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Ansvar och kontroll. Levd erfarenhet av ljudmiljöer hos personer med kokleaimplantat.

Author

  • Åsa Alftberg

Summary, in English

Aim: This study aims at exploring how persons with

hearing impairments, using cochlear implants, create

and negotiate meaning in relation to soundscapes in

modern society.

Methods: Participants were contacted through national

organisations for persons with hearing impairments.

Data was gathered by means of a combination of interviews

and an ethnological questionnaire.

Results: For persons with cochlear implants, the process

to (re)learn how to hear can be difficult, even painful.

Hence, the process can be a personal investment:

incentives involve increasing ones hearing, as well as a

normative pursuit of able-bodiedness. Normative expectations

concerning oral communication are contributing

to experiences of various soundscapes, in turn

rendering individual strategies morally loaded. Simultaneously,

personal choice and responsibility are included

as components in the process of creating and negotiating

meaning.

Conclusions: A person’s creation of meaning and the

personal significance of the cochlear implant revolve

around normative able-bodiedness, in turn entangled in

the relationship between person and society. However,

by using the cochlear implant in everyday practice,

normative able-bodiedness is negotiated, sometimes

even resisted.

Publishing year

2015

Language

Swedish

Publication/Series

Occasional Papers in Disability & Rehabilitation

Issue

2015:1

Document type

Working paper

Publisher

Malmö University

Topic

  • Ethnology

Keywords

  • able-bodiedness
  • ableism
  • cochlear implant
  • hearing impairment
  • soundscape

Status

Published