Paper short abstract:

In "Challenging Autism, Challenging Experts," I argue that social movements are important spaces for the cultivation and preservation of unorthodox ideas because they organize the resources necessary to transform contested ideas into practice.

Paper long abstract:

How are controversial beliefs empowered? How do they persist? "Challenging Autism, Challenging Experts: Social Movements as Spaces for the Creation of Controversial Bodies and Identities" investigates two movements that resist experts, taking issue with conventional understandings of Autism Spectrum Disorder, a developmental disability. I argue that social movements are important spaces for the cultivation and preservation of unorthodox ideas because they organize the resources necessary to transform contested ideas into practice. This study draws from over three years of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with members of the alternative biomedical and autistic rights movements. These two movements reimagine autism in different and conflicting ways. The alternative biomedical movement is dominated by parents and practitioners who believe in a disproven idea: that vaccines “trigger” autism. Believing in “vaccine injury,” they argue that autism can be “reversed” with alternative and experimental treatments. The autistic rights movement, in contrast, is composed primarily of autistic adults who contend that autism is a natural human variation, as opposed to a disorder; thus, they demand social and cultural acceptance. Focusing on structural barriers, autistic rights activists advocate for policy changes that would expand the rights and protection of autistic people. Both movements encounter opposition from researchers, professionals, and other parents outside their communities who support a mainstream model. In this study, I examine their separate struggles to gain legitimacy and their efforts to transform their beliefs into lived realities.