Deafblindness, Cartography and Decoloniality

Abstract

This article is composed of part of my PhD research, whose purpose was to search for interfaces between the Deafblind and Art fields. The work was developed with deafblind people, their relatives and professionals of the Program of Attention and Support to the Deafblind, from the Benjamin Constant Institute, located in Rio de Janeiro. Through the method of cartography, the research followed work processes in the Program of Attention and Support to the Deafblind taking care of the interests of the territory studied and the subjects involved, among which we highlight in this article the experience lived with a deafblind person. In order to deal with the specifics of deafblindness I sought support in philosophical and sociological studies. In the philosophy, of great help were the reflections on the phenomenology of the perception of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In sociology, the concepts of Abyssal Thought and Ecology of knowledge brought by Boaventura de Souza Santos became very operative. For a philosophical reflection on art, I sought in Rancière and his aesthetic policy instruments to legitimize the observed experiences. In the field of disability and the Deafblindness, the dialogues with the knowledge of biopsychosocial perspectives on deafblindness were fundamental. The results point to the relevance of art to the expression of being, to communication, to the expansion of perception and to the world understanding of deafblind people. Likewise, they reveal the potential of the field of deafblindness to the field of the arts, raising extensions and enrichments in the ways of perceiving, conceiving, making and enjoying art.

Deafblindness; Artistic Expression and Decoloniality