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Autism Supports for Comfort, Care and Connection
April 8 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm AEST
Autistic people employ a range of non-human devices, services and creatures to find comfort, care, social acceptance and intimacy. In this seminar, Megan Catherine Rose and Deborah Lupton will launch their report detailing their research with autistic people about the supports they use in their daily lives.
Adopting a more-than-digital theoretical approach and autistic-led methodology, they present a series of case studies derived from interviews with autistic people, accompanied by portraits by an autistic professional graphic artist. The report illustrates how digital and non-digital supports come together in dynamic and affectively charged ways to help autistic people open capacities for relational connections and kinship with other humans and with non-humans. By engaging with these practices and communities, the participants were able to meet their sensory and affective needs and develop close (albeit physically distanced) social bonds, thereby finding a sense of belonging, shared understanding, empathy and acceptance.
SPEAKERS
Megan Rose
Megan is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the UNSW Vitalities Lab and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society. She is a cultural sociologist and artist interested in how creativity is used in new technologies and collective cultures for care, safety and belonging. Her latest research explores the significance of self-determined cultures, communities and supports for autistic adults, as well as the cultural impact of care robot design.
Deborah Lupton
Deborah is SHARP Professor in the UNSW Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture. Her research is interdisciplinary, spanning sociology, media and cultural studies. She is located in the Centre for Social Research in Health and the Social Policy Research Centre, leading both the Vitalities Lab and the UNSW Node of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. Professor Lupton is an elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and the Royal Society of NSW and has been awarded two honorary doctorates. She is the author/co-author of 20 academic books and editor/co-editor of a further ten volumes.
