‘My eyes are my ears’: Deaf people appropriating AIDS education messages in Uganda

Abstract

The Ugandan effort to provide AIDS education for the entire population raised questions about how to reach people with disabilities. Based on semi-structured interviews and participant observation with Deaf people in Kampala, this study examined how communication technologies are used in general by Deaf people, and what is specific to communicating about HIV and AIDS. It found that communication technologies, whose purpose is to mediate information, are themselves mediated by social relations. Two contrasts are apparent: between types of technology and types of relationships. The ‘old’ technologies – broadcast and print – often depend on mediation by hearing people, who create the messages and explain audio information to Deaf associates. The ‘new’ digital technologies in the form of smartphones allow Deaf people to communicate directly with one another and facilitate new forms of Deaf sociality, both online and in person. They convey information about AIDS prevention directly, obviating the need to discuss sex with family members of the parental generation, which is culturally sensitive. Smartphones are highly appreciated by Deaf people but the costs of obtaining and using them exclude many.

Theories and practices of disability from the Global South: a critical anthropological perspective

“…This question is especially relevant in the present-day world, as various new technologies are changing the ways people with disabilities inhabit and participate in society and connect to other people ( 83 ). In various African regions and Global South settings, the adoption of various forms of technological devices—from crutches, wheelchairs, and prostheses to laptops and other digital tools—has changed the ways people with disabilities perceive their bodies, undergo processes of neoliberal and technological embodiment, and experience different community or social perceptions than in the past ( 89 ).…”