Abstract
Adamorobe is a village in Ghana where the historical presence of a hereditary form of deafness resulted in a high number of deaf inhabitants. Over the centuries, a local sign language emerged, which is used between deaf and hearing people in everyday life, rendering Adamorobe into a unique place of inclusion of deaf people. However, in 1975, a law was introduced to reduce the number of deaf people in Adamorobe: deaf people cannot marry each other in order to avoid deaf offspring. In the long term, this law threatens the linguistic and cultural diversity in this village where the use of sign language is omnipresent and where deaf people are perceived as fully productive and worthy members of society. This article is structured around two sets of tensions in the village, Firstly, hearing people’s acceptance and inclusion of the deaf inhabitants, versus the wish to live in a village with no (or less) deaf people. Secondly, there is a tension between deaf people’s subjection to, and resistance against, the law, this is a tension that can be observed in the existence of relationships between deaf partners, and abortions when these unions lead to pregnancies.
Highlights
Everywhere [in Adamorobe] the gong gong was beaten [to announce and spread some news]
This article has demonstrated how deaf people in Adamorobe struggle with a tension between subjection to and resistance against the law that prevents them from marrying each other
40 years that have passed since the promulgation of the law, deaf people have obeyed the law by marrying hearing people, and openly resisted the law by having relationships with deaf partners
Summary
Everywhere [in Adamorobe] the gong gong was beaten [to announce and spread some news]. In 1975, during the first year of his chieftaincy, Nana Kwaakwaa Asiampong introduced a law—promulgated in the village by a gong gong beater—that the deaf people in Adamorobe are not allowed to marry each other because this would lead to deaf offspring Instead, they have to marry hearing people because in Adamorobe, deaf-hearing unions are much less likely to bring forth children that are deaf. While the total number of deaf people in Adamorobe seems relatively stable, the deaf population is aging, i.e., it appears that fewer deaf people are born than in the past This is probably the result of a dual cause that impeded the circulation of the ‘deaf gene’: firstly, the people from Adamorobe increasingly married immigrants, and secondly, as mentioned in the beginning of this article, since 1975 deaf people are not allowed to marry each other anymore because deaf-deaf marriages (formerly common in Adamorobe) brought forth deaf children. A hearing research assistant called Okyere Joseph did semistructured interviews with 19 hearing people (with very diverse backgrounds) in the local language Akan, about their experiences with, and attitudes toward, the deaf population of Adamorobe
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