Sensory Sociology of Autism

Robert Rourke is a Sociology PhD graduate who is interested in social theory, continental philosophy and disability studies. He is particularly interested in reimagining the dis/ability divide and examining how attention to autistic experience can reveal mundane power structures.

• Acknowledgements; Chapter 1 - Introduction: Exploring Autism, The Senses and Autoethnography; A Sensory Beginning; Autism Spectrum Conditions – Categorisation and Expanding Definitions; Sociological Imaginations and Forming Habits; Autoethnography as Sociological Imagination; Redefining Autism Through Favourite Quasi-Objects; Notes on Research and Chapter Exercises; Conclusion - Outline of Chapters; Bibliography; Chapter 2 - Sensory Habits as Pragmatic Quasi-Object Relations; Introduction; A Brief Sociological Trajectory Of The Senses; Pragmatic Habits as Mediating Senses; Habitual Favourites as a Concept; Reassessing Sensory Sociology and Habitual Favourites With Autism; Michel Serres, The Parasite and Quasi-Objects; Habitual Favourites as Quasi-Objects – The Sensory Autistic Manifold; Conclusion; Chapter Exercises; Bibliography; Chapter 3 - Habitual Favourites: Modulated Thresholds and Quasi-Objects; Introduction – An Outline of The Chapter; Factors Impacting The Relationships to Favourites in Autism; Developing The Quasi-Object Concept; Some Comments on Using an "Events" Based Analysis; Doug – Cats, Technological Quasi-Objects and Soylent as Parasite; Garry – Multi-Modal Anxiety Relief and Social Management; Josh - Escalator Sickness; Conclusion – Reformulating Parasitical Quasi-Objects; Chapter Exercises; Bibliography; Chapter 4 - An Auto/AutieEthnography Part 1 - Methodological and Researcher Positionality; Introductory Vignette - A Multivocal Discussion of Research; Evocative Uses of Vignettes and Multivocality in Autoethnographic Accounts; A Brief Interlude – Analytic Autoethnography; An Evocative and Post-Structural Commitment to Openness; Autoethnography Concerns and Challenges;The Slippage Between Autoethnography as Narcissistic and Theory of Mind; An Emplaced Concern With Relational Ethics; Autoethnography as Journeying and Pragmatic Balance; Chapter Exercises; Bibliography; Chapter 4.5 Auto/Autieethnography Part 1.5 – Distributed Sociality and Posthuman Disability; Introduction – A Brief Interlude; Beyond Poststructural Autoethnography to Quasi-Object Relationality; PhD Work, Disability Support and Relational Ethics; How Does The Autistic Author Emerge?; Revealing the Analytic Potential in the Academic Mundane; A Concluding Multivocal Discussion; Chapter Exercises; Bibliography; Chapter 5 - An Auto/AutieEthnography Part 2 - Autoethnographic Writing Vignettes ; Introduction - Of Writing Vignettes and Autoethnography; Writing Vignette 1 - Writing in Chaos - Autism, Writing and Home Care; My PhD "Writing Day" Exhilaration, Exasperation and Emotional Exhaustion; Discussion - Writing as a Mundane Academic Habitus; The Consequences of Writing in Chaos - Thinking With Care in Writing; How Do You Cope? - Future Directions; Post-PhD Update; Writing Vignette 2 - The "Glow" of Academic Labour; Back to Caring - Intellectual Structures and Identity; Conclusion - Reflecting on a Sociological Imagination; Chapter Exercises; Bibliography; Chapter 6 - Affective Atmospheres: Perturbations and Emplaced Affects ; Introduction; What is An Affective Atmosphere?; What Can Be Called an Atmosphere? - Boundaries and Effects; Atmospheric Interstices - Beyond Binaries; Data Analysis - The Material/Spatial Organisation of The Club; Case 1 - Sound, KISS Radio and (Non)-Human Atmospheres; Case 2 - Echolalia, Gestural Semiosis and Blackadder; Conclusion; Chapter Exercises; Bibliography; Chapter 7 - Sensory and Disability Futures ; Introduction; Habitual Favourites in Policy and Practice; Multi-Media Sensory Research; Habitual Favourites and Social Categories; The Book as Quasi-Object; Chapter Exercises; Bibliography; Index