Paper short abstract:

Drawing from my fieldwork on parent-led autism advocacy in Portugal, this paper illustrates fathers' involvement in longterm care of their children with autism and interrogate the gendered division of caregiving by addressing both its dimensions: as bodily practices and as socially expected tasks.

Paper long abstract:

This paper addresses the ways in which fathers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders perform long-term and intensive care as a form of self-making that challenges gendered conceptions of care. My purpose is to show how care labour - understood as a manifold of hands-on practices, emotional thinking, commitment and responsibilities - shows but also calls into question gendered expectations of parenting and care itself, which have been a role in misrepresenting fathers' abilities as carers. Father's experience of the bodily dimension of caring (Ranson, 2015) has important consequences for them as individuals but also for the broader society. I then describe fathers' assertions of their care abilities and emotional relationships with their children with ASDs in order to claim to their role as caregivers. Similarly, since when a child is diagnosed with a disability "kinship, caretaking, and the life course are reconfigured" (Rapp and Ginsburg 2010), I also show fathers' renegotiations and imaginary of kinship practices and duties. By gathering their narratives about what it means to be a father of a child with autism, this paper aims to acknowledge the bodily and emotional capacities that men perform in their fathering practices and caregiving as a form of self-making