Blessing or A Curse? Exploring the Identity and Lived Experiences of Australian, Lebanese-Muslim Women with Hearing Impairment

DOI

10.2991/icddims-17.2018.36How to use a DOI?

Keywords

d/Deaf, Diversity, Identities, Muslim, Australian, Lebanese, Women

Abstract

This paper explores the identity and experiences of women with hearing loss who come from an ethnic background. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight women living in Sydney who came from an Australian, Lebanese-Muslim background and experienced living with hearing loss. As the researcher is herself an Australian, Lebanese-Muslim woman with hearing loss, auto-ethnography was used to explore how the women from a similar background navigated their identities and whether they perceived their hearing loss as a 'blessing' or a 'curse'. The findings suggested that most of the women identified themselves by their hearing loss first, followed by their identity as a Muslim. Being a Muslim was important as their religion allowed them to cope with their identity challenges and accept their hearing loss as a 'blessing' from God. However, cultural stigma, barriers to communication, isolation in the family and community mirrored the 'curse' of hearing loss.

Copyright

© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Ayah Wehbe
PY  - 2017/11
DA  - 2017/11
TI  - Blessing or A Curse? Exploring the Identity and Lived Experiences of Australian, Lebanese-Muslim Women with Hearing Impairment
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Diversity and Disability Inclusion in Muslim Societies (ICDDIMS 2017)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 173
EP  - 176
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icddims-17.2018.36
DO  - 10.2991/icddims-17.2018.36
ID  - Wehbe2017/11
ER  -