LOUD silence: Turning Up the Volume on Deaf Voice

Abstract

From 2014 to 2015, I curated an exhibition entitled LOUD silence, which was held in two different venues in California: Grand Central Arts Center at California State University Fullerton, followed by gallery@Calit2 at the University of California, San Diego. The exhibition offered the opportunity for viewers to consider definitions of sound, voice, and notions of silence at the intersection of both deaf and hearing experiences. The exhibition displayed prints, drawings, sculptures, videos, and several film installations, and featured work by four artists who have different relationships to deafness and hearing, including Shary Boyle, Christine Sun Kim, Darrin Martin and Alison O’Daniel. These four artists explored how the binary of loudness and silence might be transformed in politicized ways through their own specificities, similarities and differences in relationship to communication and language. The stereotypical view of the deaf experience is that they live a life of total silence, where they retain little to no concept of sound. But on the contrary, deaf studies scholars Carol Padden and Tom Humphries state that deaf people actually know a lot about sound, and sound informs and inhabits their world just as much as the next person (Padden and Humphries 1998: 91).Through these artworks, the artists aimed to loudly explode the myth of a silent deaf world, and they troubled just how “inaudible” sound really is through their own visceral experiences of it. Ultimately, I argue that the work in LOUD silence offers an avenue for eradicating deaf oppression.     

Potential and ‘Power of a Collectivity to Act’<Superscript>*</Superscript>

This paper connects two notions: Hart and Mas-Colell’s ‘potential’, related to the value of coalitional games, and Coleman’s earlier notion of ‘power of a collectivity to act’, related to the easiness to make decisions by means of a voting rule. ^*This research has been supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología under project BEC2000-0875, and by the Universidad del País Vasco under project UPV/EHU000031.321-HA-7918/2000. The first author acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología under the Ramón y Cajal programme.     

Learning (to) taste: food,aesthetics, and education in early modern France

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the intersection between taste and education in the early modern period. The first part investigates the close connection between the sense of taste and the sin of gluttony, highlighting taste’s close association with food disorders in the late Middle Ages and early modernity. Silencing taste was by then a key aspect of the education of the body, which needed to be learned from the earliest age, at home as well as at school. The second part charts the rise of a moderate and honest gourmandise from the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries onward, accompanied by the invention of the polite bon goût and later the aesthetic taste of beauty, which contributed to a new social valorization of taste, while also complicating contemporary practices of learning (to) taste. Using a wide variety of early modern printed sources, including conduct books, religious and moral treatises, books of emblems, and treatises on the senses and on taste in particular, as well as aesthetic works, this paper sheds light on the multiple ways in which taste – of the body as much as of the mind – was used, learned, and displayed, hence revealing a transformation of the experience and understanding of taste throughout the early modern period, as well as its impact on educational practices.     

BOOK NOTES

Claudine Attias-Donfut (ed.). Les solidarités entre générations: Vieillesse, familles, Etat Ken Tout (ed.). Elderly care: A world perspective. Jean-Pierre Chauchard. Droit de la sécurité sociale. Thomas Locher. Grundriβ der Sozialversicherungsrechts. Renate Krieg; Monika Schädler (eds.). Social security in the People's Republic of china. Daniel Lenoir. L'Europe sociale. Theo Schiller. Sozialpolitik in Kanada in den 80er Jahren. Emmerich Talos; Karl Wörister. Soziale Sicherung in Sozialstaat Österreich. June Wangmann. Towards integration and quality assurance in children's services. Ariel Beresniak; Gérard Duru. Economie de la santé Le prix de la santé la solidarité dans l'assurance-maladie David Mechanic. Inescapable decisions: The imperatives of health reform. Joshua M. Wiener; Laurel Hixon Illston; Raymond J. Hanley. Sharing the burden: Strategies for public and private long-term care insurance. Rebecca M. Blank. Social protection versus economic flexibility: Is there a trade-off? Jochen Clasen. Paying the jobless: A comparison of unemployment benefit policies in Great Britain and Germany. Harry Coenen; Peter Leisink. Work and citizenship in the new Europe. Bernard Eme; Jean-Louis Laville (eds.). Cohésion sociale et emploi. Jean-Marc Dupuis. Le financement de la protection sociale. Carmelo Mesa Lago. La reforma de la seguridad social y las pensiones en América latina: importancia y evaluación de las alternativas de privatización. John Turner; Noriyasu Watanabe. Private pension policies in industrialized countries: A comparative analysis. Wim van Oorschot. Realizing rights: A multi-level approach to non-take-up of means-tested benefits. Social security for women. Michael M. Zwick (ed.). Einmal arm, immer arm? Neue Befunde zur Armut in Deutschland.     

