Coping with emergent hearing loss [Elektronische Ressource] : expectations and experiences of adult, new hearing aid users ; an anthropological study in Denmark / vorgelegt von Susanne Bisgaard

Steen Bøjstrup

Sujets

• Soziologie
• Gesundheit

Informations

• Publié par: goethe_universitat_frankfurt_am_main
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 29
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

Dissertation


Susanne Bisgaard

Coping with emergent hearing loss
Expectations and experiences of
adult, new hearing aid users
An anthropological study in Denmark






Coping with emergent hearing loss
Expectations and experiences of
adult, new hearing aid users
An anthropological study in Denmark







Inauguraldissertation
Zur Erlangung des Akademischen Grades
einer Doktorin der Philosophie (Dr.phil.)
Im Fachbereich Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaften
der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität
zu Frankfurt am Main



Vorgelegt von Susanne Bisgaard
Aus Kopenhagen
2008 Table of contents
Page
1. The road to the field 1
1.1. Introduction 1
1.2. Object of study 3
1.3. Method and research design 4
1.4. How to read the thesis 12
1.5. Conclusion of chapter one 13
2. History and factual information on emergent hearing loss
and hearing aids 14

2.1. Danish Audiology 14
2.2. Dispensing hearing aids 16
2.3. The fifteenth most serious health problem 19
2.4. The passage of sound 23
2.5. Categories of human construction 25
2.6. Literature on the subject of hearing impairment and hearing loss 32
2.7. Conclusion of chapter two 35
3. Theoretical framework 37
3.1. The hard of hearing and their interaction with their lifeworld 38
3.1.1. Experiences and expectations, definitions 38
3.1.2. Meanings of hearing loss and hearing aids 40
3.1.3. The International Classification of Functioning 41
3.1.4. The cultural construction of perception 41
3.1.5. Lend me your ears 43
3.1.6. The social construction of shame 46
3.1.7. The lifeworld and its circles 47
3.1.8. Ulf Hannerz’s concept of complexity of culture and knowledge 49
3.1.9. Fredrik Barth’ concept of the distribution of knowledge 51
3.1.10. Ulf Hannerz’s concept of the cultural flow 53
3.1.11. Conclusion of the first pillar of the theoretical framework 62
3.2. The Interaction between the hearing aid users and the institutions 63
3.2.1. Arthur Kleinman’s concept of administration of health care as a moral
experience 63
3.2.2. Gregory Bateson's Theory of Learning 65
3.2.3. Lesley Jones: The stages of hearing loss 68
3.2.4. Synthesis and original approach 70
3.2.5. Conclusion of the second pillar of the theoretical framework 75
3.3. Embodiment, the bodily perception through technology 76
3.3.1. Hearing aids – the organization of physical and social difference 77
3.3.2. Human and material agency 78
3.3.3. Bryan Pfaffenberger’s technological drama 81
3.3.4. Donna Haraway’s concept of cyborgs 82
3.3.5. Bruno Latour’s concept of “Research as collective experimentation” 83
3.3.6. Conclusion of the third pillar of the theoretical framework 87
4. Empirical findings 88
4.1. The hard of hearing and their interaction with their lifeworld 94
4.1.1. Choosing to become a hearing aid user 94
4.1.2. Selecting circles of interaction 95
4.1.3. Conflict potential of hearing loss 101
4.1.4. Activities and hobbies 103
4.1.5. Hearing loss – a dividing factor 104
4.1.6. Vanity and shame 107
4.1.7. Between acceptance and acknowledgement 108
4.1.8. Hearing aids as symbols of less intelligence and lack of attractiveness 111
4.1.9. Conclusion of the first pillar of the empirical findings 112

4.2. Interaction between the hard of hearing and the institutions 113
4.2.1. The institutions 113
4.2.2. Spatial access to the dispensers 114
4.2.3. Figures and brands of hearing aids 116
4.2.4. The policy of post-acquisition contact at the public institutions 116
4.2.5. A case in point of the procedure at Bispebjerg Hospital 117
4.2.6. The private dispensers 121
4.2.7. Choice of dispenser 121
4.2.8. Categories of user experiences with the dispensers 124
4.2.9. Conclusion of the second pillar of the empirical findings 148

