Crtical Autism Studies: foundations and implications

Abstract

In this essay, we analyse how a critical lineage of autism studies has been constituted and on what epistemic and political grounds it differs from the social model of disability and neurodiversity. Through an exploratory theoretical mapping of institutionally recognized scholarship from the Global North and an initial dialogue with Brazilian scholarship, we argue that Critical Autism Studies (CAS) do not constitute a homogeneous framework, but rather a contested field within which we identify, for analytical purposes, two partially overlapping orientations. The first, critical-emancipatory, challenges pathologizing and deficit-based narratives and asserts autistic people’s epistemic authority; the second, which we term genealogical-constructionist, interrogates the naturalization of autism as a unitary and self-evident entity. On the basis of this distinction, we examine ethical and methodological implications concerning the discursivity of autism, the redistribution of epistemic authority, neurobiological research, and diagnosis as a device for identity formation and juridical-political administration. This mapping helps illuminate the alignments and divergences that have emerged in Brazil within theoretical and political programs situated along the porous boundaries between CAS, neurodiversity, and demands for self-representation.