My identity – Insider and Outsider

My study focused on the learning process among deaf learners and so I knew I would spend most of my field work time in schools with these learners. The dominant language among learners and other deaf people in Kenya is KSL. Language is a key component in any qualitative research since it is a communication tool and it facilitates interaction. This was the first barrier I had to consider ways of dealing with since teaching and learning among these learners take place in sign language. Although I could have used the expertise of a sign language interpreter, I opted to learn sign language instead in order to be able to interact directly with the people for whom the study was intended – deaf learners. As Srivastava (2006: 213) puts it ‘the choice and use of a specific language is not merely a technical consideration but one deeply embedded in the social processes of engagement in the field, and affects researchers’ positionalities with participants’. I therefore enrolled for a Basic KSL course with KSLRP based in the University of Nairobi before the start of my fieldwork. The course normally takes three months in two hour sessions per day but due to the time constraints, I requested to have an intensive one month training with full day sessions and this was granted. After the first week, I and my tutor would go to a certain area on one of the streets in Nairobi where deaf adults often converge and we would spend about an hour each day conversing with them. During the introduction by my tutor, who was deaf, they would always ask whether I was deaf and when they heard I was not

deaf, they would want to know more about who I was. When I told them why I was learning their language, they always seemed to appreciate the fact that I was planning to do a study that would be helpful to children who are like them.

Although equipped with some basic sign language, I still had to address the need for a research assistant. The nature of my study necessitated employing a research assistant due to the fact that teaching and learning takes place in sign language in Kenya so there was need to video record the classroom observations. I decided to employ a deaf research assistant for three main reasons: firstly, to help me enhance my knowledge of KSL; secondly, to help me understand any signs that I was not familiar with during the transcription of the video recordings especially when American signs were used; and thirdly, to serve as a role model for the deaf learners. The first two aims would have been achieved through the use of any hearing person who was familiar with KSL and ASL but due to the emancipatory approach that I had decided to use to a degree in this study, I considered that working in collaboration with a deaf adult who have gone through the same education system and as a KSL instructor for hearing adults at the time, would make the study more meaningful. This was quite significant to the study. It is only after I started my fieldwork that I understood the power of language. When I went to the classrooms and I introduced myself in sign language to the learners, the reception was very positive. It was the same with my research assistant. After the introductions, they would always want to know our sign names and whether we were deaf or hearing. It was only then that I learnt I had to have a sign name and since I did not have one, I asked the learners of the first school I visited to get a name for me which they did. From then on, every time I met a new group of learners, I would tell them my name and my new sign name since I then understood the usefulness of a sign name. The deaf teachers who participated in this study were all receptive partly because of my knowledge of some basic sign language and also because of the context of my research. My not being deaf did not seem to matter to them as long as they were able to communicate and share with me their experiences and viewpoints. The situation was the same when I visited organisations for/of deaf people where I encountered deaf adults. In two of the organisations where the receptionists were deaf, after I introduced myself to them and explained to them the purpose of my visit, they both sought to know whether I was deaf and immediately got interested in my study and engaged me in conversation. One of them, a male, quickly offered me a cup of tea and talked to me about issues

related to my research interest and about his experiences in school until my participant arrived. When I met the second receptionist, a young woman, I was with my deaf research assistant whom she knew. She sought more information on my research interest but she engaged my research assistant more than me maybe due to the fact that I was not very fluent in sign language. She then turned and told me, ‘I am sure my boss will be very happy to hear about your research interest and will offer you whatever help you require.’ This gave me the impression that I was not so much viewed as an outsider. My association with my research assistant made me more of an ‘insider’. This resonates with Goffman’s (1968) description of ‘the Own’ and ‘the Wise’ where I was the ‘wise’ and was ‘accorded a measure of acceptance, a measure of courtesy membership in the clan’ (p. 41) which my research assistant identified as ‘his own’.

Being Kenyan and a teacher I was received well in most of the schools especially at the management level. Most of the teachers of deaf learners are hearing so the fact that I was hearing did not bother them especially after I mentioned to them that I have been a teacher and that I knew some sign language. However, not all of them were comfortable with the idea of my research and so they thought that I was there to play a supervisory role with the intention of identifying their weaknesses. Mostly this happened when a school administrator introduced me to the teachers and made it sound as if it was mandatory for them to let me observe their lessons. Bryman (2008: 408) cautions researchers trying to secure access in closed contexts when he states, ‘people will be suspicious about you, perhaps seeing you as instruments of top management’. Nonetheless, after clarifying the objectives of my research, some felt at ease and welcomed me while others chose not to participate.

Overall, I would say, I was considered an outsider in some contexts and an insider in others. To my surprise, it appeared I was considered more as an insider by deaf adults and deaf learners than by some hearing teachers.