this resulted in the creation of multiple ‘homes’ in town as well as in the villages. Household compositions were – and are – fluid, as the stories of my interlocutors have shown; people changed households for different reasons and over various periods of time. Many deaf people became part of at least two households: one within a village and one in town. These multiple household settings became possible through the diversification of jobs in Gulu, but especially through the deaf socialities in town. Following this, ‘home’ could be seen as an expression of good social relationships as well as competences for citizenship.
Technologies do not ‘function’ in the same way for everyone in one society. How they shape people’s lives, how people are able to live not only with but through them, differs. The being-in-the-world changed after having experienced a ‘signing world’. Going home and living as the only deaf person in the countryside make feelings of loneliness even stronger. New expectations are bound to the new technology: a striving for social and economic success as well as recognition. However, these new hopes have been fulfilled for very few – who in turn serve as new role models.
UgSL as a modern innovation in Christian belief
All social relationships, regardless of strength, contain conflicts. My deaf interlocutors mentioned that Christian beliefs and church-based networks were important for them in overcoming conflicts, especially with hearing people. Religion was an important aspect in the lives of all the deaf people I spoke with. Moreover, it was part of their everyday lives. No workshops started without prayers; the bus driver would not set off without prayers; and in daily talks God played a role as a helper who was watching out for people and who could provide hope in difficult situations.
The overwhelming majority of people in Acholi, including my deaf interlocutors, attended one of the many Christian services held on Sundays. Going to church was mainly a family event, and most deaf people were introduced to church through their families. Depending on the age when they became deaf, their image of God and religion and their understanding of the services’ content differed, as did their ability to make sense of the sermons. James described his prayers as ‘babbling’ before knowing either UgSL or what God was about. For Barbara, God was a ‘very big person high up in heaven’,Footnote 10 but after she learned UgSL and attended the church for deaf people, this image changed. Today, she considers God a supernatural being. After taking part in the services of and for sign language speakers in Gulu, many deaf people stated that they had become able to follow other services as well.
Churchgoing and religious practices were less about individual spirituality; instead, they were regarded as important for creating and maintaining social relationships and overcoming disputes within families. The establishment of a deaf church in the GAPD compound opened up a new space of deaf socialities in which deaf people created a shared understanding of values and discussed their problems; the sermons in particular helped them in overcoming oppressive behaviour. These aspects have also been described by Friedner (Reference Friedner2015) in an Indian context. The situation in Acholi changed after the war, since women were especially likely to go with their families back to their villages and the church for deaf people in Gulu was often too difficult to reach due to distance and transport costs. However, although all the deaf people in this study attended this church at some point, they continued to visit other Christian churches even after resettlement. Deaf people increasingly received help from hearing people, who would translate worship for them. Some churches even had translators for deaf people, making it easier for them to follow the service. These are very recent developments, which once again show the progress made in connecting deaf people – in this instance, as members of a church.
From the perspective of my interlocutors, churchgoing and religious practices offered help for the creation and maintenance of social relationships, especially within families. As Christine mentioned: ‘We are experiencing peace, love and joy at home without violence through constant and regular prayers and churchgoing.’Footnote 11 Similarly, Caroline stated: ‘The Christian belief helps me to control my family by making my family God-fearing, peace-loving, and respectful to others.’Footnote 12 Christian belief, discussed in concrete situations and connected to the individual lives of deaf people, guided their behaviour in significant ways and supported the overcoming of disputes in social relationships through the values of forgiveness, patience and humility. Furthermore, religious practices were regarded as important in (re)creating social relationships – especially those with kin – as well as in solving problems. Therefore, social relational networks based on church membership or attendance became important in understanding and overcoming oppressive relationships, especially with hearing family members. Consequently, churches were important for the creation, maintenance and rebuilding of different kinds of relationships – deaf as well as non-deaf.
