Antropologia e sordità. Nascita di un campo di studi

Deaf studies have been almost completely ignored by the Italian anthropological tradition. Yet this research field is contributing to the dynamic process that aims to rethink and reconstruct the very foundations of anthropology. This depends above all on the fact that deaf studies constitute an "atypical" topical area that forces scholars to reconsider concepts such as language, ethnicity and identity. Secondly, the American Sign Language Dictionary - first published by William Stokoe in the early sixties at the very beginning of this discipline - could be used as an excellent laboratory to understand how a new object of study comes to light and identify the ideological framework that often shapes research.