Deaf business owners’ experiences of and strategies in navigating an audist normative structured labour market in Denmark
Temas
Detalles
This PhD investigates deaf-led businesses, an emerging phenomenon in Denmark between 2000-2017. The data consists of interviews with nine deaf business owners, supported by observations made on visits to the businesses and interviews with three employees. The businesses fall into two groups: those oriented towards hearing, private customers, and those oriented towards deaf customers for whom the services receive public funding. This study employs Bourdieu’s theoretical framework regarding how people navigate their social contexts based on their habitus and forms of capital. The study demonstrates the ways in which deaf business owners’ life experiences in Denmark are influenced by structures of inequality. Research into disabled people’s work experiences has shown that the labour market rests on ableist values. Ableist values encompass audist values, whereby hearing and speaking are privileged; deaf people are, therefore, disadvantaged by not fitting the template of ‘ideal worker’.