New url – tigerdeafie.wordpress.com
TigerDeafie I have changed my url to tigerdeafie.wordpress.com : all past and present postings can be found there! Tiger
Fri, Feb 06 2015

BSL version of Interim Group Report
TigerDeafie The report that was put up from the Interim Working Group was all in English: there is now a BSL copy available on the website. It is late, but hope the issues become more widely accessible. All comments are welcome. Interim Working Group meeting is Feb 1st, from 6pm at Bristol Deaf Centre. The AGM [...]
Tue, Jan 31 2012

Bristol Deaf Centre – clock ticking down
TigerDeafie Quick post here: the clock is fast ticking down... 8th February: Annual General Meeting of Bristol Deaf Centre (deadline for motions is Wednesday 25th February) 1st February: Open meeting of Interim Working Group: see the other blog for: a. information about 1st February meeting b. summary of information collected so far (in English, I understand [...]
Mon, Jan 23 2012

Urgent: Bristol Deaf Centre sale and closure imminent!
TigerDeafie So it's official re: the seriousness of the situation of the Bristol Deaf Centre, which faces imminent closure, as reported by the Evening Post just before Xmas. This follows an article by Charlie Swinbourne recently on the woes being faced by Bristol Deaf people – which is, to put it metaphorically, a large pair of [...]
Thu, Jan 05 2012

2nd Symposium in Applied Sign Linguistics – Documenting...
TigerDeafie After the successful 1st symposium that took place in September 2009, the 2nd one is fast coming up at the Centre for Deaf Studies, Bristol, from June 30th to July 2nd. This second symposium aims at bringing together scholars, researchers and educational practitioners to discuss the ‘documentation’ of sign languages for teaching and learning purposes. [...]
Mon, May 30 2011

Book/DVD offer extended / citizenship website now up /...
TigerDeafie A quick message here that the special offer on the book/dvd (BSL), Citizenship and the Deaf Community, has been extended by Ishara Press until the end of June 2011. This co-incides with a new website [link] A few words about the website: I bought the domain name in 2007. I wanted the BSL DVD to [...]
Mon, May 30 2011

Excellent Press Release from Irish Deaf Society regarding...
TigerDeafie Thanks again to Alison, for passing on a copy of this excellent Press Release: At the moment, the Italian government is discussing the enactment of the Italian Sign Language (LIS) bill at the moment. However, a proposal was made to rename the Italian Sign Language as the language of mime and gesture (LMG), in effect [...]
Tue, May 24 2011

Italy proposals met with opposition
TigerDeafie Rather worrying events in Italy have drawn the attention of the world's Deaf people. The full details are at Grumpy Old Deafies and I wanted to add my support for the opposition to what's happening in Italy – I wrote to the President of the Italian Parliament and others yesterday to express my extreme concerns [...]
Tue, May 24 2011

Hungary sets the standards for the world’s Deaf people!
TigerDeafie A few words about a conference that took place in Budapest, Hungary on 25/26 March to which I was an invited speaker, entitled: ‘Multilingualism in Europe: prospects and practices in East-Central Europe'. Detailed conference information can be found here There is an explanation of the conference in International Sign via You-tube here It was specifically [...
Mon, Apr 04 2011

The growing power of the Deaf professional-managerial class
TigerDeafie It seems absurdly ironic that the Deaf Professional-Managerial Class (PMC) in the UK are emerging in times when people are expected to tighten their belts in times of assumed austerity and when revolution lights up the middle east.  It is possible, however, for the Deaf PMC to be pushed into taking actions of its own [...]
Fri, Feb 25 2011

As revolution sweeps the middle east…
TigerDeafie In the 1990′s it was the ‘communist'/state capitalist regimes that fell one by one: in the 2010′s it's the middle east dictatorships of Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Iran, Bahrain and now Iraq that are under threat from popular revolt!  The demands are popular: improve services, spend funds on reducing poverty, allow voting, impr...
Fri, Feb 18 2011

What would you do?
TigerDeafie With thanks to Naomi
Fri, Feb 18 2011

Upcoming dates – including launch of DVD in BSL and other...
TigerDeafie On the evening of 31st March, at the Friends Meeting House, Euston, London, I will (finally) be launching my Book and BSL DVD on ‘Citizenship and the Deaf Community', and giving a presentation on Citizenship and Group Rights. It is an open meeting and all are welcome to attend: a Facebook link will be set [...]
Mon, Jan 31 2011

Deafhood and Genetics – new post
TigerDeafie The information on the new post at CDS can be seen here: [link]
Wed, Dec 15 2010

