Datum
16. Dezember 2024
Online Symposium
Call for Papers: New Theories and Methods for Working with ‘Developmental’ Neuromedical Difference and Health
Online via Zoom
16 December 2024
Abstract Submission Deadline: 4 November 2024
This symposium addresses the need for innovative research methods and theories that critically engage with research based on lived experience, and confront the implicit ableism and Eurocentrism embedded in biomedical conceptions of neuromedical conditions.
Symposium Focus
We aim to explore the intersection of epistemology, ontology, and ethics in relation to neuromedical conditions or differences that are considered developmental in origin. These conditions may be approached as experiences, research objects, or political identities.
A key example of this debate involves autism and the divergent approaches in autism research. While one approach seeks treatments or cures for what are seen as individual deficits at the level of subjectivity, the other supports participatory and emancipatory research led by or with autistic individuals. In the second approach, autistic personhood and subjectivity are not questioned and the focus is instead on identifying sociocultural barriers to thriving. This symposium will consider whether resolving these disagreements can be ameliorated by further empirical work or if they are fundamentally normative (ethical and/or political or even cosmopolitical).
Themes and Questions
We invite discussions on whether neuromedical diagnoses inherently involve claims to universal epistemic perspectives or definitive ethical judgments, and who holds the authority to speak about neuromedical experiences and neurodivergent subjectivity. We are particularly interested in moving beyond Eurocentric frameworks to include socially diverse understandings of health, personhood, and agency.
The symposium seeks to challenge the prevailing biomedical narratives, questioning whether we can move past disagreements rooted in Eurocentric contexts and understandings of health and marginalization.
Call for Contributions
The symposium convenors, Dr. Anna Stenning and Dr. Cinzia Greco, seek contributors who can offer insights into developing theories and methods that enhance the reflexivity of empirical research on globally occurring neuromedical conditions or differences across diverse regions and positionalities.
We encourage papers on the following indicative themes:
Empirical:
Contributions that:
- Analyse the existing knowledge and claims to knowledge within the debates and controversies around neurodevelopmental conditions, and analyse how these are mobilised within the debates.
- Explore the apparent Catch 22 between positively identifying as autistic but struggling with health.
Theoretical/philosophical:
Contributions that:
- Explore how different empirical practices (pragmatism, positivism, hermeneutics) produce different kinds of knowledge claims and consequences for action.
- Identify the political and ethical positions within the debates and advance the understanding of the political context.
Explore whether efforts to categorize or diagnose conditions such as autism involve claims to a universal or objective perspective on human experience. - Explore how different approaches to research and intervention reflect underlying ethical and political values. For example, is there an implied ethical or political claim to prioritize lived experience and autonomy over medical or deficit-based perspectives, and on what basis is this claim made?
Submission Guidelines
Please submit an abstract including a title and a 350-word summary of your proposed talk, which should be approximately 20 minutes in duration.
Participation
The symposium will be held online, with synchronous and asynchronous (pre-recorded) participation available to accommodate different time zones and accessibility needs.
Participants will be invited to contribute to an edited interdisciplinary collection of essays on this theme with work commencing in 2025.
We look forward to your contributions to this important and timely discussion.
Please send your abstracts to Dr. Anna Stenning anna.c.stenning@durham.ac.uk and contact Dr. Cinzia Greco cinzia.greco@manchester.ac.uk
For further inquiries, please contact anna.c.stenning@durham.ac.uk.