Being, Knowing, and Doing: Importing Theoretical Toolboxes for Autism Studies

Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, H., Botha, M., Hens, K., O’Donoghue, S., Pearson, A., & Stenning, A. (2023). Being, Knowing, and Doing: Importing Theoretical Toolboxes for Autism Studies. Autism in Adulthood, 5(1), 15-23. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2022.0021

Publication date: 1 Mar 2023 Added to AutiHub: 4 Jul 2026 Type: Article Article language: English

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
6
Publication authors identified as autistic
5 / 6 (83.3%)

Abstract

The aim of this article was to think with and elaborate on theories developed outside of autism research and the autistic community, and through this support the production of new autistic-led theories: theories and concepts based on autistic people's own embodied experiences and the social worlds we inhabit. The article consists of three different sections all of part of the overall umbrella, Being, knowing, and doing: Importing theoretical toolboxes for autism studies. In each section, we import useful concepts from elsewhere and tailor them to autism studies. Throughout, we mingle our own autoethnographic accounts and shared discourse in relation to research accounts and theories. Illustrating being, we explore and discuss the possibilities of critical realism in autism studies. Illustrating knowing, we explore and discuss the possibilities of standpoint theory in autism studies. Finally, illustrating doing, we explore and discuss the possibilities of neurocosmopolitics including epistemic (in)justice in autism studies. Our proposal here is for an epistemic shift toward neurodiverse collaboration. We are inviting nonautistic people to work with, not on, us, aiming at to make autism research more ethical, breaking down bureaucratic structures, and questioning poor theory and shoddy methodology. Acknowledging intersecting axes of oppression in which an individual seeks to renegotiate and reimagine what it means to belong also means to understand what needs changing in society, as it is and how we might do things differently.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Bibliography inclusion overview

These indicators describe the cited bibliography imported for this publication. Cited-reference metrics use the cited-reference total as denominator. Cited-author metrics state whether they use all cited-author occurrences or only occurrences linked to authors already integrated in the AutiHub database. They use cached links between cited authors and authors integrated in the AutiHub database. Last computed: 16 Aug 2026 11:30.

Cited references
46
Total cited references integrated for this publication.
Cited references with an identified autistic author
13 / 46 (28.3%)
Cited author occurrences identified as autistic
17 / 52 (32.7%)
Among occurrences linked to AutiHub author records: 17 / 23 (73.9%). Distinct cited authors identified as autistic: 14 / 49 (28.6%).
Cited author occurrences linked to AutiHub author records
23 / 52 (44.2%)
Distinct linked cited authors: 20 / 49 (40.8%)
Linked cited-author occurrences not identified as autistic
6 / 23 (26.1%)
Among linked cited-author occurrences only. Across all cited-author occurrences: 6 / 52 (11.5%). Distinct linked cited authors not identified as autistic: 6 / 20 (30.0%).
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