Save Elmfield Deaf School and Deaf Youth Services petition
TigerDeafie One year no posts! An update long overdue. In meantime, please see the following petition of the latest attempt to close yet another Deaf school, and cut youth services. That is in spite of a recommendation to the local council not to do so!! 500 names as of today; they are hoping for 3,000. Steve [...]
Sun, Dec 12 2010

a personal perspective on paddy’s deafhood class on...
TigerDeafie Before heading to the SIGN4 conference in India I took part in Paddy Ladd's Deafhood class, where the topic was on genetics.  The key of the lecture was to explore the discourses around genetics and Deaf people with the events over the HFE Bill still quite recent. The discussion ranged from how the discourse of genetics [...]
Fri, Dec 18 2009

Update: education, diaspora, genetics and group rights
TigerDeafie An incredibly hectic period! It's always busy, but these last three months have been a workload tsunami to beat all workload tsunamis! Here's an update. Struggling with swine flu back in August, I wrote up an ‘Expression of Interest' for a Centre for Deaf Studies project to evaluate the work being undertaken by the I-Sign Consortium. The [...]
Sun, Dec 06 2009

Sign Language Planning: individual rights to group rights
TigerDeafie I agreed to stand in for a speaker the week before last at the recent Applied Sign Linguistics conference at Bristol University and that gave me a good opportunity to bring together my own research and thinking on citizenship, language planning and group rights. I want to keep this simple.  I don't refer to language planning [...]
Sat, Oct 03 2009

A Roadmap to British Sign Language & Linguistic Access in...
TigerDeafie I have just seen this document, a report on linguistic access in Scotland. Amongst the interesting statistics are: - that just 18% of D/deaf people have access to the internet, compared with 53% of the general population; - there are just 65 qualified BSL/English interpreters, compared with an estimated 200 to 300 Communication Support Workers (though this figure [......
Tue, Sep 08 2009

While stuck at home with swine flu, blog links updated
TigerDeafie Yay, it got to me, so what better opportunity, while under quarantine, to update the blog? Apart from changing the appearance, I've added some links and a widget, here is a description of what I've added and why: I've added ‘Valley of the Deaf', the blog of a Deaf anthropologist in Adamorobe; now, that is highly worthy [...]
Wed, Aug 05 2009

BSL DVD of PhD ‘Citizenship and the Deaf Community’...
TigerDeafie Blimey the time has really flown! Shocked, it was January 2008 the DVD's were completed (was it really that long ago I set up the blog??), but after many delays, particularly checking the covers (my name was spelt ‘Seven' on the originals ahem!), and the English headings within the DVD's, they are now in my [...]
Thu, Jul 30 2009

Group Rights and Deaf Communities
TigerDeafie I want to take the opportunity here to update where I am currently with the new research project with which I'm involved at the Centre for Deaf Studies, Bristol University.  Having revised and taught a Unit on ‘Deaf People in Politics and the Media' at the Centre, I'm now in a position to move ahead [...]
Fri, Jul 17 2009

London G20 Protests: From Peach to Tomlinson, has anything...
TigerDeafie The emotions I'm feeling at seeing one video after another being released in the mainstream media following the G20 protest on 1st April simply can't be described. It's sad and annoying that all this reporting is taking place only after an innocent guy, Ian Tomlinson, died after being struck by the police at the protest.  Had this [...]
Sat, Apr 18 2009

Voices from El Sayed screening at Bristol’s Watershed:...
TigerDeafie Just a quick blog posting, following the one by grumpyoldeafies today,  about the film ‘Voices from El Sayed', showing at Bristol's Watershed cinema, on Saturday 9th May, 3pm. Click here for more info in BSL, including some background as to why the film is being shown at the Watershed cinema in collaboration with the Centre for [...]
Fri, Apr 03 2009

Research Project report: mental health needs of Deaf BME...
TigerDeafie Last Tuesday I attended the launch of the report into the mental health needs of Deaf people from the Glasgow BME community. I gave a brief presentation of the research I undertook. The project was a pilot to investigate if further research was necessary in this field.  You can see the full report here. The work was [...]
Thu, Mar 05 2009

Celebrating Dot Miles at the BDA…some reflections on...
TigerDeafie Back fresh from the British Deaf Association (BDA) conference; my initial reaction is .... interesting! Good to see a conference brimming with energy and enthusiasm, a full hall of people celebrating the memory of poet Dot Miles; and people getting involved in workshop discussions. There is a new BDA Chair now, but I'd like to see some [...]
Tue, Feb 03 2009

Capitalism goes into a spin; but what does it mean to the...
TigerDeafie News just in has seen the vote for the $700bn ‘bail out' plan fail in the US, and the markets dive yet again.  The only thing that surprises me about these events is that anybody was ever surprised about it at all.  As long ago as 2002 there were warnings that this is what would [...]
Mon, Sep 29 2008

Moving on and apologies
TigerDeafie My many apologies for not keeping up to date with this blog So I am just writing a brief summary here for now. But...a lot has been happening, I've not been away on holiday. Firstly, I am moving to University of Bristol from the beginning of October.  To my delight I was awarded an early careers [...]
Sat, Sep 06 2008

