Why Brazil?
Why Brazil?
One of the questions I’ve been getting a lot at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina and elsewhere on the “Magic Island” of Floripa is “Why Brazil”? The answer is manyfold, but here are some reasons:
1) One of the first places my academic work started getting some international attention was Brazil, through the translation of my 2008 “Bioethics and the Deaf Community” chapter in Lodenir Becker Karnopp’s edited volume Ética e Pesquina em Educaçao: Questões e Proposições às Ciências Humanas e Sociais article. Professor Lodenir Becker Karnopp of UFRGS was visiting Gallaudet University, and through several conversations we spent time learning about one another’s work. I have never forgotten her kindness to me as an emerging non-traditional age scholar, and the subsequent correspondence from her and some other Brazilian scholars about my work in deaf bioethics.
2) Over the years, as I’ve learned more about Deaf academics in Brazil, I’ve become curious about the Brazilian community of Deaf scholars, the structural support systems in place in Brazil that have produced more than 200 Deaf PhDs (!), the language and educational policies that underlie such structural support, including the widespread use of Sign Writing of Libras, and more. I have colleagues and friends who have worked with colleagues in Libras linguistics, Brazilian Deaf Studies, and Libras literature, and through these connections have come to develop an appreciation of the work that has been going on for decades in Brazil to build this robust academic community.
3) I’ve had a long abiding fascination with the country and the culture of Brazil for decades, starting with seeing a Disney documentary about Carnival as a child. There were no captions back then, but the visuals were compelling and made up for the words I missed. During the pandemic, when I was working as a Deaf bioethicist advising various institutions and communities in New Mexico, across the United States, and around the world, plus also managing the transition to online education as an administrator in higher education, I searched for something that would give my days a sense of flow – something I could lose myself in for just a little while to stave off the horrors around the world piling up in my thoughts. I tried piano, but that stressed me out since I knew my neighbors might hear me tickling the ivories and I did not want to disturb them in the wee hours, which sometimes was the only time I had available for myself. I needed a quieter pursuit.
4) Pandemic workdays were very long – easily 14-18 hours every day the first six months or so. Living alone during the pandemic, it was easy to get lost in the demands of work – there just weren’t many other signing bioethicists to take on these matters! When I had a moment to daydream (usually while doing bicep curls between Zoom meetings) I thought about where I would like to go after the pandemic. Over and over, my thoughts turned to Brazil. I joined Duolingo to start learning Brazilian Portuguese, which soon became a second highlight of my day after Facetime calls to my family to ensure that everyone was safe and healthy. The study of Portuguese quickly became a habit and a passion that I continue today. In the years since, it has ebbed and flowed as other demands on my time encroached, but it has been a consistent thread in the tapestry of my life as an educational administrator – it is where I go to destress, to think about matters beyond administrivia, and to get lost in the flow.
Take all of the above, plus my nagging sense that the discussions about the bioethical impact of genetic technology on the deaf community have been somewhat fragmented, with more ethical discourse and exchange occurring across the Five Eyes (FVEY) countries and western Europe and less in the global South, and it is easy to see why I ended up in Brazil! Not to mention the people, the culture, the beaches, the food, the weather, and some distant and less distant family connections…
It's a beautiful day, and I’ve hit my target of words written for the morning.
Até mais, até breve!
[1] The most recent reprint of this chapter in English can be found in the Bioethics and Disability Reader, edited by the marvelous duo of Joel Michael Reynolds and Christine Wieseler.