Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist

Mapping the social geographies of autism : online and off-line narratives of neuro-shared and separate spaces

This paper draws together empirical work that has been produced by the authors in two different autistic spaces: the Swedish magazine Empowerment produced by and aimed at adults with autism, and English-speaking autistic communities online. While the two points of data collection are quite different, there are important points of commonality that enable us to explore central issues concerning autistic and neurotypical space and the meanings assigned to these in different contexts. The paper aims to introduce the notion of social geographies of autism, based on talks among adults with autism and a social movement to promote autistic identities, giving examples from our previous work that has spanned both online and off-line spaces. Key issues discussed in the paper include a focus on autistic political platforms and the carving out of both social and political spaces for people with autism. In doing so, neuro-separate and neuro-shared spaces must be negotiated.

Critical autism studies: exploring epistemic dialogues and intersections, challenging dominant understandings of autism

Abstract In this paper we explore how our cultural contexts give rise to different kinds of knowledges of autism and examine how they are articulated, gain currency, and form the basis for policy, practice and political movements. We outline key tensions for the development of critical autism studies as an international, critical abilities approach. Our aim is not to offer a cross-cultural account of autism or to assume a coherence or universality of ‘autism’ as a singular diagnostic category/reality. Rather, we map the ways in which what is experienced and understood as autism, plays out in different cultural contexts, drawing on the notion of ‘epistemic communities’ to explore shifts in knowledge about autism, including concepts such as ‘neurodiversity’, and how these travel through cultural spaces. The paper explores two key epistemic tensions; the dominance of ‘neuro culture’ and dominant constructions of personhood and what it means to be human.

Exploring the potential for social networking among people with autism: challenging dominant ideas of 'friendship'

Within dominant approaches to autism and relationships, people with autism are assumed to be either unable to form relationships or are in need for educational interventions to be better equipped at managing relationships in a social world dominated by non-autistic people (neurotypicals). In this paper, we argue that broader constructions of friendship are needed in order to best account for the desire and abilities of high-functioning people with autism to have satisfying friendships and that the engagement with online social networking may provide a useful tool in achieving this.

Becoming an ‘Autistic Couple’: Narratives of Sexuality and Couplehood Within the Swedish Autistic Self-advocacy Movement

Research on sexuality and autism is dominated by a sexually deficit view of autism. According to this view, people with autism are considered different from neurotypicals and in need of sexual education that is specially adapted to the social impairments of people with autism. Perspectives on sexuality, couplehood, and autism are gradually changing, and this is partly because of alternative views on autism expressed and advocated within autistic self-advocacy movements. The present paper explores discourses within the Swedish autistic self-advocacy movement of an ‘autistic’ sexuality and couplehood (sexuality and couplehood on people with autism’s own terms). The analysis is based on articles in a Swedish magazine, Empowerment, published between 2002 and 2009 that was produced by and aimed at adults with autism.

The politics of joking: narratives of humour and joking among adults with Asperger’s syndrome

The purpose of this article is to analyse how humour and narratives about humour are used in a natural group of adults with Asperger’s syndrome. Narratives about humour and use of humour in the group are analysed from a discursive psychological perspective, informed by insights from both disability studies and critical autism studies. The setting of the research is ethnographic fieldwork in an educational setting in Sweden. In the paper, I show the use of three storylines among a natural group of people with autism (PWA) when talking about humour: the storyline of humourless PWA that dominates within Swedish society; and two alternatives, a storyline of alternative humour among PWA and another storyline in line with the social model of disability, of neurotypical humour or disabling humour. When invoking these two alternative storylines, PWA challenge both the humourlessness storyline and the lack of social accessibility within mainstream neurotypical settings.The purpose of this article is to analyse how humour and narratives about humour are used in a natural group of adults with Asperger’s syndrome. Narratives about humour and use of humour in the group are analysed from a discursive psychological perspective, informed by insights from both disability studies and critical autism studies. The setting of the research is ethnographic fieldwork in an educational setting in Sweden. In the paper, I show the use of three storylines among a natural group of people with autism (PWA) when talking about humour: the storyline of humourless PWA that dominates within Swedish society; and two alternatives, a storyline of alternative humour among PWA and another storyline in line with the social model of disability, of neurotypical humour or disabling humour. When invoking these two alternative storylines, PWA challenge both the humourlessness storyline and the lack of social accessibility within mainstream neurotypical settings.