…and so the genetics bandwagon looks like rolling into...
TigerDeafie Genetics ‘stuff’ might have died somewhat with the virtual unopposed passage of Clause 14/4/9 of the HFE Bill in UK Parliament and burn out on the part of those of us who have spent so much time and emotional energy trying to bring to public awareness the consequences of Bill. But it looks like rearing [...]
Mon, Jun 30 2008

Telegraph on ‘deaf babies’ we are still failing to get...
TigerDeafie This report appeared in the Daily Telegraph today. It is a positive report in so many ways, as it demonstrates what we already know: pressure from activists (you see, pressure politics DOES work!!) has actually forced the Department of Health into a climbdown (though whether it will find its way to Parliament is a different matter). I [...]
Sun, Apr 13 2008

That Inspiring Debate on Genetics in UK on 9th April…with...
TigerDeafie This post is coming somewhat a few days after the event of 9th April, but better late than never I hope! I have taken a jolt from the events surrounding the fact that one person at the event was attacked by a couple of others (more on that later): that is not a nice feeling when [...]
Sun, Apr 13 2008

Five years after BSL is acknowledged: was it worth it?
TigerDeafie Today is five years to the day that BSL was finally acknowledged (although it's down as being ‘recognised' in the official statement I don't buy it) by the UK governement.  Let me be clear.  Deaf people should celebrate because it wouldn't have happened without the action of people up and down the country: the marches, the [...]
Tue, Mar 18 2008

The wise young guy and the zombies
TigerDeafie Its been one crazy week, with the media having gone barmy for the Deaf genetics story; it has probably been covered by nearly all newspapers, and loads more radio stations. Give it a few more days and the entire UK radio network will be complete! Oh, the irony, radio, the most inaccessible media of the [...]
Fri, Mar 14 2008

Eugenics in UK: the debate suddenly takes off and hots up!
TigerDeafie Suddenly there's a lot of news coverage over here in UK on issues relating to Deaf issues. It began with this report in the Sunday's (9/3/08) Observer, which had a general news focus on the HFE Bill. The article was centred on Tomato Lichy and Paula Garfield; in the printed version it shows a photograph [...]
Mon, Mar 10 2008

To march or not to march (against Eugenics)…is that the...
TigerDeafie For some time now it has been known that Islington Deaf Campaign (IDC) are organising a march through the centre of London ‘to stop remove deaf gene'. From their website it is clear that their campaign has arisen as a result of the HFEB bill. They are to be congratulated on that.  A march will [...]
Mon, Feb 25 2008

Two other projects to mention…and an update on the...
TigerDeafie In addition to research on attitudes to genetics there are two other projects currently being worked on at Heriot Watt. The first is subtitling; there has been very little done into how deaf and hard of hearing people read subtitles, what they think of it, and what styles and types they prefer.  A guy at Heriot-Watt, [...]
Wed, Feb 20 2008

Genetics and the mitochondria 3-parent news story
TigerDeafie Taking a break from research in the national library in Edinburgh, I was reading a copy of the Scottish Daily Mail (as you do) over a cappuccino in a nearby café. (Please note, I do not *buy* the Mail, it was already in the café.) Skimming the pages and looking for interesting [...]
Thu, Feb 07 2008

Genetics HFEB - links to articles in t.v., media, online,...
TigerDeafie Here are some further links on HFEB Bill you might like to see: [link] ‘See Hear' on the Bill, for our international friends! with big big thanks to Clark [link] Supportive article written by Heather Bradshaw, who is based at University of Bristol; thanks to Anna for bringing to my attention. [link] The [...]
Mon, Feb 04 2008

The HFEB (eugenics) Bill does not remove the deaf gene but...
TigerDeafie In this month's British Deaf News (a regular column author), and also on a campaign blog, there is information about the Bill which is mistaken and needs to be urgently clarified. The Bill does NOT authorise the removal of a deaf gene from an embryo, and neither does it ban deaf genes or embryo's completely, either [...]
Wed, Jan 30 2008

Cathy Heffernan on the advantages of being a Deaf traveller...
TigerDeafie There is this brilliant article in the Guardian today by Cathy Heffernan entitled Being deaf has one big advantage when you're travelling abroad - it breaks down all the barriers. Her experience certainly mirrors mine re: travelling to places like South America and the Far East. Go read!
Wed, Jan 30 2008

My interview on See Hear
TigerDeafie What an experience! If anyone enjoys chaos, argument, stress, this was one to crave. On Thursday 17th January I was interviewed on See Hear as a representative from the Stop Eugenics campaign. I was given the questions that would be asked, sent to me the day before by the producer, and did a little [...]
Wed, Jan 30 2008