Signing and Belonging in Nepal, Hardcover by Hoffmann-dilloway, Erika, ISBN 1563686643, ISBN-13 9781563686641, Like New Used, Free P&P in the UK

The author investigates the deaf community in Nepal from an anthropological perspective, during a period (1997 to 2006) of increased political efforts by many of the marginalized ethnolinguistic groups in the country, who protested the state's framing of nationalism as grounded in marginalizing symbols and practices, which became a driver of the Maoist “People's War” and led to a transition from a Hindu kingdom to a secular republic. Deafness was viewed as a result of bad karma and tied to a person's purity and pollution (which could be transmitted to others), and the author shows how karmic and ethnolinguistic models of deafness both draw on the premise that people and larger social formations are created through interaction. She argues that instead of rejecting local understandings of personhood and social groups based in ideas of karma and purity and pollution, deaf signers used them to produce deafness as an ethnolinguistic category. She describes the historical and cultural context; Nepali Sign Language; signing at home and the language acquisition of children; the increased prominence of deaf signers in public places, including employment as servers at the Bakery Cafés; and responses of deaf Nepalis to the shift to a secular republic. Annotation ©2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR ()