A Phenomenological Approach to the Cultivation of Expertise: Emergent Understandings of Autism

Abstract

In this article, we draw on narrative phenomenological (Mattingly 2010) and ethnographic projects to investigate how phenomenology may contribute to understanding how practical, experientially gained, expertise is cultivated in extraordinary circumstances. The lived world of autism provides a compelling context for such an exploration. Drawing on ethnographic data, we present arguments related to how a phenomenological approach to understanding autism can be productive by examining the cultivation of expertise and the contagion of knowledge and understanding. Family expertise that is grounded in lived experience often reveals the limitations of both public knowledge and scientific evidence and is generative of a kind of practical knowledge that warrants diffusion. Consideration is given to the specific contributions of a phenomenological approach to understanding autism and learning in collective engagements. Contagion as both a facilitative and positive phenomenon and a potentially stressful or harmful development is discussed.

Understanding connectivity: The parallax and disruptive-productive effects of mixed methods social network analysis in occupational science

“…The purpose of the Autism in urban context: Linking heterogeneity with health and service disparities 1 (AUCP) was to understand the experiences related to acquiring diagnosis and services for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) among African American parents and caregivers in relation to patterns of communication among caregivers and practitioners during clinical encounters (Solomon et al, 2015(Solomon et al, , 2016; structural barriers to and opportunities for African American children receiving timely and accurate diagnosis and appropriate services (Angell & Solomon, 2014;Lawlor & Solomon, 2017;Solomon & Lawlor, 2018) and parents and caregivers' knowledge about ASD diagnosis and services, and their social networks relevant to everyday informational and practical support. Participants included 23 families with 25 children who were 8 years old or younger at the time of recruitment and diagnosed with ASD.…”

Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Making Sense of Senses in Expert Nursing

“…With this study, I have aimed to contribute to enhanced awareness of the embodied, intuitional, and sensory aspects of professional knowledge and skills, which I hope will encourage additional research related to other sectors and professions. Moreover, the study has intended to provide further empirical insight into the complex processes and intersubjective aspects involved in the cultivation of expertise in a clinical context (Lawlor and Solomon ). These are important insights that I hope can feed into the sociopolitical discourse on what it means to practice and provide “good” medicine and healthcare, in which sensory work is conspicuously absent (Maslen ).…”

“…Second, the article highlights how a phenomenological and ethnographic exploration of the acquisition and use of sensory knowledge can contribute valuable insights into how expertise is cultivated in everyday clinical practice. According to Lawlor and Solomon (), numerous studies have examined the role of guided participation and apprenticeship, involving various forms of novice‐expert interaction, in establishing expertise. However, anthropology has focused little on the cultivation and spread of expertise, particularly from an ethnographic and phenomenological standpoint (Lawlor and Solomon ).…”

“…According to Lawlor and Solomon (), numerous studies have examined the role of guided participation and apprenticeship, involving various forms of novice‐expert interaction, in establishing expertise. However, anthropology has focused little on the cultivation and spread of expertise, particularly from an ethnographic and phenomenological standpoint (Lawlor and Solomon ). Within anthropology, expertise is understood as inherently interactional, involving the participation of objects, producers, and consumers of knowledge, enacted in real‐time communicative practice (Carr ).…”

“…This ongoing, tacit, and intuitive way of sensing patients’ bodies, involving the ability to combine several sensory inputs and sensing of patients’ senses, I claim, involved another mode of learning than following procedures, or taking part in guided participation and scaffolding. Lawlor and Solomon () describe how cultivation of expertise is complex and messy, involving both containment and contagion of knowledge as people actively engage themselves in intersubjective relationships to generate new understanding. To the nurses, this quest for knowledge about the medical condition and well‐being of patients necessitated repeated and continuous embodied interaction with them.…”