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Article
Performative Acts of Autism
Discourse & Society (2012)
  • Jessica Lester, Washington State University
  • Trena M. Paulus, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Abstract
Relatively little research has aimed to understand autism from an emic perspective. The majority of studies examining the organization of the talk of individuals with autism presume that autism organizes discourse rather than examine ways in which talk itself constructs the notion of autism. This study explored the meanings of autism performed in and through the talk of the parents of children with autism and their therapists. Drawing from a larger ethnographic study, we report on findings generated from interview data with parents and therapists. Situating this study within a discursive psychology framework, we attend to the ways in which ‘normality’ and ‘abnormality’ are performed, drawing upon critical notions of disability, poststructural understandings of discourse, and conversation analysis. We point to the importance of situating the construction of an ‘ordered’ or ‘disordered’ body in relationship to the exclusionary practices and policies that individuals with autism and those close to them experience daily.
Keywords
  • autism,
  • discursive psychology,
  • ethnography,
  • performances of disability
Publication Date
2012
DOI
10.1177/0957926511433457
Citation Information
Jessica Lester and Trena M. Paulus. "Performative Acts of Autism" Discourse & Society Vol. 23 Iss. 3 (2012) p. 259 - 273
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/trena_paulus/24/