Deaf Liminality

(Still a work in progress)

If I need to coin a term to describe the most common deaf experience that I have ascertained from my research and lived experience so far, I would call it “deaf liminality.” Liminality, in this sense, does not only mean "betwixt and between" and "neither here nor there" (Turner, 1979); for purposes of this framework, it is the concept of "existing beyond rigid social identity categories" (Combs, 2025). The multitudinal nature of the deaf experience accounts for the intersectional identities of deaf* (includes DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, and hard-of-hearing) people and the diversity of deaf onto-epistemologies from all over the world.

I’m challenging the monolithic connotations of “Deaf culture” that tend to kowtow to the intimately related notions of DEAF-SAME and DEAF-FIRST.

Have you ever read Anzaldua’s Borderlands? It’s the same premise— the idea that there are multitudes contained in what many may have considered as a singular experience. Probably clearer to consider it in terms of categories. We, as humans, love to box everyone and everything in categories and that includes how we think of the deaf experience (as outlined in any book about “Deaf Culture”), but there are as many deaf experiences as there are deaf individuals so it may behoove us to consider the whole spectrum of the experience going across and beyond the boundaries of categories which is where the framework of deaf liminality comes in eg. being a DeafDisabled  musician with speaking abilities closely aligns with deaf liminality than to the idea of the singular “Deaf Culture”.

The premise of deaf liminality is inextricably rooted in intersectionality. Intersectionality presupposes that there are as many deaf cultures as there are deaf people. There is no one deaf culture. There is no one way to be deaf. I reiterate, there are as many deaf experiences as there are deaf people. This means no deaf person experiences multiple kinds of oppressions uniformly. Therefore, what is considered effective and equitable support, acts of grace, and other forms of kindness and shows of humanity differs from one deaf individual to another.