Desiring difference, desiring similarity: Narratives on sexual interaction between boys and men in the Swedish homosexual press 1954–1986

The article explores talk about young men and relations between younger and older men in the homonormative rhetorical context of the Swedish homosexual press from the 1950s through the 1980s. The discussion is related to meanings of sexuality for the sake of pleasure (the pleasure ideal) and sexuality for the sake of love (the love ideal). Meanings of sexual relations between boys and men are nuanced in the homosexual press: by providing a variety of descriptions of sexual desire between men and boys, representing the boy as someone who can take both an active subject position and a passive object position in the relationship, and by separating homosexual practices from paedophilic practices. An earlier homonormative ideal or at least a socially sanctioned possibility of relationships between men and boys, as a less equal couple and partner ideal, is gradually replaced though, by a more equal couple and partner ideal based on an expectation of similarity.

Adaption or recognition of the autistic subject? - reimagining an autistic work life : deconstructing the notion of ‘real jobs’ within the Swedish neurodiverse movement

Several researchers stress the importance of listening to autistic adults’ own experiences of work and related issues.This paper critically explores an ambivalent discourse of empowerment using not ...

Developing an authentic sex: Deconstructing developmental–psychological discourses of transgenderism in a clinical setting

The paper is based on a broader study of the use of discourses of transgenderism among sex-reassignment evaluators in Sweden. In this paper we explore how a developmental–psychological discourse was reproduced by the evaluators in their discursive negotiations of transsexualism. We found that maturity and authenticity are two key concepts that illuminate how the developmental–psychological discourse both clashes with and works together with a medical–pathological discourse of transgenderism. The developmental–psychological discourse can help to produce a definition of transgenderism that is more diverse regarding male/female dichotomies. This in turn can create a wider range of possible subject positions for patients who are seeking help. The developmental–psychological discourse also imposes additional limitations regarding the subject positions available to transgender persons through a demand for maturity and for having gone through all of the steps in the expected identity development process. The developmental–psychological repertoire casts transgenderism as an identity crisis.

Bad Sex, Good Love: Homonormativity in the Swedish Gay Press, 1969–86

We discuss “love” as a rhetorical strategy in the Swedish gay press, 1969–86, in relation to shifting meanings of sex and love. During this period, meanings of homosexual subjectivity were rapidly changing at several societal levels. New ideals of openness and monogamous love became more dominant and tended to exclude expressions of sexual practices based primarily on pleasure. Using the analytical terms unconditioned versus conditioned, we discern a shifting relative strength between discursive constructions of unconditioned sex/sex conditioned on love, and love for love’s sake/love conditioned on coupledom.

Ambivalent Spaces—The Emergence of a New Gay Male Norm Situated Between Notions of the Commercial and the Political in the Swedish Gay Press, 1969–1986

Within sexual geographies, sexual struggles over urban public spaces are frequently explored. Less common is research on sexual struggles within sexually shared spaces and gay spaces. The aim of the article is to examine discursive struggles of meanings of gay male identity enacted in discussions of commodification/capitalism, disclosure, and space in Swedish gay press during 1969–1986. We trace the ambivalent feelings or the emergence of a new gay male norm situated between commercialism and non-commercialism within the Swedish gay press back to the 1970s. In the article we show how a monosexualization process was taking place in both the Swedish gay press as well as within sexual spaces. We explore rhetorical struggles between two competing discursive meanings of (ideal homonormative) male homosexuality, gay culture, and space: one wider (inclusive) and one narrower (exclusive).