The Practice and Politics of International Sign
International Sign is often described as a shared way for deaf people from different countries to communicate. But what actually happens in these interactions? And who decides what counts as “International Sign”?
This session explores International Sign not as a fixed language to be learned, but as a social practice that emerges in real encounters.
Drawing on Annelies Kusters’ research, book, and documentary films (This is IS), we will analyse clips of international deaf interactions to examine:
- How people communicate without a shared national sign language
- How communication is negotiated in real time
- How power, privilege, and access shape international spaces
- Whose signing is seen as “international” — and why
Through discussion of examples from the This is IS films, we will reflect on both the creative possibilities and the political dimensions of cross-border deaf communication.
Who is this session for?
- Deaf and hearing people who already know a sign language and are curious about International Sign
- Interpreters who want to reflect more deeply on International Sign, including IS interpreters
- Professionals who work with deaf people from different sign language backgrounds
- Anyone interested in language, power, and communication in international deaf spaces
This is an interactive session, focused on observing, analysing, and thinking together about how International Sign works in practice.
About the Course Leader
Professor Annelies Kusters is deaf and grew up in a deaf–hearing family in Belgium, with hearing parents, one deaf sibling and two hearing siblings. She now lives in the UK in a deaf–hearing family with a deaf partner from India and two hearing children. Across these contexts, she has experience with multiple spoken and signed languages and with communication that moves across different modalities, including speech, signing, fingerspelling, writing, gesture, and touch. Together with colleagues, she has led projects (2018 and 2026) focusing on how multilingual and multimodal communication works in deaf–hearing families, and how families’ language choices change over time.
Contact
For further enquiries, please contact Dr Stacey Steen at S.Webb@hw.ac.uk