MESA Graduate Student Paper Prize
Timothy Y. Loh
MIT, Doctoral Program in History, Anthropology, Science, Technology, and Society
2020 Winner
Timothy Y. Loh
Language in Medical Worlds: The Politics of Hearing Technology, Speaking, and Arabic for Deaf Children in Jordan
The winner is Timothy Y. Loh's Language in Medical Worlds: The Politics of Hearing Technology, Speaking, and Arabic for Deaf Children in Jordan. Disabilities studies remains underexplored in MENA and this paper addresses that gap with theoretical sophistication and sensitive ethnographic observation. Loh convincingly shows how state and NGO management of disability shapes the politics of cochlear technologies, informing how children and their families experience therapeutic processes for hearing loss as a form of biopower.