The extension of healthcare coverage and protection in relation to the labour market: Problems and policies in Latin America

In the past 25 years almost all 20 countries of Latin America have reformed their healthcare systems, but coverage by social insurance averages 53 per cent of the total population (less than the ILO minimum standard), ranges from 7 to 26 per cent in ten countries and has stagnated or decreased in at least eight, and access is insufficient. This article (1) analyses the transformation of the labour market and its impact on social insurance coverage; describes legal coverage of various groups; estimates statistical coverage/access and its trends in the three typical sectors (public, social insurance and private); documents the differences in coverage by income, geographical area and ethnic group; examines the difficulties in the incorporation of the informal economy, the rural population, indigenous peoples and the poor, as well as the causes of low coverage, and touches problems of access;(2) summarizes recommendations from international organizations on coverage and access; suggests specific policies to expand protection in general and to vulnerable groups, and identifies themes that require more statistics and research; and (3) summarizes findings and recommendations. A preliminary version of this article was presented at the ISSA Regional Conference for the Americas held in Belize City, 28‐31 May 2006. Based on the author's book Las Reformas de Saluden América Latina y el Caribe: Su Impacto en los Principios de la Seguridad Social (Santiago, ECLAC/GTZ, 2006), the article summarizes and restructures all pertinent sections of that book, with numerous changes and new data. Useful comments were provided by two anonymous referees.     

From fun to fraught: marketing to kids and regulating “risky foods” in Canada

ABSTRACT

In an era of industrialized food production, ultra-processed foods, “Big Food” marketing, and growing obesity rates, food has come to be framed as an object of risk – and as an object of regulation. Such reframing has fascinating implications related to issues of responsibility and decision making, especially when it comes to children’s food. This article probes the relationship between representation, regulation and “risky” consumption with respect to children’s food. I examine how child-targeted foods become framed as “risky” and what counts as “risky” food messaging under Health Canada’s commitment to restrict the marketing of unhealthy foods to children. Detailing the tension between food as a risk object and food as a child object, I suggest how issues of semantic provisioning and the politics of the unseen work to complicate and destabilize the (seemingly) straightforward process of prohibiting unhealthy food marketing to children.     

Sensing Voice

ABSTRACT

Through a consideration of the underwater singing practiced by contemporary American soprano and performance artist Juliana Snapper, this article addresses the inherent relation between materiality and the voice, the sensed and the embodied. I focus on the physical and sensory properties of singers' and listeners' bodies; the space within and the matter through which sound disperses; and how the relation between these aspects plays an integral part in what it feels like to sing, and what it is possible to hear. I aim to demonstrate that a sensory reading of singing and listening may capture dimensions of the voice that are difficult, if not impossible, to account for using conventional analyses of music or standard readings of vocal repertoire. However, a sensory approach to sound does not offer a stable explanation of what sound or music is. Instead each such account unveils a composite manifestation of our understanding of sound at a given moment in time and space.     

