An Intersectional Interrogation on Neurodivergent Labeling: A Critical Collective Autoethnographic Dialogue

• In Event: Imagining Antiracist and Neurodiversity-Affirming Educational Spaces: An Exploration of Neurodiversity in Education

Abstract

The Big D Discourse of neurodivergence is pervasive and can feel constraining of what it means to be human and a spiritual being. Nothing is as simple as neurodivergence is characterized to be, especially not identity labels and adopting new identities. Society and identity are intersectional and each person’s experience is impacted by every other intersection of their lives (Crenshaw, 1990). These intersectionalities that people have, both inform and form the big and little D/d discourses of neurodivergence. If when thinking about neurodivergent labeling we only consider the Big D Discourse, one that currently does not systematically consider intersectional identities and experiences, it will not and can not fully capture all those who it claims are covered by the term neurodivergent. We feel these intersectional experiences form and inform the big D Discourse through the little d discourse of adopting neurodivergent labeling to the self on individual levels. Additionally, the big D Discourse is informed and formed by the little d discourse by WHO adopts the label neurodivergent and thus adds to the big D Discourse of who gets to self-identify as neurodivergent and determine what it means to be neurodivergent on the big D Discourse level. Thus, the big D Discourse and the little d discourse are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. The way that this is done is formed and informed by the entities of power, culture, and emotion which are central in the entities of language and race as an onto-epistemological text threaded throughout this discourse. To discuss this,we, the three co-lead authors, came together to examine the complexities of neurodivergent labeling both as a wider community and also the labeling of self. The three co-lead authors all fall within the definition of neurodivergence, as we each have been labeled as having learning disabilities by the public school system in the United States. We all also grapple with what neurodiversity means and what neurodivergent means for ourselves and the wider communities we find themselves. With this paper, we intentionally center a spiritual paradigm in the qualitative sciences that allows us to speak and write from deep inside our souls and ancestral knowledge that breaks free from majoritian ideologies. As a final piece, each of the three authors provide our own autoethnographic texts of how we each make sense of our neurodivergence within, or separate, from our own intersectional identities and experiences for anti-racist and anti-ableist praxis for ALL given ongoing conversations about justice in education and society.

Authors

• Mercedes Adell Cannon, Indiana University - Indianapolis

• David I. Hernandez-Saca, University of Northern Iowa

• Rachelle M. Johnson, Florida State University