New animation: The Deaf Legal Theory Model

The DLT Model was developed through the Co-Producing the Deaf Legal Theory Model project, funded by UWE Bristol’s Arts and Humanities Research Council Impact Acceleration Account International Impact Fund. The project brought together three sources of expertise: deaf people with lived experience, practitioners and academics, with the aim of revising and refining the DLT Model through co-production. 

The process began with the BIG Survey, which received 243 responses from deaf people, professionals and academics around the world. The survey responses were initially analysed into 21 themes. A Working Group then used discussion, polling and individual interviews to refine these into nine core themes, including access and accessibility, community representation, co-creation, participation and inclusion, sign language recognition, intersectionality and advocacy. 

Those themes informed three possible versions of the DLT Model. They were considered further at a Development Workshop involving the Working Group and participants recruited through the BIG Survey. Their feedback ultimately led to the final hybrid DLT Model, bringing together elements of all three proposals. 

The result is a practical framework designed to help people examine legal systems, areas of law, policy and practice from deaf perspectives. It can be used by deaf communities themselves as well as researchers, legal and non-legal professionals, policymakers and advocates. 

And now the DLT Model has its own animation.

The new animation – funded by UWE’s Vice Chancellor’s Early Career Researcher scheme – takes viewers through the Model in an accessible visual format, explaining its different elements and the questions it encourages us to ask when considering how law affects deaf people.

Watch the DLT Model animation below:

The animation is the latest output from the continuing work to develop, test and apply the DLT Model. The Model is now also being tested internationally, beginning with a pilot project in Ghana, working with Ghanaian deaf people to explore how well it reflects deaf experiences within a different legal, linguistic and cultural context.

This next stage will help us understand how the Model works beyond the context in which it was originally developed, and what may need to change as DLT develops internationally.

We hope the new animation will make the Model easier to understand, teach, discuss and most importantly, use.