Critical autism studies: exploring epistemic dialogues and intersections, challenging dominant understandings of autism

Abstract

In this paper we explore how our cultural contexts give rise to different kinds of knowledges of autism and examine how they are articulated, gain currency, and form the basis for policy, practice and political movements. We outline key tensions for the development of critical autism studies as an international, critical abilities approach. Our aim is not to offer a cross-cultural account of autism or to assume a coherence or universality of ‘autism’ as a singular diagnostic category/reality. Rather, we map the ways in which what is experienced and understood as autism, plays out in different cultural contexts, drawing on the notion of ‘epistemic communities’ to explore shifts in knowledge about autism, including concepts such as ‘neurodiversity’, and how these travel through cultural spaces. The paper explores two key epistemic tensions; the dominance of ‘neuro culture’ and dominant constructions of personhood and what it means to be human.

Keywords:

• Autism
• critical autism studies
• neurodiversity
• epistemic communities

Notes

1. ‘Snippet’ from Jane Meyerding’s website: http://mjane.zolaweb.com/snipframe.html

2. See www.causes.com/actions/1593909-dsm-5-committee-dont-reduce-the-criteria-for-an-autism-spectrum-disorder-in-the-dsm-5. See also Lutz (2013).

3. The narrative was initially written and developed by Ann-Sofie Lönngren (PhD and Associate Professor [Docent] in Literature, Center for Gender Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden) as part of a joint research application between Lönngren, Jenny Bergenmar and Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist. Lönngren has kindly given her permission to draw on this narrative in this article.