Book Notes

Books reviewed: Delas, Jean‐Jacques; Jacquet, MaïtéLe guide de la retraite 2001 Viossat, Louis‐Charles. Les retraites: enjeux, crise, solutions Börsch‐Supan, Axel; Miegel, Meinhard (eds.). Pension reform in six countries: What can we learn from each other? Minns, Richard. The cold war in welfare: Stock markets versus pensions Charlton, Roger; McKinnon, Roddy (eds.) Pensions in development Hange, Ulrich. Umlagefinanzierte Alterssicherung, Land und Migration Herfeld, Anna‐Maria. Reformansätze zur Alterssicherung in Deutschland und intergenerationelle Gerechtigkeit Belin, Bernard (ed.) Les personnes handicapées vieillissantes Robison, Janice (ed.) Towards a new social compact for care in old age Chiva, Anthony; Stears, David (eds.) Promoting the health of older people: The next step in health generation Kocher, Gerhard; Oggier, Willy (eds.) Système de santé suisse 2001/2002: survol de la situation actuelle Zhou, Huizhong (ed.) The political economy of health care reforms Scott, Claudia. Public and private roles in health care systems: Reform experience in seven OECD countries Harrison, Anthony. Making the right connections: The design and management of health care delivery Barr, Nicholas (ed.).Economic theory and the welfare state: Vol. 1: Theory. Vol. 2: Income transfers. Vol. 3: Benefits in kind Schmähl, Winfried (ed.).Soziale Sicherung zwischen Markt und Staat Baumol, William; Wilson, Charles A. (eds.). Welfare economics Widmer, Dieter. Die Sozialversicherung in der Schweiz Simon, Silvia. Umverteilung in der Sozialversicherung Fragnière, Jean‐Pierre.Politiques socials pour le XXI^e siècle Kennett, Patricia. Comparative social policy: Theory and research France. Cour des Comptes. La sécurité sociale Watson Wyatt Worldwide (Brussels).Benefits report: Western Europe, USA and Canada, 2001 Chow, Nelson W. S. Socialist welfare with Chinese characteristics: The reform of the social security system in China Vielle, Pascale. La sécurité sociale et le coût indirect des responsabilités familiales France. Ministère de l’emploi et de la solidarityé.Plan national d’action français contre la pauvreté et l’exclusion sociale Ballet, Jérôme.L’exclusion: définitions et mécanismes Boissonnat, Jean. La fin du chômage? Hill, Michael (ed.). Income maintenance policy Turner, John A. (ed.). Pay at risk: Compensation and employment risk in the United States and Canada De Koning, Jaap; Mosley, Hugh (eds.).Labour market policy and unemployment: Impact and process evaluations in elected European countries     

Analysis of the implementation of a social protection initiative to admit the poorest of the poor to mutual health funds in Burkina Faso

To enable mutual health funds to extend coverage to poor people, the Mutual Health Support Network (Réseau d’appui aux mutuelles de santé – RAMS) in 2012 launched an initiative in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Action and Solidarity (ministère de l’Action sociale et de la Solidarité nationale – MASSN) in Burkina Faso. This article reveals difficulties in the initiative's implementation, which resulted in the continued exclusion of poor people from health services. Poor people were required not only to make co‐payments, but also to accept a limitation of coverage to three episodes of illness per year. Additional challenges to service takeup were the geographical distance of the homes of some beneficiaries covered by a mutual fund agreement from a health centre and the failure by some health workers and managers of pharmacies to recognize the mutual membership card. A formal framework was lacking that brought together all the actors involved in planning and implementing the initiative. Those involved did not all have the same information. Each structure performed the tasks within its scope, according to its own interests, but without consulting the other parties, and there was no platform for discussing implementation difficulties.     

Recuerdos de Nuestro Pasado

Following is an interview with Erin Segal, group worker and coauthor of Recuerdos de Nuestro Pasado (Memories of our Past), a multivocal memoir about growing up in El Salvador and growing old in Washington DC, which emerged from a storytelling group at Mary’s Center’s Bernice Fonteneau Senior Wellness Center. The group members and coauthors are Angela Celaya, Sergio Guzmán, Jose Lovos, and Gloria Revelo. Using alternating English-language stanzas, the book expresses the life stories of four senior citizens and includes the images of their photographs and objects as well as illustrations by the book designer Julie Cho. Segal and Cho are cofounders of Thick Press. All profit from this book will go to St. Jude Children’s Hospital.     

