Positionality in the Deaf Community

This course will focus on the development of a professional interpreter identity through examination of one's positionality in the Deaf community. Students will use critical thinking to explore historical and current perspectives on the interpreting community of practice. Students will consider how to be agents of change toward social, economic and racial justice by examining issues of diversity, intersectionality, privilege, marginalization, self-determination and systemic inequities.

Prerequisites

What you will learn

• Positionality as a professional sign language interpreter:
  - One’s own experiences of privilege and oppression and connection to social systems (family, education, health care, employment, justice, etc)
  - How professional power and privilege interact with personal privilege and personal intersectional experiences of oppression
  - Possibility and implications of using one’s position of power to reinforce the status quo
  - Examination of one’s own positionality in a variety of professional and community settings
• Impacts of oppression on Deaf-hearing interactions and the role of the interpreter:
  - Power held by professional interpreters in systems
  - Current practices in sign language interpreting as part of an evolution of historical perspectives
  - Oppressive treatment by interpreters as experienced by persons who are D/deaf, hard of hearing, Deafblind
  - Critical race theory and its application to interpreting
  - Language deprivation and its relevance to interpreting
  - Envisioning interpreters as agents of change toward social, economic and racial justice
  - The interpreter as ally or accomplice or other
• Human service systems that impact the lives of Deaf, hard of hearing, Deafblind people:
  - Component parts of the service systems and their interactive dynamics within our local and national community context
  - Advocacy organizations and movements influencing the Deaf community and interpreters
  - Living in an unjust society and working within unjust systems
  - Inequity as systemic and self-sustaining
  - Impact of social policies on social justice, considering decolonization, Truth & Reconciliation, anti-racism, gender diversity, intersectional Deaf experiences

How to register

This course is offered as part of a VCC program only.

Contact us

If you have any question, please email at advising@vcc.ca.

† This information is intended as a guideline only. Program and course details are subject to change with the approval of VCC's Board of Governors.