CULTURE, CONSUMPTION AND DIFFERENCE: a study with a group of deaf people from Vitória-ES
Name: MARCOS ALOIZIO FRANÇA DA FONSECA
Publication date: 03/08/2010
Summary: Both different people like different cultures, how different perceptions are meant for private consumption, are those relating to a particular group of persons, whether related to a culture or the selectivity of perception of each one of us. From this perspective, culture, consumption and difference are analyzed through specific situations of consumption of a group of deaf people in Vitoria-ES. This choice was due to the absence of studies within the area of the Administration to tackle the issue deafness, since the discussion of deafness is gaining more space, inside and outside the academic sphere. The search is conducted here by the reflection on the absence of the sense of hearing than by clinical approaches, or medical therapies, but approaching the interpretive social studies (Thomas, 2008; STROBEL, 2008; SA, 2006). The intent is to understand how these consumers forge their social relations through the consumption of goods and services. For this analysis, we carried out bibliographic research on consumption by an anthropological perspective (ROCHA, 2000, 2005, MILLER, 2002; MCCRACKEN, 2003). Since then, approached from the perspective of cultural studies proposed by deaf people in the search for understanding of consumption as a mediator of relations and constructor of meanings. Through ethnographic inspiration to the use of direct observation and informal interviews (MALINOWSKI, 1978; GEERTZ, 1989; MAGNANI, 2002, 2003), the field of research grew out of events, meetings, discussions and tours of the group of deaf . With these, we could experience some consumption situations involving the use of public transport to the informal meetings. It was seen that social relationships forged by the deaf and hearing subjects emerge as the key work in the construction of the collective group. Also identified opportunities to understand the consumer through policy approaches, medical/therapeutic, religious, and artifacts that permeate the group studied. Left as a suggestion for future research, among others, the search for the use of ethnography to understand consumer groups, by understanding the relationship between deafness and specific consumer goods, besides the possibility of using the perspectives listed in this work other situations, in order to expand the universe of possible understanding of the deaf.
