What does it mean to engage in Deaf Studies and who gets to define the field? What would a truly deaf-led Deaf Studies research program look like? What are the research practices of deaf scholars in Deaf Studies, and how do they relate to deaf research participants and communities? What innovations do deaf scholars deem necessary in the field of Deaf Studies? In Innovations in Deaf Studies: The Role of Deaf Scholars, volume editors Annelies Kusters, Maartje De Meulder, and Dai O'Brien and their contributing authors tackle these questions and more.
Spurred by a gradual increase in the number of Deaf Studies scholars who are deaf, and by new theoretical trends in Deaf Studies, this book creates an important space for contributions from deaf researchers, to see what happens when they enter into the conversation. Innovations in Deaf Studies expertly foregrounds deaf ontologies (defined as "deaf ways of being") and how the experience of being deaf is central not only to deaf research participants' own ontologies, but also to the positionality and framework of the study as a whole. Further, this book demonstrates that the research and methodology built around those ontologies offer suggestions for new ways for the discipline to meet the challenges of the present, which includes productive and ongoing collaboration with hearing researchers.
Providing fascinating perspective and insight, Kusters, De Meulder, O'Brien, and their contributors all focus on the underdeveloped strands within Deaf Studies, particularly on areas around deaf people's communities, ideologies, literature, religion, language practices, and political aspirations.

Annelies Kusters has held positions at institutions in Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Germany; since 2004, she has engaged in ethnographic research on deaf lives in South America, Asia, and Africa. From 2017 through 2022, she will head the MobileDeaf project, undertaken by a deaf research group focusing on international deaf mobilities.
Maartje De Meulder has done advocacy work for the Flemish Deaf Association for five years. Her PhD focuses on the development of sign language recognition legislation in both Finland and Scotland. Her upcoming research project will focus on the vitality of sign languages.
Dai O'Brien completed his PhD in 2012, using visual methods to explore the transitional experiences of deaf young people from mainstream schools. He is currently a Lecturer in BSL and Deaf Studies at York St. John University.

Foreword
Tom Humphries and Carol Padden
Chapter 1: Innovations in Deaf Studies: Critically Mapping the Field
Annelies Kusters, Dai O'Brien, and Maartje De Meulder
SECTION I: Developments and Directions in Deaf Studies
Chapter 2: Deaf-led Deaf Studies: Using Kaupapa Maori Principles to Guide the Development of Deaf Research Practices
Dai O'Brien
Chapter 3: Academic and Community Interactions in the Formation of Deaf Studies in the United States
Joseph Murray
Chapter 4: The Emergence of a Deaf Academic Professional Class During the British Deaf Resurgence
Maartje De Meulder
Chapter 5: Doing Deaf Studies in the Global South
Michele Friedner
Chapter 6: Rejecting the Talkies: Charlie Chaplin's Language Politics and the Future of Deaf Studies in the Humanities
Rebecca Sanchez
SECTION II: Deaf Ontologies
Chapter 7: A Dialogue on Deaf Theology: Deaf Ontologies Seeking Theology
Hannah Lewis and Kirk VanGilder
Chapter 8: Sign Language Peoples' Right to be Born: The Bioethical Debate in Karawynn Long's "Of Silence and Slow Time"
Rachel Mazique
Chapter 9: Cripping Deaf Studies and Deaf Literature: Deaf Queer Ontologies and Intersectionality
Rezenet Moges
Chapter 10: Intergenerational Responsibility in Deaf Pedagogies
Marieke Kusters
SECTION III: Ethnographic Methodologies
Chapter 11: Visual Methods in Deaf Studies: Using Photography and Filmmaking in Research with Deaf People
Dai O'Brien and Annelies Kusters
Chapter 12: Writing the Deaf Self in Autoethnography
Noel O'Connell
Chapter 13: When Inclusion Excludes. Deaf, Research-Either, None or Both
Hilde Haualand
Chapter 14: Negotiating Language Practices and Language Ideologies in Fieldwork: A Reflexive Meta-Documentation
Lynn Y-S Hou
Chapter 15: Authenticating Ownership: Claims to Deaf Ontologies in the Global South
Erin Moriarty Harrelson
Afterword
Paddy Ladd