Going Tactile: Life at the Limits of Language

by Terra Edwards

In the 2010s, leaders of the DeafBlind community in Seattle called into question the community's dependence on sighted interpreters and sought new ways of communicating, interacting, and navigating through touch. This effort became the "protactile movement," and it spread quickly across the country. In Going Tactile, Anthropologist Terra Edwards draws on thirty months of ethnographic fieldwork with DeafBlind artists, intellectuals, political leaders, and community members, to show how autonomous spaces away from sighted norms were created and life was re-imagined. In doing so, she offers a new perspective on the nature of language, its limits, and what it means to find a new way of being in the world.

162 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2024

Reviews

[Bella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this for UCLA Anthro 4 class and really enjoyed it. Very descriptive history and call to action regarding the Seattle deafblind community. Very eye opening.

[Emma Britt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book! As a linguistic anthropologist with limited experience with DeafBlind communication, this book was an excellent introduction to the topic.

[zoë · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED this