Swedish/UK research dialogue on critical approaches to autism

With Lindsay O'Dell

The approach taken in this project develops a view that autism is something that is located within specific cultural and historical contexts rather than a medical fact that is unchanged across contexts. This, critical approach to autism, is a newly emerging field of academic enquiry as well as having applications into everyday life. Individual_s narratives/stories of themselves, cultural expressions such as art and literature, legal texts, scientific texts, health manuals, autobiographies, newspapers, magazines, political activism and interviews, etc. as well as within cultural understandings of identity, cognitive capacity, etc. all place autism in particular ways in different cultural contexts. The project would enable academics from the UK and Sweden to engage in a series of meetings and dialogues to explore how autism is experienced, acted upon and understood within and across their cultural contexts.