Indeed, autistics’ identitarian claims have gone hand in hand with the cerebralization of their condition. As we shall see, the “person-first language” generally supported by the disability rights movement is not always well received within autism self-advocacy groups, for whom the expression “person with autism” suggests that the condition is not constitutive of the individual.9 The neuro- prefix and a usually imprecise neuro vocabulary serve to construe autism as a positive attribute and to demonstrate the legitimacy of the autistic experience. Cerebralization, which as we saw is driven by a quest for causality and “objectivity,” thus sustains subjectivation.
Judy Singer is an Australian sociologist.
Inspired by the homonymous book by Fernando Vidal and Francisco Ortega, this timespace presents the authors' genealogy of the cerebral subject and the influence of the neurological discourse in human sciences, mental health and culture.
