Deaf Joy: Recuperating the Present, Nuancing Potentiality, and Eating Ice Cream

Abstract: This commentary proposes deaf joy as a valuable mode of engagement with and between deaf people. Deaf joy is a corrective to deficit- and damage-focused narratives and research and it enables a habitable focus on the present. Foregrounding deaf joy also allows for critiques of aspirations for and research focused on normative accounts of potentiality as well as neoliberal ideas of deaf peoples' value because of what they contribute to society. These critiques are important because potentiality as a concept is often weaponized and used to invalidate deaf children's and deaf peoples' lives as lived. Drawing on research conducted at an early intervention conference, media coverage of a cochlear implant "scandal" in South Australia, and a deaf-produced film, this article argues for cultivating deaf joy that is not just a reaction to damage and loss, and that is not just focused on what deaf people can contribute to the world.