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"Goedele A. M. De Clerck presents cross-cultural comparative research that examines and documents where deaf flourishing occurs and how it can be advanced. She spotlights collective and dynamic resources of knowledge and learning; the coexistence of lived differences; social, linguistic, cultural, and psychological capital; and human potential and creativity. Deaf Epistemologies, Identity, and Learning argues for an inclusive approach to the intrinsic human diversity in society, education, and scholarship, and shows how emotions of hope, frustration, and humiliation contribute to the construction of identity and community. De Clerck also considers global to local dynamics in deaf identity, deaf culture, deaf education, and deaf empowerment. She presents empirical research through case studies of the emancipation processes for deaf people in Flanders (a region of Belgium), the United States (specifically, at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC), and the West African nation of Cameroon. These three settings illuminate different phases of emancipation in different contexts, and the research findings are integrated into a broader literature review and subjected to theoretical reflection. De Clerck's anthropology of deaf flourishing draws from her critical application of the empowerment paradigm in settings of daily life, research, leadership, and community work, as she explores identity and well-being through an interdisciplinary lens. This work is centered around practices of signed storytelling and posits learning as the primary access and pathway to culture, identity, values, and change. Change driven by the learning process is considered an awakening--and through this awakening, the deaf community can gain hope, empowerment, and full citizenship. In this way, deaf people are allowed to shape their histories, and the result is the elevation of all aspects of deaf lives around the world"--

In the last decade, and responding to the criticism of orientalism, anthropology has engaged in a self-critical practice, working toward a postcolonial perspective on science and an epistemological stance of partial and situated knowledge (Pinxten, 2006; Pinxten & Note, 2005). In deaf studies, anthropological and sociological studies employing qualitative and ethnographic methods have introduced a paradigm shift. Concepts of deaf culture and deaf identity have been employed as political tools, contributing to the emancipation process of deaf people. However, recent anthropological studies in diverse local contexts indicate the cultural construction of these notions. From this viewpoint, deaf studies faces a challenge to reflect on the notions of culture, emancipation, and education from a nonexclusive, noncolonial perspective. Deaf studies research in a global context needs to deal with cultural and linguistic diversity in human beings and academia. This calls for epistemological reflection and new research methods.

In a Flemish case study, deaf role models revealed a moment of awakening, indicated by the Flemish sign WAKE-UP. Contact with deaf cultural rhetoric made them wake up, and deconstruct and reconstruct their lives, a process represented by a circle of deaf empowerment. Flemish deaf leaders mentioned acquiring this rhetoric during visits to deaf dream worlds (in Flemish Sign Language, WORLD DREAM): places with ideal conditions for deaf people. Such global deaf encounters (Breivik, Haualand, & Solvang, 2002) lead to the "insurrection of subjugated [deaf] knowledges" (Pease, 2002, p. 33). Whereas deaf education had never provided them with deaf cultural rhetoric and was depositing upon them oppressive societal conventions (Jankowski, 1997), a common sign language (Mottez, 1993) and global deaf experience (Breivik et al., 2002; Murray, in press) in barrier-free environments (Jankowski, 1997) provided deaf ways of deaf education (Erting, 1996; Reilly, 1995).