4.3. Interaction between the user and the hearing aid 149
4.3.1. Expectations and experiences 149
4.3.2. The experience of material agency 158
4.3.3. The ascription of value 169
4.3.4. Conclusion of the third pillar of the empirical findings 176
5. Conclusion of thesis with a chapter overview 177
5.1. Findings of the thesis and discussion of analytical framework 178
5.2. Possible problems connected to the research design 187
5.3. The remarkable Danish hearing health care system 188
5.4. Suggestions for future research 190

6. References 195
Summary in German 200
Summary in English 202
Overview of respondents 204
Acknowledgements 207
Funding 207
Curriculum Vitae 208
Publications 209 Susanne Bisgaard: Coping with emergent hearing loss, page 1
1. THE ROAD TO THE FIELD
1.1. Introduction
My occupation with hearing loss and its rehabilitation came about after discussions with a
psychologist, Anne-Mette Mohr, about the special character of the impairment. She her-
self has specialized in hearing-related ailments like hearing loss, tinnitus and Menière’s
disease (a disease of the inner ear). Among other activities, she arranges open house
sessions once a month, where people can drop by if they need to discuss themes related
to their ailment. Typically, for people who are hard of hearing, these coud be problems
with their hearing aids, how they can cope with difficult situations in their work-place or
problems of a more social character. The open house sessions thus meet the demands of
people with mild to severe hearing loss, people who consider acquiring a hearing aid but
find they do not receive sufficient help from the public health care system or people who
need to talk to others in the same situation as themselves. The staff is made up of vol-
unteers who are either hard of hearing or suffer from Ménière’s disease or tinnitus, or
experts. The staff comprises a psychologist, a psychomotor and relaxation therapist,
people with technical knowledge of hearing aids and social advisers. In the autumn of
2001, I started joining the open house sessions, and for a few years I participated regu-
larly.
It was my first experience with voluntary work; moreover, I had no personal knowledge
of hearing loss. Elderly members of my family were or had been hearing aid users, but
my experience with them was restricted to my annoyance or desolation when communi-
cation became difficult due to technical problems with the devices.
I had written my dissertation for the Magistra Artium at the Institut für Kulturanthropolo-
gie und Europäische Ethnologie at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität. It was titled
“International Communities – Highly qualified British, Danish and German migrants in
Frankfurt, Copenhagen and London in search of a community” (Bisgaard 2001) – a sub-
ject which lies quite far from the problems that hard of hearing people have to deal with.
Studying someone or something implies using one’s own position to understand the con-
ditions of the other. However, I found it difficult to relate hearing problems to the an-
thropological knowledge I already had and to find the paths it seemed reasonable to
follow. The turning point happened for me on 11 September 2001. Normally, 30 to 50
people turned up for the sessions, but on that particular day, most people sat in front of
their televisions watching the destruction of the Twin Towers. There were only about
eight persons present, most of them staff. We turned the television on and off to follow Susanne Bisgaard: Coping with emergent hearing loss, page 2
what was happening, we discussed it and were as shocked as everyone else. It was not
until the next day that I learned that one of the participants, a woman with a severe
hearing loss, had been extremely annoyed that we had watched what she thought to be
a pathetic movie on television. Only when she read the newspaper the following day, did
she realize that she had been watching reality on television. This made me aware of the
isolation that hard of hearing people experience in group relations, not to mention the
danger they could be in because they cannot hear alarms or warnings. They may have
learned – in order not to appear stupid or ignorant - not to ask questions about what
seems obvious to everyone around them.
When I met the group the first times, I learned about their predicaments, and they
openly answered my questions about what it was like to be a hard of hearing person. In
their narratives, I recognized the apprehension of being different, lonely and excluded
from a social group and this became my starting point for understanding their situation.
Like most people, I have had several, similar experiences at different stages of my life
and in the strange places I have lived; but as a normal hearing person, usually, in time I
have obtained the recognition I wanted or I identified myself with other groups where I
did not have to struggle for acceptance.
Being hard of hearing may thus be a state of being the permanent stranger – not in the
sense of Simmel’s Fremde (1908) who is seen as the objective and sometimes disinter-
1ested stranger