Questão surda : desafios étnicos e eugenistas no cenário imperialista estadunidense

Abstract

The general purpose of this research is to understand the mechanisms established by US imperialism that structure the link between the emergence of the telecommunications industry and the defense of implementation of hearing aids, as expression of the Deaf question. That end, despite stem from 18th and 19th centuries, brings implications to think about the present reality, because we understand that which were period that are structures the expression of the Deaf question that are latent to the present days. In order to achieve this, we have set ourselves two specific objectives: a) to provide reflections on ethnicity, eugenics, nation and nationalism, the bourgeois state, imperialism and the Deaf Question; b) to trace a relationship between the emergence of the telecommunications industry in the USA, hearing aids and the public educational and health policies that were developed during these periods. As for the methodological aspects, the method adopted was historical-dialectical materialism, developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As for the objectives, this research is exploratory, descriptive and bibliographical, supported by a qualitative approach. The results of this study are presented in two chapters and four sub-items. The first deals with some fundamentals that elucidate the historical roots of the context of deaf people, placing them in a broader political, social and economic panorama. The second chapter briefly discusses the socio-historical trajectory of deaf people, from the educational and health context to their forms of resistance over time, providing a brief contextualization that removes the biologizing discourse and centralizes the debate through the ethnic bias, countering the hegemonic studies that place deaf people in the place of absence, disability and rehabilitation. Finally, in view of the results found, it was concluded that the practices and policies that have emerged since the 18th century, with an emphasis on the US context, are still perpetuated, influencing the way deafness is perceived and treated today, which leads us to a deeper understanding of the forces at play and the determinants that contribute to the genocide and exclusion of deaf people to this day.