Is neurodiversity a Global Northern White paradigm?
Nair, V. K., Farah, W., & Boveda, M. (2024). Is neurodiversity a Global Northern White paradigm? Autism, 30(2), 544-551. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613241280835
This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:
Authors
Abstract
In this article, we engage in a critical conversation with scholars of neurodiversity. We emphasize the transformative role neurodiversity has in creating a crucial space for scholarship to emerge within the academy centering autistic voices. Despite this advancement, research addressing neurodiversity has overlooked and failed to engage with important issues of geography (Global South) and intersectionality (racialized neurodivergent other in the Global North). The first issue of geography relates to the marginalization of Global Southern epistemologies in the neurodiversity scholarship. We ask, why has neurodiversity failed to acknowledge Indigenous and Southern epistemologies and consider the evolution of relatively new Northern scholarship as the epicenter of knowledge production? Second, we highlight how intersectional experiences of the racialized other within the Global North are underrepresented and excluded from the neurodiversity scholarship. Homogenization of neurodiversity as "White Neurodiversity Movement" destabilizes the social justice and emancipatory goals of the movement. In highlighting these issues, we call attention toward knowledge systems that exist within the Global South, marginalization of scholarship and voices within neurodiversity scholarship and accentuate the need for this academic community to commit to a serious scholarship rooted and the intersectional experiences of racialized neurodivergent individuals.Lay AbstractScholarship addressing neurodiversity has made enormous progress in challenging and providing alternative narratives to the dominant frameworks of medical model. Although this is a necessary and important development, scholars need to think and act beyond the immediate local context of theory generation (Global North-mainly the United Kingdom and the United States) and examine its impact on the racialized neurodivergent individuals of the Global Majority. This article will provide a decolonial framework that has been missing in the neurodiversity scholarship. The arguments presented in the article aligns well with the goals of critical autism studies and will further inform the knowledge in this area. Through a decolonial lens, this article brings the crucial issue of knowledge production outside of Global Northern countries, specifically, knowledge systems from the Global South that have parallels with neurodiversity. The article frames neurodiversity as part of an interconnected knowledge continuum rather than considering Global North alone as the only loci of knowledge production. Furthermore, it highlights the lack of focus on the intersections between racialisation and neurodivergence and the implications of this for the racialized neurodivergent individuals of the global majority. The article provides new avenues for theoretical discourses to emerge within the academy. It will have important research implications in relation to how neurodiversity will be viewed and framed outside Global Northern countries. The article highlights the importance of engaging in intersectional and interdisciplinary research and establishing a critical link with the scholars of neurodiversity, critical autism studies, and disability critical race studies.
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.
-
Kapp S. K. (2013). Moving Beyond Boundaries in Disability Studies . Routledge.Crossref OpenAlex
-
Subini Ancy Annamma , David Connor , Beth Ferri (2013). Dis/ability critical race studies (DisCrit): theorizing at the intersections of race and dis/ability . Race Ethnicity and Education, 16(1), 1-31. Informa UK Limited.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Lauren Rose Strand (2017). Charting Relations between Intersectionality Theory and the Neurodiversity Paradigm . Disability Studies Quarterly, 37(2). The Ohio State University Libraries.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Damian Milton *Autistic author. Learn more… (2012). On the ontological status of autism: the ‘double empathy problem’ . Disability & Society, 27(6), 883-887. Informa UK Limited.
