'We did it ourselves': The Deaf Social Movement and the Quest for the Legal Recognition of the Libras Sign Language in Brazil

Abstract

This paper presents the results from a qualitative study on the history of the Deaf social movement in Brazil and the collective actions of its members to achieve legal recognition of Libras - the Brazilian Sign Language. The study was undertaken between 2009 and 2013 in several Brazilian capitals. We interviewed Deaf and hearing activists, Sign language specialists, Deaf education researchers, and members of the government. We also analysed written and audio-visual documents from personal collections and public and private institutions. These discoveries made it possible to trace the transformation in the Deaf community from its emergence in the context of the disabled social movements of the 1980s to the far more public demonstrations in the 1990s. The study also looks at the progressive empowerment of the movement's members, and their collectively defined ideologies, that were designed to promote and justify their political agenda. The paper also attempts to clarify the movement's role in the approval of the Libras Federal Law 10.436 of April 2002, regulated by decree 5.626 in December 2005, and discusses its importance in guaranteeing government bilingual educational policies for Deaf students.

Burnout through the Lenses of Equity/Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and Disabled People: A Scoping Review

“…Disabled people face many problems as activists that can lead to burnout, many of which are unique to them such as issues of physical access [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]147]. Ally burnout was covered in a 2022 thesis [148] and is another topic of importance to disabled people as activists.…”

“…Burnout is also linked to the stress of having to constantly encounter systemic problems such as racism [7]. Disabled people face many challenges that can lead to disability/disablism burnout: in employment [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28], including in securing employment in the first place [40,291]; as students [292][293][294][295][296][297][298][299] in all levels of education [40]; as activists [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]147]; and in their daily lives [40,82]. As such, our finding that the literature covered hardly engaged with the burnout of disabled people is problematic.…”

“…Disabled people face many challenges workplace-wise [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] and as activists [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39], and disabled people face systemic disablism (discrimination based on their body/mind abilities) in their daily life [40][41][42]. All of these problems can lead to "disability burnout"/ "disablism burnout".…”

Adaptando técnicas de codesign na criação de um ambiente para apoiar a aprendizagem de língua portuguesa com e para pessoas S/surdas

“…A aquisic ¸ão da língua portuguesa por cidadãos S/surdos é como segunda língua (L2), pois é o meio de comunicac ¸ão majoritário no Brasil. Quando adquirida com qualidade e respeito às habilidades das pessoas S/surdas, a escrita se torna uma aliada na luta contra injustic ¸as sociais, uma vez que historicamente as pessoas S/surdas não tiveram seus direitos totalmente respeitados [Padden and Humphries 1988, WFD 2016, Brito and Prieto 2018.…”