"Being-neurodivergent-in-the-world": an embodied x sensory ethnography

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  "Being-neurodivergent-in-the-world": an embodied x sensory ethnography

• IRAS ID

  308728

• Contact name

  Beth Sutton

• Contact email

  beth.sutton@SPFT.nhs.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of Sussex

• Duration of Study in the UK

  2 years, 11 months, 31 days

• Research summary

  This neurodivergent-led (auto)ethnography focuses on adult lived experiences of neurodevelopmental conditions, such as Autism, ADHD (a widely used abbreviation for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), Tics and Tourette’s syndrome.

  Using qualitative methods, the research investigates:
  - Neurodivergence in adulthood
  - Neurodivergence as embodied experience
  - Being/becoming-neurodivergent-in-the-world
  - Neuro-homogeneity and ableism

  Additional focuses include late diagnosis, constructions self-other-otherness, kinship and affinity-marginality. The sample size is fairly small, usual practice in ethnographic research, amounts to between fifteen and twenty interlocutors who have received diagnosis/es from specialist clinicians based in the Neurodevelopmental Service, NHS, SPFT. Positioned at the intersection of anthropology x the arts, innate forms of neurodivergence are of particular interest. Informed by fieldwork, the global aim is to understand the embodied nature of what becoming/being-neurodivergent-in-the-world means for newly diagnosed adults in the United Kingdom, specific to Southern England. East and West Sussex, including Brighton and Hove, are key field sites. The study is a form of engaged anthropology, with the chief investigator, a researcher x professional in the Neurodevelopmental Service, NHS, SPFT. Lived experience is at the heart of the (auto)ethnography, extending to the supervisory team.

  Glossary

  Interlocutor - A preferred term emphasising that those involved are part of an unfolding dialogue between the “researcher-researched”, another closely related term, in keeping with the study’s participatory dimension. It is commonly used in anthropology, within the investigator’s area of expertise.

  x - Instead of using “and”, “x” (spoken as “crossed with”) collapses distinctions, highlighting a sense of interconnectivity that translates to anthropology x creativity, Autism x ADHD, the embodied x sensory world and so on.

• REC name

  North West - Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  23/NW/0204

• Date of REC Opinion

  18 Sep 2023

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion