War on Autism: On the Cultural Logic of Normative Violence [Hardcover]

War on Autismexamines autism as a historically specific and powerladen cultural phenomenon that has much to teach about the social organization of a neoliberal western modernity. Bringing together a variety of interpretive theoretical perspectives including critical disability studies, queer and critical race theory, and cultural studies, the book analyzes the social significance and productive effects of contemporary discourses of autism as these are produced and circulated in the field of autism advocacy. Anne McGuire discusses how in the field of autism advocacy, autism often appears as an abbreviation, its multiple meanings distilled to various “red flag” warnings in awareness campaigns, bulleted biomedical ”facts” in information pamphlets, or worrisome statistics in policy reports. She analyzes the relationships between these fragmentary enactments of autism and traces their continuities to reveal an underlying, powerful, and ubiquitous logic of violence that casts autism as a pathological threat that advocacy must work to eliminate. Such logic, McGuire contends, functions to delimit the role of the “good” autism advocate to one who is positioned “against” autism.

Challenges the discourses of autism awareness campaigns for the logic of violence they often conceal

Anne McGuireis Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, in the Equity Studies Program at New College, University of Toronto.

"McGuire’s book is a valuable contribution to critical disability studies and bioethics for several reasons. The key contribution is McGuire’s excellent critique of autism advocacy, which successfully demonstrates that any advocacy failing to advocate for autistic people is complicit in their marginalisation and in the normalisation of the violence committed against them."
--Somatechnic

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