Deaf Studies Through the Eyes of Anthropology

For years, the Deaf community has struggled to achieve their language to be seen as a true language and to have empowerment. Research in anthropology has aided the community in this effort by answering questions like: Is Sign Language a real language, what is deaf culture, and how do deaf view their identity? The concepts discussed include: deaf community, culture, identity, membership, ethnicity, and deafness vs. Deafhood. This Literature analysis will identify the efforts previous studies have done and identify what questions still need to be addressed. This paper suggests that more ethnographic research should be conducted with the deaf culture.