Re: Vygotsky and disability

Naoki Ueno (nueno who-is-at nier.go.jp)
Mon, 25 May 1998 05:07:10 +0900

At 10:33 AM 5/24/98 -0500, (The Left Rev.) John Konopak wrote:
>Have others read Jane Roland Martin, devotes a chapter in "The
>Schoolhome" to a discussion of the situation on Martha's Vinyard. There
>the hearing people on the island had to accomodate themselves to the
>non-hearing because the folks who knew how to build the boats were
>_congenitally_ "disabled" with deafness. In the tightly coupled
>structure of the (pre-investment) island, the interdependence of the
>"able" and the "disabled" made the ability to communicate in alternative
>ways valuable for ends all required. But with the onset of the current
>gentrification of the island, the need to heed the "disabled"
>disappears, and recent migrants have not had to learn sign to
>communicate for ends vital to the propogation of the community.

Really?

However, what is the point of Martin and your claim ?
Did Matin attempt to show "physical deafness" is after all
"physical deafness" in any cultural prractices?
The deaf as "disable" in Martha's Vinyard was just the same
as the modern deaf as disable"?

How should I reflect? Should I belive "deprivation or deficit
hyposis"?

The point of Ray and Herve' s paper is that deaf, LD and other
"physical" disable are not purely physical disable.
Their question is "when does a disable count, under what condition,
and in what ways, and for what reason?"

Any kind of physical disease is located in specific cultural
practices as well.
Some diseases that are not counted as a disease in one cultural
practice is counted as a disease in another cultural practice.
Further, maybe, the meaning of disease in 17th century was not
the same as the modern disease. For example, before the Pasteurization
of France(Latour, 1988), "microbe" was not part of network as
an actor in France.

Do you claim the thing like that any kind of physical disease has been
purely physical disease in any cultural practice and in any time
without technology, artifacts and scientific practice for making
diseases observable?

Finally, I still like to think the possibility of H.G. Wells' s
collected stories even though it is not so easy.

Actually, Adam as LD was not always visible.
In a classroom, Adam as LD was extremely visible and the situation
of him was miserable there. Is it impossible to change this kind of
situation?

>food for thought.
>Have a reflective Memorial Day (it's still May 31, btw).
>konopak

This kind of message is extremely strange here.
Please advise me more kindly and concretely.

Naoki Ueno
NIER, Tokyo