Deaf Culture as culture of resistance : how the Deaf Culture emerged in the United States and was adopted in Poland

Bibliogr. s. 311-313

Deaf Culture is a part of the long process of evolution of the American deaf community. Established in American social, cultural and political realm, Deaf Culture benefited greatly from the principles of self-organisation, self-efficiency as well as civil rights movements and movement of people with disabilities, gaining its peak in the 1990s. In this form Deaf Culture was adopted by the Polish deaf communities, that were redefining themselves in the post-socialist transformation period. Adapting the American model of Deaf Culture as normative, the only 'true' and 'correct' deaf experience, Polish deaf took over: the distinction between Deaf and deaf, the opposition towards cochlear implants, and the spirit of resistance and public protesting. The article investigates the resistant character of the Deaf Culture as well as its consequences in Polish post-socialist political and social context.