[Articulating Betweenity]
Minding My (Relative) Position
Clifton, Long, and Roen’s “critical incident” analysis builds upon Bamberg’s concept of relational positioning where narratives are created by a storyteller based largely on the ways in which the storyteller positions him/herself in relation to those “others” in the (life/literacy) narrative.
And elsewhere—multiple times over—I have myself written of such relational positioning (mine and others) in the “hearing” of deaf lives. (“On [Almost]Passing”; “Coming Out Pedagogy”; “Gently Down the Stream”; “Between: A Commonplace Book for the Modern Deaf Subject.”) In fact, one reason why I have largely avoided an overly theoretical or academic frame (heavy on citations from others) for this very exhibit is because of my unease with representing—and relating to—these literacy narratives (and the subjects who tell them) in a discourse that they themselves might not be able to relate to or with. There are endless ethical knots I have found myself in when “theorizing” about deaf lives in ways and words that would not likely be accessible to those I have written about. (Lately, I’ve turned mostly to writing about DEAD deaf people as a covert way, I suppose, to avoid these snarls and tangles.) I want here then, consciously and conscientiously, to write and to illustrate (with video from the subjects themselves) in a way that can be accessed easily by those subjects themselves. I mind carefully my own literate position in this exhibit.
