STRATTON, Alison (Teachers College, Columbia) BECOMING HARD OF HEARING IN SWEDEN
When and how do people become hard of hearing? The "obvious" answer is that there is something "wrong" with one’s hearing organs, biological damage that causes people to mishear, or not-hear. Inquiry into hearing loss and the institutions and reactions surrounding it is important because hearing loss is usually considered to be a physical type of disability that one cannot escape, that one simply "is", and that one’s _self_ is defined by. There can of course exist a biological component in one’s hearing apparatus that may affect the processing of a given sound environment. However, such biological factors are (always and already) made into social and personal "differences", "disabilities" which are socially (constructed/made) over and over again in social interactions. Making someone into one who "is hard of hearing" requires much work, on the part of hundreds of people and social institutions. That is, people/culture are at work creating and recreating "hard of hearing-ness" every day, in a myriad of situations, so that all people have a very difficult time escaping it. It is in fact very important to millions of people, in hundreds of different social positions, (to the tune of billions of dollars,) to continually maintain and recreate something called "The Hard of Hearing"/(hard of hearing-ness). In this paper I will use examples taken from my dissertation fieldwork in a Swedish audiological clinic and other governmental and educational institutions, and will concentrate on the networks of people, institutions and markets that (help/make sure that) people become "hard of hearing" over and over again. In addition, I will address the _sanctions_ that are called into action when people _refuse_ to "become" or "act" what they have been labeled – "hard of hearing".