Interdisciplinary Conference "Researching the Deaf Community" - 2025

Dear colleagues!
We invite you to take part in the Interdisciplinary Conference
"Researching the Deaf Community"

GES-2 House of Culture, in partnership with the International Laboratory for Social Integration Research at HSE University, invites researchers and practitioners working with the Deaf community to attend the Third Interdisciplinary Conference “Researching the Deaf Community”. The conference will take place on 17–19 October 2025. It will focus on the diverse life experiences of the Deaf community members—particularly underrepresented groups that rarely receive scholarly attention: the deafblind, late-deafened individuals, hearing parents of d/Deaf children, and others. This discussion originated from the dialogue about the identity of people with cochlear implants, which concluded the previous forum.

The first and second conferences, held in 2023 and 2024, brought together researchers from dozens of countries. During this period, the event established itself as a platform for discussing cultural and linguistic characteristics of d/Deaf communities, both local and common across different regions, and demonstrated that the boundaries of the d/Deaf community are much broader than traditionally defined.

We invite researchers of Deaf communities and sign language, as well as specialists in the theory and practice of social integration in Russia and abroad: scholars, consultants, practitioners, students, graduate students, representatives of cultural institutions, public organisations, and the business community.

We will be glad if representatives of the community and their hearing associates, including parents of deaf and hard of hearing children, hearing children of deaf parents, teachers of correctional and inclusive schools, researchers and specialists in Russian sign language and culture of the deaf, take part in the discussions.

The programme for the third conference will be based on the selected papers focusing on sociological, historical, and linguistic aspects of Deaf community life in Russia and abroad. Participants may also propose topics for round tables or open discussions, or organize their own session on subjects related to theDeaf community or sign languages.

The forum will be held in person, with the option for remote participation by speakers. The working languages of the conference are Russian Sign Language, Russian, International Sign Language, and English.

A collection of articles will be published in the almanac “Researching the Deaf Community: 3” following the conference. The almanac, published following the results of the first conference, is available at the link.

Dates

Call for papers: 1 Mar—14 May

Notification of submission results: 1–30 June

Programme publication and start of registration: 2 Sep

Conference dates: 17–19 Oct

To be notified when the programme is published and registration for attendance begins, leave your contact information here.

For inquiries, please contact us by email at rdc@ges-2.org.