-
Subini Ancy Annamma , Beth A. Ferri , David J. Connor (2018). Disability Critical Race Theory: Exploring the Intersectional Lineage, Emergence, and Potential Futures of DisCrit in Education . Review of Research in Education, 42(1), 46-71. American Educational Research Association (AERA).Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Shaun Grech (2015). Decolonising Eurocentric disability studies: why colonialism matters in the disability and global South debate . Social Identities, 21(1), 6-21. Informa UK Limited.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Ildikó Laki (2017). Disability Roles: Challenges Concerning the Education of People Living with Disabilities in Hungary . Practice and Theory in Systems of Education, 12(1), 12-20. International Research Institute s.r.o..Crossref
-
Patricia Hill Collins (1998). It's All In the Family: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Nation . Hypatia, 13(3), 62-82. Cambridge University Press (CUP).Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Shaun Grech , Karen Soldatic (2015). Disability and colonialism: (dis)encounters and anxious intersectionalities . Social Identities, 21(1), 1-5. Informa UK Limited.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Alfredo J. Artiles , Beth Harry , Daniel J. Reschly , Philip C. Chinn (2002). Over-Identification of Students of Color in Special Education: A Critical Overview . Multicultural Perspectives, 4(1), 3-10. Informa UK Limited.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Matthew J. Bolton (2018). With the silence of a thousand cries: extremes of autistic advocacy . Disability & Society, 33(6), 980-984. Informa UK Limited.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Shaun Grech (2011). Recolonising debates or perpetuated coloniality? Decentring the spaces of disability, development and community in the global South . International Journal of Inclusive Education, 15(1), 87-100. Informa UK Limited.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Kristen Bottema‐Beutel , Steven K. Kapp *Autistic author. Learn more… , Jessica Nina Lester , Noah J. Sasson , Brittany N. Hand (2021). Avoiding Ableist Language: Suggestions for Autism Researchers . Autism in Adulthood, 3(1), 18-29. SAGE Publications.
-
Aníbal Quijano (2000). Coloniality of Power and Eurocentrism in Latin America . International Sociology, 15(2), 215-232. SAGE Publications.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Monique Botha *Autistic author. Learn more… (2021). Academic, Activist, or Advocate? Angry, Entangled, and Emerging: A Critical Reflection on Autism Knowledge Production . Frontiers in Psychology, 12(6), 727542-727542. Frontiers Media SA.
-
Nirmala Erevelles (2014). Crippin’ Jim Crow: Disability, Dis-Location, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline . In Disability Incarcerated (pp. 81-99). Palgrave Macmillan US.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Monique Botha *Autistic author. Learn more… , Robert Chapman *Autistic author. Learn more… , Morénike Giwa Onaiwu *Autistic author. Learn more… , Steven K. Kapp *Autistic author. Learn more… , Abs S. Ashley *Autistic author. Learn more… , Nick Walker *Autistic author. Learn more… (2024). The neurodiversity concept was developed collectively: An overdue correction on the origins of neurodiversity theory . Autism, 28(6), 1591-1594. SAGE Publications.
-
Lavonna L. Lovern (2022). Indigenous Concepts of Difference: an alternative to Western disability labeling . Disability Studies Quarterly, 41(4). The Ohio State University Libraries.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Cassandra Loeser (2002). Disability/postmodernity: embodying disability theory . Health Sociology Review, 11(1-2), 100-102. Informa UK Limited.OpenAlex
-
Monique Botha *Autistic author. Learn more… , Kristen Gillespie-Lynch (2022). Come as You Are: Examining Autistic Identity Development and the Neurodiversity Movement through an Intersectional Lens . Human Development, 66(2), 93-112. S. Karger AG.
-
Damian Milton *Autistic author. Learn more… (2014). Autistic expertise: A critical reflection on the production of knowledge in autism studies . Autism, 18(7), 794-802. SAGE Publications.
