Configuring the autism epidemic: Why are so few girls diagnosed?

Seeberg, Jens; Christensen, Fie

doi:10.7146/tfss.v14i26.26321

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…We have suggested the term configuring as an analytical concept to describe dynamics that collaborate when social contagion happens (Seeberg and Meinert 2015). Configuring can be regarded as a form of contextualization (Seeberg and Christensen 2017). But whereas a context analysis is potentially endless (Dilley 1999), configuration analysis is an attempt to foreground certain figures and relations and their influence.…”

Section: Configuringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction. Configuring Contagion in Biosocial Epidemics

Meinert¹,

Seeberg²

2022

Configuring Contagion

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How do epidemics spread? The short, standard answer is through contagion. For most infectious disease epidemics, we are well aware that this happens through the transfer of microbes between people or between animals and humans. The COVID-19 pandemic has made this clear all around the globe, and many people have become increasingly aware of epidemic dynamics and concepts. Yet not all epidemics can be attributed to infection. A large part of the global burden of disease is due to so-called noncommunicable diseases. 1 How do these and other non-infectious conditions spread? Can they even be termed epidemic and contagious? This book offers ways to think about and expand our understanding of contagion beyond typical notions of infectious pandemics, beyond viral emergencies, to include the larger field of biosocial epidemics. Fundamentally we challenge the notion of noncommunicability (Seeberg and Meinert 2015), as it seems to render the epidemic spread of other forms of disease impossible. Some researchers have even proposed that we stop using the category of noncommunicable disease (Adjaye-Gbewonyo and Vaughan 2019; Blundell and Hine 2018) because many of these diseases are in fact communicable. In this book, we propose varied and detailed answers to questions about the epidemic and contagious potentials of specific infections and non-infectious conditions. We explore how inseparable social and biological processes configure co-existing influences which create epidemics, and we stress the role of social inequality in these processes. We use the term biosocial -in

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Section: Configuringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction. Configuring Contagion in Biosocial Epidemics

Meinert¹,

Seeberg²

2022

Configuring Contagion

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“…Contamination is a process in which “something diffuses from an area or source into another,” and it implies that people are understood to be differently dispositioned in relation to susceptibility and protection (Meinert and Grøn, 2017: 167). It subsumes a source and a contagious agent, such as bacteria or a virus, and a pattern of infection, such as the exchange between individuals or between individuals and their physical environment (Seeberg and Christensen, 2017: 130). Transmission patterns are identified as interpersonal contagion, like in “the processes of social influence, for instance when the behavior of one person inspires or is copied by other persons,” and as social contamination, which refers to “the processes of environmental influence, for example, when the atmosphere in a room or history in a landscape touch and affect us” (Meinert and Grøn, 2017: 167).…”

Section: The Aarhus Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epidemic policing: The spreading of counter-radicalization in Denmark

Johansen

2019

Environ Plan D

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This article offers a theoretical and ethnographic account of what I term “epidemic policing.” The article introduces the notion of epidemic policing to show how Danish measures for countering violent extremism are based on an epidemiological approach resembling the World Health Organization public health rationale, and how the field of countering violent extremism policing is itself expanding in epidemic ways. With an empirical starting point in ethnographic fieldwork among the police in Denmark’s second city, Aarhus, the article ponders the intersection between crime prevention and countering violent extremism in urban policing. The article shows that while traditional Danish crime prevention has been marked by conventional processes of securitization and topographical forms of policing, a particular form of topological policing is implied in the security logics of countering violent extremism. This new form of policing entails a reconfiguration of the epidemiological approach, including a diffusion of encoded risk categories, an expansion of institutional security infrastructures, and a de-territorialization of the space that is being policed. The article argues that this reconfiguration of Danish urban policing is a highly spatialized process, which has resulted in the co-production of intensified territorial control and an inert potentiality of policing everywhere in the city.

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“…In Denmark alone the number has risen from 6.750 people diagnosed with a mental developmental disorder in 2013 to 14.300 people in 2018 (Kommunernes Landsforening, 2019). The numbers have gone up so much that some have described the trend as representing an 'autism epidemic' caused by social and historical changes (Eyal, 2010;Grinker, 2007;Hacking, 2007;Lawlor & Solomon, 2017;Seeberg & Christensen, 2017;Liu et al, 2010). A key change that favoured this trend was turning autism into a spectrum, positioning high-functioning people with Asperger's syndrome at one end of the autism spectrum and children with mental retardation and severe chronic developmental disabilities at the other end of the spectrum (Feinstein, 2011;Wolff, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Muggles be Autistic?

Christensen

2021

JEA

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This paper explores the tension between perceiving autism as a spectrum of traits or as a core. A spectrum is defined as a tension between two extremes. A core, on the other hand, is defined by an essence or a pervasive structure. I present the views of three autistic women that try to establish autism as a core, in which people with autism are separate from the rest of humankind and not extreme versions of humanity, the consequences of their statements are that there are no extreme versions of autism. Autism as a ‘core’ manifests itself in behavior (e.g. whether you hug others in distress or not, an example put forward by the women), which allows them to reevaluate the diagnoses of fellow autistic humans. I argue that the worldview of the three women is exemplified by their use of examples, and that what could be considered as ‘extreme examples’ on a ‘human spectrum’, might represent ‘ideal examples’ in their view of the ‘autistic spectrum’. Thinking about autism as a spectrum with its own examples allows us to understand the social dynamics of broadening the autism criteria. Furthermore, this article discusses how extreme examples can be used to create new wholes when spectrums are being broadened to the point of bursting.

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Configuring the autism epidemic: Why are so few girls diagnosed?

Cited by 4 publications

References 5 publications

Introduction. Configuring Contagion in Biosocial Epidemics

Introduction. Configuring Contagion in Biosocial Epidemics

Epidemic policing: The spreading of counter-radicalization in Denmark

Can Muggles be Autistic?

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