Religion fosters a shared understanding, and the church creates space for sociality – not only between deaf people, but between all people. While many of my interlocutors stated that they had felt excluded within the church before they learned UgSL, they became better connected to churches attended primarily by hearing people after they learned UgSL. Moreover, attending church created other social relationships and more opportunities to meet people than in daily work. Thus, for some, church visits were seen as a good opportunity to escape daily monotony. The sermons continually brought forward specific norms and values and mentioned that everyone was equal – regardless of whether one was deaf or hearing. This ideal of equality, and ideas for overcoming grief and hatred, made such gatherings an important source of ways to handle oppression. Through the use of sign language, deaf people felt that they were members of the Christian network or ‘community of faith’.
This unifying aspect of belief has sometimes been set in opposition to ‘culture’. Christian belief was connected to a wider cross-border community, while ‘culture’ was regarded in terms of local practices as well as beliefs. The ideas of ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ – religion versus ‘culture’ – were mentioned, especially with regard to practices of healing. Ajwaki, traditional healers in Acholi, were mainly regarded as ‘cultural’; from today’s Christian perspective, they were considered a poor choice if one were seeking healing, while biomedical treatment was recommended by the church as it was not seen as opposing Christian beliefs and practices.
Most of the participants in this study became deaf due to sickness, and many of them felt that their family’s choice to bring them to a healer was connected with their being (mis)recognized. Some even suggested that the ajwaka had made them permanently deaf, but that their parents did not know this at the time. Religious instruction – particularly discussing, reading and interpreting the Bible – created a new understanding of practices and thus of relationships. Indeed, it influenced James’s relationship with his family: ‘I try to teach my family. Some are not going to church. They are still following the culture of Acholi. Please go to church and praise God. You can remain poor if you are not going to pray. Please come with us.’Footnote 13
Sign language-related networks create sociality and belonging in a Christian community. At the same time, churches use sign language to pull in new possible members. When I started to learn UgSL in one of the courses offered by the GAPD, two young, highly motivated women from one of the biggest Pentecostal churches in Gulu town joined the course too. They told me that they wanted to learn UgSL to be able to offer translation of their worship services. Unlike in other churches deaf people joined, the initiative was supported by the church administration and not by deaf members.
Conclusion
In questioning the meaning of technology, Heidegger points to the existential changes and transitions beyond the practical aims that technology is meant to achieve. My intention in this article was to examine sign language, conceptualized as a technology in the framework of the human rights-based approach, and developed out of specific historical constellations and experiences, especially those of deaf people within the USA and Europe. As part of the rights-based model, sign language was taken to be a neutral technology, carrying specific causalities and leading automatically to an improvement in citizenship for deaf people. Both politicians and researchers too often follow this perspective, not only taking the institutionalization and organizations of deaf people that support sign language as the most promising approach, but also celebrating them as proof of success.Footnote 14
Without a doubt, the introduction of UgSL in Acholiland brought enormous changes for deaf people, but this occurred not only through the expected causalities, as the rights-based approach would make us believe. UgSL as instrumentum was also used to extend the political power of the NRM, a political regime that, according to Human Rights Watch, ‘continues to violate free association, expression, and assembly rights’ (HRW 2018). Second, the acquisition of UgSL does not lead to an ability to claim rights from the state, but instead facilitates the creation of social networks that are of major significance in enhancing deaf people’s lives and fundamentally transforming their being-in-the-world. My data shows that the acceptance of sign language extends not only deaf people’s social relationships, but also the relationships of their families; herein lies one reason for UgSL’s acceptance. It also shows that women often have fewer such opportunities, as they live in an environment of mainly hearing people, primarily relatives, while men create important socio-economic networks in towns such as Gulu.
Finally, Heidegger’s point about the existential significance of technologies is borne out by the Acholi case. Sign language changed the way of being-in-the-world for those who acquired it. They were able to widen their horizons and develop new kinds of sociality with both deaf and hearing people. From an instrumental perspective, sign language rights became a new discourse promising a simple solution to very complex connections. Sign language and the package of projects to which it was linked had some instrumental effects, such as new employment opportunities. Whether or not they can more fully transform livelihoods depends on the political and economic conditions in northern Uganda, not only on the technology of sign language.
Gitte Beckmann has been coordinator and a PhD student in the research group Disability and Technology, a collaboration between Makerere University in Kampala and the University of Zurich. She currently works as an independent researcher in Stockholm.