-
Elizabeth Guest (2020). Autism from different points of view: two sides of the same coin . Disability & Society, 35(1), 156-162. Informa UK Limited.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Mildred Boveda , Ganiva Reyes , Brittany Aronson (2019). Disciplined to access the general education curriculum: Girls of color, disabilities, and specialized education programming . Curriculum Inquiry, 49(4), 405-425. Informa UK Limited.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Maximus Monaheng Sefotho (2021). Basotho ontology of disability: An afrocentric onto-epistemology . Heliyon, 7(3), e06540. Elsevier BV.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Helen Meekosha (2011). Decolonising disability: thinking and acting globally . Disability & Society, 26(6), 667-682. Informa UK Limited.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Brea-Spahn M. Nair V. K. Bauler C. (2022). What is the impact of this? Resisting the censure of critical conversations collective action and transformation in speech and language therapy. https://medium.com/@mbreaspahn/what-is-the-impact-of-this-861cfde56eadType: OtherCrossref
-
Gauri Divan , Chung-Hsin Chiang , Michele Villalobos , Muideen Bakare , Rosa A. Hoekstra (2024). Shifting the centre of gravity: Towards a truly global representation in autism research . Autism, 28(1), 3-5. SAGE Publications.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Nirmala Erevelles , Andrea Minear (2010). Unspeakable Offenses: Untangling Race and Disability in Discourses of Intersectionality . Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 4(2), 127-145. Liverpool University Press.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Ly Xīnzhèn M. Zhǎngsūn Brown *Autistic author. Learn more… (2017). Ableist Shame and Disruptive Bodies: Survivorship at the Intersection of Queer, Trans, and Disabled Existence . In Religion, Disability, and Interpersonal Violence (pp. 163-178). Springer International Publishing.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Brown L. X. Z. (2017). All the weight of our dreams: On living racialized autism . All the weight of our dreams: On living racialized autism.Type: OtherCrossref
-
Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Bulman M. (2020). “He will die out there”: Severely autistic man facing deportation to Jamaica. Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/deport-autistic-jamaica-osime-brown-uk-home-office-a9400101.htmlType: OtherCrossref
-
Robert Chapman *Autistic author. Learn more… , Havi Carel (2022). Neurodiversity, epistemic injustice, and the good human life . Journal of Social Philosophy, 53(4), 614-631. Wiley.
-
Lindsay O’Dell , Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist *Autistic author. Learn more… , Francisco Ortega , Charlotte Brownlow , Michael Orsini (2016). Critical autism studies: exploring epistemic dialogues and intersections, challenging dominant understandings of autism . Disability & Society, 31(2), 166-179. Informa UK Limited.
-
Suresh Canagarajah (2023). A Decolonial Crip Linguistics . Applied Linguistics, 44(1), 1-21. Oxford University Press (OUP).Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Nathan V. Mallipeddi , Rachel A. VanDaalen (2022). Intersectionality Within Critical Autism Studies: A Narrative Review . Autism in Adulthood, 4(4), 281-289. SAGE Publications.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
J Davidson (2013). Worlds of Autism . University of Minnesota Press.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Budd L. Hall , Rajesh Tandon (2017). Decolonization of knowledge, epistemicide, participatory research and higher education . Research for All, 1(1). UCL Press.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Yulin Cheng , Bethlehem Tekola , Anand Balasubramanian , Laura Crane , Kathy Leadbitter (2023). Neurodiversity and community-led rights-based movements: Barriers and opportunities for global research partnerships . Autism, 27(3), 573-577. SAGE Publications.
-
Lavonna L. Lovern (2017). Indigenous Perspectives on Difference . Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 11(3), 303-320. Liverpool University Press.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Coard B. (1971). How the West Indian child is made educationally sub-normal in the British school system . How the West Indian child is made educationally sub-normal in the British school system.Type: OtherCrossref
-
Nicole Ineese-Nash (2020). Disability as a Colonial Construct: The Missing Discourse of Culture in Conceptualizations of Disabled Indigenous Children . Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 9(3), 28-51. University of Waterloo.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Huhana Hickey , Denise Wilson (2017). Whānau hauā: Reframing disability from an Indigenous perspective . MAI Journal: A New Zealand Journal of Indigenous Scholarship, 6(1). Nga Pae o te Maramatanga.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Crenshaw K. W. (2013). The public nature of private violence . The public nature of private violence, 93.Type: OtherCrossref
-
Amanda Saxe (2017). The Theory of Intersectionality: A New Lens for Understanding the Barriers Faced by Autistic Women . Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 6(4), 153-178. University of Waterloo.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Priyamvada Gopal (2021). On Decolonisation and the University . Textual Practice, 35(6), 873-899. Informa UK Limited.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Sue Fletcher‐Watson (2022). Transdiagnostic research and the neurodiversity paradigm: commentary on the transdiagnostic revolution in neurodevelopmental disorders by Astle et al. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 63(4), 418-420. Wiley.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Richard Woods *Autistic author. Learn more… , Damian Milton *Autistic author. Learn more… , Larry R. Arnold *Autistic author. Learn more… , Steve Graby *Autistic author. Learn more… (2018). Redefining Critical Autism Studies: a more inclusive interpretation . Disability & Society, 33(6), 974-979. Informa UK Limited.
