Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T17:23:44.230Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The benefits of modesty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2019

Danilyn Rutherford*
Affiliation:
The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, New York, NY 10016. drutherford@wennergren.org

Abstract

Speaking as an anthropologist, I comment on three striking features of Jaswal & Akhtar's argument. I suggest that the boldness of their intervention lies in its modesty. In challenging a parsimonious explanation for autistic behavior, they invite a conversation including scholars from other disciplines, as well as autistic people themselves.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Davis, L. J. (1995) Enforcing normalcy: Disability, deafness, and the body. Verso.Google Scholar
Dumit, J. (2004) Picturing personhood: Brain scans and biomedical identity. Princeton University Health.Google Scholar
Grinker, R. R. (2008) Unstrange minds: Remapping the world of autism. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Hacking, I. (1990) The taming of chance. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hacking, I. (2009) Autistic autobiography. Transactions of the Royal Society B of London: Biological Sciences 364(1522):1467–73.Google Scholar
Keane, W. (2015) Ethical life: Its natural and social histories. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Robledo, J., Donnellan, A. M. & Strand-Conroy, K. (2012) An exploration of sensory and movement differences from the perspective of individuals with autism. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 6:107. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2012.00107.Google Scholar
Rose, N. & Novas, C. (2004) Biological citizenship. In: Global assemblages: Technologies, politics, and ethics as anthropological problems, ed. Ong, A. & Collier, S. J., pp. 439–63. Blackwell.Google Scholar
Thomson, R. G. (1997) Extraordinary bodies: Figuring physical disability in American culture and literature, pp. 5580. Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Warner, M. (1999) The trouble with normal: Sex, politics, and the ethics of queer life. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar