Marking the culmination of a collaborative and interdisciplinary effort that began with a 2010 workshop at the University of Ottawa, Worlds of Autism: Across the Spectrum of Neurological Difference features contributors from Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Brazil, Australia, and France. The work brings together a range of perspectives by uniting researchers who are concerned, to a greater or lesser degree, with autistic subjectivities and the politics of cognitive difference. To our knowledge, this is the first time that a project of this scope – in both methodological and conceptual terms – has b ... More

Marking the culmination of a collaborative and interdisciplinary effort that began with a 2010 workshop at the University of Ottawa, Worlds of Autism: Across the Spectrum of Neurological Difference features contributors from Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Brazil, Australia, and France. The work brings together a range of perspectives by uniting researchers who are concerned, to a greater or lesser degree, with autistic subjectivities and the politics of cognitive difference. To our knowledge, this is the first time that a project of this scope – in both methodological and conceptual terms – has been carried out in critical autism studies. As such, we have every reason to expect that the text will help to establish a clear direction for future research in this field. Theoretically framed and empirically informed, this work is divided into four main sections: (1) Approaching Autism, (2) Researching the Politics and Practice of Care, (3) Diagnosis and Difference in Autism, and (4) Cultural Productions and Representations of Autism. The volume serves to challenge the deficit model of autism, which is prevalent in literature that advocates a “cure” for neurodevelopmental difference. By contrast, this work contributes to a growing body of research that uses an abilities model to reframe autism as a complex, relational (dis)order that challenges stereotypes of what has long been regarded as “normal” human experience.