-
Brittany Aronson , Mildred Boveda (2017). The Intersection of White Supremacy and the Education Industrial Complex: An Analysis of #BlackLivesMatter and the Criminalization of People with Disabilities . Western CEDAR (Western Washington University), 12(1), 6.Type: Article OpenAlex: https://openalex.org/W2890120304OpenAlex
-
Ghai A. (2002). Disability/postmodernity: Embodying disability theory . Disability/postmodernity: Embodying disability theory, 88.Type: OtherCrossref
-
Grosfoguel R. (2013). The structure of knowledge in westernised universities: Epistemic racism/sexism and the four genocides/epistemicides . Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-knowledge, 1(1), 73.Type: OtherCrossref
-
Elizabeth Pellicano , Jacquiline den Houting *Autistic author. Learn more… (2022). Annual Research Review: Shifting from ‘normal science’ to neurodiversity in autism science . Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 63(4), 381-396. Wiley.
-
Betty Yu , RaMonda Horton , Benjamin Munson , Brandi L. Newkirk-Turner , Valerie E. Johnson , Reem Khamis-Dakwar et al. (2022). Making Race Visible in the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences: A Critical Discourse Analysis . American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 31(2), 578-600. American Speech Language Hearing Association.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Henner J. Robinson O. (2023). Unsettling languages unruly bodyminds: A crip linguistics manifesto. Journal of Critical Study of Communication and Disability 1(1) 7–37. https://doi.org/10 . 48516/jcscd_2023vol1iss1. 4Type: OtherCrossref
-
Vishnu KK Nair , Warda Farah *Autistic author. Learn more… , Ian Cushing (2023). A Critical Analysis of Standardized Testing in Speech and Language Therapy . Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 54(3), 781-793. American Speech Language Hearing Association.Crossref OpenAlex OpenCitations
-
Lorde A. (1984). Sister outsider . Sister outsider.Type: OtherCrossref
-
Martha Albertson Fineman (2013). The Public Nature of Private Violence . Routledge.OpenAlex
-
U.S. Department of State (2017). Economic and Political Weekly . The SHAFR Guide Online. Walter de Gruyter GmbH.OpenAlex
-
Menon N. (2015). Is feminism about “women”? A critical view on intersectionality from India . Economic and Political Weekly, 50, 37.Type: OtherCrossref
-
Milton D. E. (2020). The neurodiversity reader . The neurodiversity reader, 3.Type: OtherCrossref
-
Jon Henner , Octavian Robinson (2023). Unsettling Languages, Unruly Bodyminds: A Crip Linguistics Manifesto . Journal of Critical Study of Communication and Disability, 1, 7. Journal of Critical Study of Communication & Disability.OpenAlex
-
Nkomo C. Pagnamenta E. Nair V. Chadd K. & The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. (2022). Analysing diversity equity and inclusion in speech and language therapy. https://www.rcslt.org/learning/diversity-inclusion-and-anti-racism/Type: OtherCrossref
-
Onaiwu G. M. (2020). I, too, sing neurodiversity . Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture, 2(1), 58.Type: OtherCrossref
-
Oyeri J. (2021). My autism journey. https://www.embracingspecialneeds.org/jeanet-oyeri-postType: OtherCrossref
-
Rozsa M. (2020). Young Black autistic and imprisoned: Matthew Rushin’s story is sadly not unique. https://www.salon.com/2020/07/06/young-black-autistic-and-imprisoned-matthew-rushins-story-is-sadly-not-unique/Type: OtherCrossref
-
Shiva V. (1993). Monocultures of the mind . Monocultures of the mind.Type: OtherCrossref
-
Vance T. (2019). What’s in a word: Autism and White privilege. https://neuroclastic.com/white-privilege/Type: OtherCrossref
-
Walker N. (2012). Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking . Loud hands: Autistic people, speaking, 225.Type: OtherCrossref
-
(n.d.). Walker N. (n.d.-a). Neurodiversity: Some basic terms and definitions. https://neuroqueer.com/neurodiversity-terms-and-definitions/Type: OtherCrossref
-
(n.d.). Walker N. (n.d.-b). Throw away the master’s tools: Liberating our-selves from the pathology paradigm. https://neuroqueer.com/throw-away-the-masters-tools/Type: OtherCrossref