Unsettling Autism: Global Narratives Versus Local Perspectives

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session One
  In Roundtable Session: Centering the Disabled Experience in the Research Process (Table 14)

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder has received worldwide attention in the last five decades. This discourse on autism is situated in a biomedical model. Viewed through this framework, autism is considered a universal construct. Recent scholarship argues that autism is not just a disability category, it is a cultural construction anchored to a certain interpretive framework. Drawing on an ethnographic study conducted in India, this paper describes the epistemological dissonance that exists between global narratives of autism and local cultural contexts in the Global South. The paper aims to further unsettle the dominant narrative of autism and examine the quandaries that arise from moving this template to the Global South

Author

• Shridevi Rao, The College of New Jersey
  Presenting Author