Michael Orsini

Social movements, knowledge and public policy: the case of autism activism in Canada and the US

This paper explores the role of social movements in the policy process and, in particular, the ways in which movements interact with, access, and deploy expert knowledge. In the technocratic model, citizens are conceptualized as undifferentiated, rather than considered in terms of distinctive identities or interests. Their inclusion in policy-making is viewed as a technical problem to be ‘solved’ through forms of citizen engagement, rather than viewing citizens as active agents in the mobilization of distinctive knowledges. Citizens, we argue, are more than the undifferentiated lump that appears in the technocratic model under the guise of citizen engagement. Drawing on a case study of autism activism in Canada and the US, we demonstrate the range of ways in which civil society actors both deploy and contest expert knowledge in the policy process, and discuss the implications for how we conceptualize knowledge mobilization in policy processes.

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.

Globalization and the health of Canadians: ‘Having a job is the most important thing’

BackgroundGlobalization describes processes of greater integration of the world economy through increased flows of goods, services, capital and people. Globalization has undergone significant transformation since the 1970s, entrenching neoliberal economics as the dominant model of global market integration. Although this transformation has generated some health gains, since the 1990s it has also increased health disparities.MethodsAs part of a larger project examining how contemporary globalization was affecting the health of Canadians, we undertook semi-structured interviews with 147 families living in low-income neighbourhoods in Canada’s three largest cities (Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver). Many of the families were recent immigrants, which was another focus of the study. Drawing on research syntheses undertaken by the Globalization Knowledge Network of the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health, we examined respondents’ experiences of three globalization-related pathways known to influence health: labour markets (and the rise of precarious employment), housing markets (speculative investments and affordability) and social protection measures (changes in scope and redistributive aspects of social spending and taxation). Interviews took place between April 2009 and November 2011.ResultsFamilies experienced an erosion of labour markets (employment) attributed to outsourcing, discrimination in employment experienced by new immigrants, increased precarious employment, and high levels of stress and poor mental health; costly and poor quality housing, especially for new immigrants; and, despite evidence of declining social protection spending, appreciation for state-provided benefits, notably for new immigrants arriving as refugees. Job insecurity was the greatest worry for respondents and their families. Questions concerning the impact of these experiences on health and living standards produced mixed results, with a majority expressing greater difficulty ‘making ends meet,’ some experiencing deterioration in health and yet many also reporting improved living standards. We speculate on reasons for these counter-intuitive results.ConclusionsCurrent trends in the three globalization-related pathways in Canada are likely to worsen the health of families similar to those who participated in our study.

Introduction to critical policy studies

Critical policy studies, like policy studies generally, focuses on the policymaking process. That focus includes two key concerns: one involves how policies are decided in a political setting and the other is focused on the practices of policy analysis, specifically on how they address the formulation and assessment of particular policies and their outcomes. As such, critical policy studies has emerged as an effort to understand policy processes not only in terms of apparent inputs and outputs, but more importantly in terms of the interests, values and normative assumptions – political and social – that shape and inform these processes (see Barbehön et al., Chapter 13, this volume; Lejano and Park, Chapter 15, this volume; and Åm, Chapter 16, this volume). Rejecting the assumption that analysis can be neutral, entirely uncommitted to and removed from interests and values, critical policy studies seeks to identify and examine existing commitments against normative criteria such as social justice, democracy and empowerment (see Fainstein, Chapter 10, this volume).1 Basic to policy analysis generally are two very old ideas – namely, the ideas that government decisions should be based on sound knowledge, and that such knowledge should rise above politics. Although these ideas have their roots in the ancient notion of rule by philosopher kings, in the modern world these ideas point instead to the conception of a governing elite of technical experts – or technocracy – working as a neutral instrument on behalf of human progress. Critical policy studies throws the ideas of ‘expertocracy’ and technical governance into question, regarding them as advancing both an unrealistic promise and a threat to practical knowledge and democratic governance. One of the most important issues for critical policy studies, then, has to do with the nature of knowledge, both the knowledge used to shape policy and the kinds of knowledge and assumptions that guide the implementation of policy decisions. Basic to this approach has been a critique of the positivist conception of knowledge that has long informed the theory and practice of policy studies and policy analysis in particular. Critical

Embodying experience and expertise: comparing mother and intended-mother activism in the cases of infertility and autism

ABSTRACT This paper compares the advocacy of mothers and intended mothers in the fields of autism and infertility. Mothers and intended mothers have developed a special competence in dealing with professionals, and in negotiating the delicate balance between expert medical discourses and expertise grounded in their situated knowledge and experiences. Drawing on the social movement and public policy literature, we seek to disrupt taken-for-granted assumptions about the gendered role of women and mothers in these complex and emotionally charged policy fields. We argue that (intended) mothers are far more likely than other women to take on the major advocacy role considering their need to respond to bodily, social, and/or cultural ‘failures’ imposed on them by the medical establishment. Issues of access to fertility treatments and care for autistic children not only provide a vantage point from which to study their experience in the policy arena, but also to ask broader questions about the role of the welfare state and the shifting authority of experts in policy processes.