This handbook provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of Critical Autism Studies and explores the different kinds of knowledges and their articulations, similarities, and differences across cultural contexts and key tensions within this subdiscipline.
Critical Autism Studies is a developing area occupying an exciting space of development within learning and teaching in higher education. It has a strong trajectory within the autistic academic and advocate community in resistance and response to the persistence of autism retaining an identity as a genetic disorder of the brain.
Divided into four parts
• Conceptualising autism
• Autistic identity
• Community and culture
• Practice
and comprising 24 newly commissioned chapters written by academics and activists, it explores areas of education, Critical Race Theory, domestic violence and abuse, sexuality, biopolitics, health, and social care practices.
It will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, education, health, social care, and political science.
"1.Critical Autism Studies: An Introduction. Part One.Conceptualising Autism. 2.First There Is A Mountain, Then There Is No Mountain, Then There Is. Whither Identity?. 3.Critically Contextualising ‘Normal’ Development and the Construction of the Autistic Individual. 4.Dimensions of Difference. 5.Heterogeneity and Clustering in Autism: An Introduction for Critical Scholars. 6.Rational (Pathological) Demand Avoidance: As a Mental Disorder and an Evolving Social Construct. 7.Community Psychology as Reparations for Violence in the Construction of Autism Knowledge. Part Two.Autistic Identity. 8.Through the Lens of (Black) Critical Race Theory. 9.Postponing Humanity: Pathologising Autism, Childhood and Motherhood. 10.‘It sort of like gets squared’: Health Professionals’ Understanding of the Intersection of Autism and Gender Diversity in Young People. 11.Autistic Young People’s Sense of Self and the Social World: A Challenge to Deficit Focused Characterisations. 12.A Personal Account of Neurodiversity, Academia and Activism. Part Three.Community and Culture. 13.‘Autopia’; A Vision for Autistic Acceptance and Belonging. 14.The Moulin Rouge and the Rouge Moulin: Language, Cartesianism, Republicanism and the Construct of Autism in France. 15.Support on whose Terms? Competing Meanings of Support Aimed at Autistic People. 16.Critical Autism Parenting. 17.""Even though I’m on the Spectrum, I’m still capable of falling in love"": A Bourdieusian Analysis of Representations of Autism and Sexuality on Love on the Spectrum. 18.Seeking Sunflowers: The Biopolitics of Autism at the Airport. Part Four.Practice. 19.Autistic Identity, Culture, Community and Space for Wellbeing. 20.Contemplating Teacher Talk through a Critical Autism Studies Lens. 21.Models of Helping and Coping with Autism. 22.Critical Approaches to Autism Support Practice: Engaging Situated Reflection and Research. 23.From Disempowerment to Wellbeing and Flow: Enabling Autistic Communication in Schools. 24.Autistic Voices in Autistic Research: Towards Active Citizenship in Autism Research."
Damian Milton is a Senior Lecturer in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities at the Tizard Centre, University of Kent. Damian’s interest in autism began when his son was diagnosed in 2005 as autistic aged 2 and he was diagnosed with Asperger’s in 2009 aged 36. Damian’s primary focus is on increasing the meaningful participation of autistic people and people with learning disabilities in the research process and chairs the Participatory Autism Research Collective (PARC). Sara Ryan is a Professor of Social Care, Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research focuses on autism, learning disabilities, and marginalised groups.
