Ansvar och kontroll. Levd erfarenhet av ljudmiljöer hos personer med kokleaimplantat.

Aim: This study aims at exploring how persons with
hearing impairments, using cochlear implants, create
and negotiate meaning in relation to soundscapes in
modern society.
Methods: Participants were contacted through national
organisations for persons with hearing impairments.
Data was gathered by means of a combination of interviews
and an ethnological questionnaire.
Results: For persons with cochlear implants, the process
to (re)learn how to hear can be difficult, even painful.
Hence, the process can be a personal investment:
incentives involve increasing ones hearing, as well as a
normative pursuit of able-bodiedness. Normative expectations
concerning oral communication are contributing
to experiences of various soundscapes, in turn
rendering individual strategies morally loaded. Simultaneously,
personal choice and responsibility are included
as components in the process of creating and negotiating
meaning.
Conclusions: A person’s creation of meaning and the
personal significance of the cochlear implant revolve
around normative able-bodiedness, in turn entangled in
the relationship between person and society. However,
by using the cochlear implant in everyday practice,
normative able-bodiedness is negotiated, sometimes
even resisted.