Seeing touch and touching sight: a reflection on the tactility of vision

ABSTRACT

The article explores the reciprocal relationship between images and viewers by considering the relationship between the senses of sight and touch. I argue that images touch viewers at the same time that viewers touch images. Taking Casilda Sánchez video work, As Inside as the Eye can See as a point of departure, this article explores the ways in which a viewer’s encounter with the work can be understood as tactile rather than merely visual. Precisely because the work is visibly obsessed with the sense of sight it provides an intriguing entry point into discussions around the tactility of visual experience. Even though a person does not physically interact with this video by means of actual touch, our relationship with it is fundamentally tactile. In order to make this argument, I draw on theoretical positions that deal with the embodiment of perception, phenomenology and haptic visuality. Finally, with reference to Merleau-Ponty’s theories on vision as touch, I show how a viewer’s embodied response to the video contributes to its critical potential which unfolds from this rich experiential and tactile encounter.     

Sounding Out Vision

ABSTRACT

The late-twentieth century development of a range of digital imaging technologies has led to claims that we are in the midst of a transformation of representation. This essay takes two such technologies—ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)—and considers how their extraordinary mediation of the invisible using radio waves, magnetic fields and sound waves confounds the terms of reference which have governed the way we think not only about images, but about visual perception itself.

The nineteenth-century visual technology of the stethoscope, and its synaesthetic fusion of sound and image, is posed as a way of thinking through medical imaging technologies' sonic and haptic picturing of a world beyond light. Hegel's aesthetics, and his consideration of sound as a more ideal medium than light, is also used to consider the ways in which ultrasound and MRI images mediate the products of sound—the depth, interiority and identity of a body—into the realm of vision and the image.     

Backing Barack Because He's Black: Racially Motivated Voting in the 2008 Election*

Objective. If racial considerations influenced the outcome of the 2008 presidential election, then how did they shape the campaign, why did race matter, and for whom were such considerations important? I hypothesize that various racial attitudes exert unique influences on voters' support of Obama and that the effects of these attitudes differ by race. Methods. Using a Time Magazine poll, I distinguish between “attitudes regarding Obama's ‘Blackness’” and “opinions about race relations,” and I examine such sentiments among White and African‐American respondents. Results. Regardless of race, Obama support was highest among voters who were “comfortable” with Black candidates. However, increased optimism with racial progress had no effect on Blacks' voting intentions, and it actually lowered Obama support among Whites. Conclusion. The conventional wisdom is that African Americans “backed Barack because he is Black”; I demonstrate that Obama's race mattered more to White voters than it did to Blacks.     

Argentina’s Emergency Family Income (IFE): An opportunity for women’s empowerment

This article provides empirical evidence regarding the impact of the Emergency Family Income (Ingreso Familiar de Emergencia – IFE), which was implemented in Argentina in 2020. Investigated is the impact of the IFE on women’s role in providing household income and on the distribution of roles within households, as a reflection of women’s empowerment. Drawing on various household surveys, the study compared those women eligible to receive the transfer with those who were not. A difference-in-differences (DID) methodology was used to measure the impact. Following the implementation of the IFE, women’s share of couple income and household income is found to have increased by some 8 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively, while the probability of women being solely responsible for household chores has fallen by 4 per cent.     

