Ethnic Belonging and Deaf Identity in Romania: Living in Multiple Minorities

By Gavril Flora and Emese Belenyi

While Deafness can function as a cultural-linguistic identity with its own language and community norms, Deaf individuals may belong simultaneously to other social groups while sharing a Deaf identity.

Throughout this work, Belenyi and Flora interpret Deafness and ethnicity through the lens of Social Identity Theory (SIT), which posits that individuals derive part of their self-concept from membership in social groups and predicts that group memberships shape self-concept and self-esteem. While SIT has its limitations, newer adaptations, such as self-categorization theory and identity process theory, allow for more nuanced interpretations. With a focus on Hungarian ethnic-minority Deaf people in Romania-and their partners and communities-the authors examine these insights to understand how Deaf people in Romania balance their ethnic and Deaf identities.

Deaf people in East-Central Europe, especially in the multi-ethnic context of Romania, inhabit overlapping minority worlds. Although nation-building policies often emphasize linguistic and ethnic homogeneity, in practice Hungarian-Romanian relations within Deaf families and communities can reveal unexpected cultural bridges. This book combines a theoretical synthesis of Deaf identity, culture, and ethnicity with empirical life-course research to shed new light on how Deaf and ethnic identities intersect.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1666946281
• ISBN13: 9781666946284
• Release Date: February 2026
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.99 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"