This presentation contributed to conversations about the care economy and what research and policies we need in the pandemic/ recovery period. Some overall considerations of this brief talk focused on how to

i) complicate ideas of "care giver" and "care recipient",

ii) recognize the many forms of care work done by as well as with and for neurodiversity-identified/ neurodivergent people,

iii) identify systemic inadequacies as producing the need for care work such as advocacy and activism, and

iv) examine how restricted care policies (such as...

• Lead Presenter - Margaret F. Gibson
• Co-Presenter - Izumi Sakamoto
• Co-Presenter - Hannah Monroe

 In this presentation, we discuss whether and how the term and ideas of neurodiversity might continue to exclude some within the community, particularly along the lines of race, perceived “functioning”, and gender. We ask, what might it mean to “decolonize” neurodiversity?

Authors:

• Margaret F. Gibson, Renison University College at the University of Waterloo
• Patty Douglas, Brandon University

What are we to make of neurodiversity discourse, both in its activist origins and its more recent expansions into the mainstream? Drawing upon blogs, research articles, and popular media, and engaging with critiques from feminist science and technology/disability studies, this paper considers how neurodiversity arguments for a re-valuation of autism and other forms of human variation...