Book Notes

Books reviewed International Labour Office, Social security: A new consensus. European Commission. Eurostat, The social situation in the European Union, 2001. Laroque, Michel, Guide de la protection sociale. Matt, Jean‐Luc, La securité sociale: organization et financement. Mills, Catherine; Caudron, Jos, Protection sociale: économie et politique, débats actuels et réformes. Fink, Janet; Lewis, Gail; Clarke, John (eds.), Rethinking European welfare. Taylor, Lance (ed.), External liberalization, economic performance, and social policy. Yeates, Nicola, Globalization and social policy. Schuster, Thomas.Europäische oder dezentrale Sozialpolitik?: der Einfluß internationaler Nachfrage‐ und Präferenzunterschiede. Gill, Indermit S. (et al.), Brazil: Critical issues in social security. Schokkaert, Erik (ed.), Ethics and social security reform. Schaffhauser, René Schlauri, Franz, (eds.) Aktuelle Rechtsfragen der Sozialversicherungspraxis. White, Joseph, False alarm: Why the greatest threat to Social Security and Medicare is the campaign to “save” them. Gütersloh, Internationaler Reform‐Report 2001. Pfenning, Astrid; Bahle, Thomas (eds), Families and family policies in Europe: Comparative perspectives. Ginn, Jay; Street, Debra; Arber, Sara (eds.), Women, work and pensions: International issues and prospects. Millar, Jane; Rowlingson, Karen, Lone parents, employment and social policy: Crossnational comparisons. France. Ministère de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité Union nationale interfédérale des oelig;uvres et organismes privés sanitaires et sociaux, Exclusion sociale et pauvreté en Europe. Mayes, David G.; Berghman, Jos; Salais, Robert, (eds.) Social exclusion and European policy. Wong, Ging; Picot, Garnett (eds.), Working time in comparative perspective. Vol. I: Patterns, trends and the policy implications of earnings inequality and unemployment. Houseman, Susan; Nakamura, Alice (eds.) Working time in comparative perspectives. Vol. II: Life‐cycle working time and nonstandard work Robins, Philip K.; Spiegelman, Robert G. (eds.) Reemployment bonuses in the employment insurance system: Evidence from three experiments. Holzmann, Robert; Palacios, Robert (eds.) Key issues in introducing pre‐funded pension schemes: Symposium. William M. Mercer European pension fund managers’ guide 2001/2002. Vol. 1: The marketplace, 2001. Vol. 2: Profiles, 2001–2002. Buttler, Andreas, Einführung in die betriebliche Altersversorgung: mit allem Änderungen durch das Altersvermögensgesetz Taverne, Dick (et al.) Pension reform in Europe. Disney, Richard; Johnson, Paul (eds.) Pension systems and retirement incomes across OECD countries. Rechmann, Susanne, Alterssicherung in der Europäischen Union. VI: Alterssicherung in Grossbritannien und Irland: eine institutionnelle und empirische Analyse. Clemens, Wolfgang, Ältere Arbeitnehmer im sozialen Wandel: von der verschmühten zur gefragten Humanressource? Glover, Ian; Branine, Mohamed (eds.), Ageism in work and employment. Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development, Ageing and income: Financial resources and retirement in nine OECD countries. France. Conseil d’orientation des retraites, Age et travail: un axe de réflexion essentiel pour l’avenir des retraites. Karl, Fred; Krasnova, Olga V. (eds.) Alter und Altern in Russland. Henke, Klaus‐Dirk; Dräger, Christian (eds.) Gesundheitssysteme am Scheideweg: zwischen Wettbewerb und Solidarität. Schaub, Vanessa Elisabeth, Grenzüberschreitende Gesundheitsversorgung in der Europäischen Union: die gesetzlichen Gesundheitssysteme im Wettbewerb. Dahlgaard, Knut; Jung, Kalle; Schelter, Wolfgang, Profit‐Center‐Strukturen im Krankenhaus: Potentiale, Risiken und (Neben‐) Wirkungen     

‘Orderly made’: re-appraising household inventories in seventeenth-century England

The amateur appraisers who prepared probate inventories were commentators on social and economic change in early modern England. This article considers the form these sources took, to illuminate the thinking of appraisers and the social context of appraising. Although historians recognise the limitations of inventories, they have paid little attention to them as records of the act of appraisal. Through a case study of one seventeenth-century town – Thame in Oxfordshire – individual styles of appraising are explored. Inventories were representations, based on conscious reflection about how to arrange these ordered lists. Appraising had its own history, and approaches changed over time in response to the growing number of household goods and spaces. Broad participation supported a culture of appraisal, but a small number of mostly better-off individuals were often able to control the process, using specialist skills. The study of appraisal brings to life the cooper Andrew Parslow, the town’s dominant appraiser in the late seventeenth century, who devised an entirely new ‘summary’ format, and whose standing in society depended upon his role as an appraiser. Parslow’s practice is significant in demonstrating how appraisers devised new ways of representing material culture during the century, as their understandings of possessions changed.     

