The Possibilities and Limits of Neurodiversity and Neural Citizenship

• In Event: Transgressing Feminist Paradigms: Redefining Rights, Survival, and Violence

Abstract

Adults with autism claim citizenship by deploying neural knowledge to redefine autism, articulating neural subjectivities and advocating for civil rights based on neurological difference. Self-advocates argue for civil rights through the discourse of neurodiversity as a means of contesting their abject citizenship. Neurodiversity proponents demand recognition for neurological difference asserting that “autistics” should be central to defining research, policy, and treatment agendas and not simply rehabilitated and normalized. Advocates pose autism as a social identity, a basis for a neurocultural community, and a valuable form of human diversity. I examine the possibilities and limits of neurodiversity and neural citizenship projects.

Presenter

• Jigna Desai, University of Minnesota