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New Theories and Methods for Working with ‘Developmental’ Neuromedical Difference and Health

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.