Making sense of HIV/AIDS: Pascal de Duve and the sensitive historian of education1

ABSTRACT

Since the 1990s historians, in general, have increasingly engaged in critical analyses of the emergence and development of what has come to be known as ‘the HIV/AIDS pandemic’. Historians of education have also become interested in the role-played by education in the history of HIV/AIDS. Although the existing educational histories have successfully examined the multiple and far-reaching power structures that helped shape the educational responses to the disease, I will argue that their focus on ideological and geopolitical power structures runs the risk of losing sight of the crucial and often sensorial responses of individuals who have played a part in the educational history of HIV/AIDS. One such individual is the Flemish philosopher Pascal de Duve, who was diagnosed with HIV in 1989. De Duve’s particular approach to the disease clearly illustrate the importance of the senses in how people attributed particular meanings to HIV/AIDS. Knowing that this approach would prove surprising to both his readership and to his wider television audience, de Duve employed sensory experiences and modes of communication (for instance, gesture) to educative ends. I conclude that an intersensorial approach to the past will render historians of education more sensitive to unexpected personal responses towards HIV/AIDS to unexpected personal responses towards HIV/AIDS.     

A Learning-Efficiency Explanation of Structure in Language

This paper proposes a learning-efficiency explanation of modular structure in language. An optimal grammar arises as the solution to the problem of learning a language from a minimal number of observations of instances of the use of the language. Agents face symmetry constraints that limit their ability to make a priori distinctions among symbols used in the language and among objects (interpreted as facts, events, speakers intentions) that are to be represented by messages in the language. It is shown that if it is commonly known that the object space is modular and messages are strings, then modularity of the language is sufficient and (essentially) necessary for learning efficiency. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: C72.I am grateful to Hsueh-Ling Huynh, Bart Lipman, Ariel Rubinstein and Birger Wernerfelt for stimulating discussions and comments. Many thanks are due to the anonymous referee for suggestions that have helped to improve the focus and presentation of the paper. I have benefitted from comments by seminar participants at Arizona State University, Boston University, the University of California-San Diego, the University of Pittsburgh, the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), the Midwest Mathematical Economics Meetings, and the Summer in Tel Aviv (SITA). This research was supported by a Grant from the National Science Foundation.     

Mortality analysis of persons with disabilities in Argentina by age,sex and duration of benefit, 2015–16

This article describes the differential mortality of Argentina’s disability pension beneficiaries during the 2015–16 period, based on National Social Security Administration (Administración Nacional de la Seguridad Social – ANSES) payment records. It compares data for those with an assessed disability with overall population data, as well as with available international data (from Canada, Chile, Mexico, and the United States of America). In addition to breaking down mortality rates for people with disabilities by age and sex, it also factors in duration of benefit, establishing an inverse correlation between benefit duration and mortality.     

Situational,Cultural and Societal Identities: Analysing Subject Positions as Classifications,Participant Roles,Viewpoints and Interactive Positions

In this article I develop tools for analyzing the identities that emerge in qualitative material. I approach identities as historically, socially and culturally produced subject positions, as processes that are in a constant state of becoming and that receive their temporary stability and meaning in concrete contexts and circumstances. I suggest that the identities and subject positions that materialize in qualitative material can be analyzed from four different perspectives. They can be approached by focusing on (1) classifications that define the boundary lines between ‘us’ and ‘them’, as (2) participant roles that refer to the temporal aspect of subject positions and outline their meaning for action, as (3) structures of viewpoint and focalization that frame meaning and order to opinions and experiences of the world, and as (4) interactive positions that articulate the roles and identities taken by the participants of communication.