Virtual Book Launch: Unmothering Autism: Ethical Disruptions and Affirming Care by Patty Douglas
Join us for the virtual book launch of Unmothering Autism: Ethical Disruptions and Affirming Care
by Patty Douglas
Tuesday, 4 March 2025, 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm ET
Please register for the Zoom event here.
As global rates of autism diagnosis rise, dominant cultural representations continue to define autism as a tragic neurological disorder. And mothers – as primary caregivers and advocates – are centrally implicated in the impulse to find both cause and cure. How should we care about autism and autistic people?
Please join author Dr. Patty Douglas, Associate Professor of Disability Studies at Queen’s University, who centres the previously marginalized perspectives of mothers and autistic individuals in her new book, Unmothering Autism: Ethical Disruptions and Affirming Care.
After the lecture, Dr. Douglas will be joined in discussion with Drs. Meg Gibson (University of Waterloo) and May Friedman (Toronto Metropolitan University).
Event participants will have a chance to ask questions and engage in a dialogue with Dr. Douglas.
We look forward to you joining the conversation.
Desiring Autism and Neurodivergence Symposium
The Desiring Autism and Neurodivergence in Education: Critical, Creative, and Decolonial Perspectives Symposium is being held July 23-25, 2024 at Queen’s University in what is currently known as Kingston, Ontario.
We invite researchers, artists, and activists to join us. We seek new conversations, contestations and perspectives that build solidarity and Autistic justice across sites of difference and tension in Autism research, politics and practice including, for example, self-advocacy and parent advocacy; rural and urban experiences; global North and South disability perspectives; unsettling settler and elevating Indigenous understandings of difference; critical educator/practitioner and user/consumer experiences; rethinking biomedical and neurodiversity approaches.
Registration coming soon!
Community Consultation: Indigenous Understandings of Autism
Join us for an evening of thoughtful conversation about Indigenous understandings of autism and approaches to support. Your contributions will enhance the Indigenous-informed autism training curriculum the Re•Storying Autism Project and Finding Our Power Together are collaborating to develop for the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres.
Desiring Autism Call for Papers, Art, and Activist Contributions
Call for Papers, art, activist and other contributions to Desiring Autism and Neurodiversity (book and international workshop) led by the Re•Storying Autism team. Email a 250-300 abstract to douglas.patricia@queensu.ca by September 15, 2023. Follow these links for the full call for papers and plain language version.
Online survey: Autistic people leaving places
Our colleagues Brigid Livingston and Meg Gibson have co-developed a survey with a team of Autistic people they would like Autistic perspectives on. Your responses will help them suggest better responses to others.
Are you Autistic? Have you sometimes left places suddenly, wandered off, run away, gotten lost, or been reported missing – at any age? Take an online research survey to help people understand and respond better!
https://uwaterloo.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cIvM1R3GszaTidM
The research team wants to hear from Autistic people about your experiences with leaving places! Other research on Autistic people’s departures has often left out the perspectives and knowledge of Autistic people themselves. The team wants to hear from you if you have ever left places in ways that other people might not understand: if you have wandered, taken off, run away, fled, gotten lost, or been reported missing, at any age. We want to hear from Autistic people about what sort of things are happening before and during their departures, and what other people have done that was helpful, not helpful, or harmful. These survey results will address an important gap in research and help suggest better responses to others.
Exploring the Neurodiversity Paradigm and Implications for Practice through the Arts
This talk introduces the Neurodiversity paradigm and its applications to practice using findings and creative outputs from the Re•Storying Autism project, an international multimedia storytelling project in Canada (northern Turtle Island), England and Aotearoa (New Zealand) led by Dr. Patty Douglas. Re•Storying brings together Autistic folks, family and kin, educators, and practitioners in story making workshops to co-create knowledge and collaboratively advance affirming paradigms and approaches in education and health. The talk will focus on lived experience, interview findings and creative outputs (digital stories, zines) from recent research workshops in Aotearoa, England, and Manitoba. We consider how Neurodiversity paradigms and decolonizing approaches that focus on relationality, affirming difference, context, and unsettling Western ontologies and epistemologies open space for transformative practice that supports the thriving of individuals, family and kin, and practitioners, and affirms difference. Bonus: you will have an opportunity to respond to this talk both creatively and practically.
Re•Storying Autism ‘In’ Difference/ Autistic, Surviving and Thriving Under COVID-19
About the Exhibition
A zine and video exhibit by the Re•Storying Autism Collective/ Project
Re•Storying Autism ‘In’ Difference/ Autistic, Surviving and Thriving Under COVID-19 is a zine and video exhibit presented by the Re•Storying Autism Collective/ Project. Autistic people face stigma, misunderstanding, and exclusion from life and art. The Re•Storying Autism Collective/ Project resists this through story and art making. Videos in the exhibit are made by Autistic makers, family, and kin from Canada (Turtle Island), Aotearoa (New Zealand) and the UK. The videos show what it is like to desire the difference of Autism and live well ‘in’ difference. The zines are made by Autistic makers from across Canada (Turtle Island). In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw that the world could change. We came together as a collective to resist isolation and imagine Autistic futures where Autistic ways of being re-make the world in radically affirming ways.
You can also find the exhibit online at www.restoryingautism.com/tangled
CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS
CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS in Southwest Manitoba! Re•Storying Autism has partnered with Manitoba Métis Federation SW and Brandon Friendship Centre in a research project/digital storytelling project to bring Indigenous stories of and approaches to autism forward. The project is currently looking for those interested in:
-Sharing their own perspectives and experiences of autism or gifts at school in a 30-60 minute interview
-The potential to participate in an online multimedia storytelling workshop to create your own short video
-Results from this study will be used to improve school experiences and outcomes for individuals, families and educators
*Those who participate will be compensated for their time with a $50 gift card for interviews and $225 for the workshop*
Interviews: February 2022 – March 2022
Storytelling Workshop: March 12, 19, 26 & April 2, 2022
Questions? Interested in the study?
Please fill out our contact form at:
https://tinyurl.com/autismatschool
Or contact Sheryl Peters peterss@brandonu.ca
Dr. Patty Douglas douglasp@brandonu.ca
204-596-8533
Call for Participants! A Digital Storytelling Workshop on Indigenous Approaches to Autism and Education in Southwest Manitoba!
Call for Participants!
A Digital Storytelling Workshop on Indigenous Approaches to Autism and Education in Southwest Manitoba
Re•Storying Autism has partnered with Manitoba Métis Federation SW and Brandon Friendship Centre in a research project/digital storytelling project to bring Indigenous stories of and approaches to autism forward. The project is currently looking for those interested in:
-Participating in an online multimedia storytelling workshop to create your own short video
-Sharing their own perspectives and experiences of autism or gifts at school in a 30-60 minute interview
-Results from this study will be used to improve school experiences and outcomes for individuals, families and educators
*Those who participate will be compensated for their time with a $50 gift card for interviews and $225 for the workshop*
Questions? Interested in the study?
Please fill out our contact form at: https://tinyurl.com/autismatschool
Or contact Sheryl Peters peterss@brandonu.ca
Dr. Patty Douglas douglasp@brandonu.ca
204-596-8533
Happy holidays from Re•Storying Autism!
Happy holidays from Re•Storying Autism! Our thanks for a wonderful, creative and thought-provoking year. We hope you have a peaceful and safe holiday. Warm thoughts and joy to you as we welcome a new year.
Scolhandi: Disability, Education and the Politics of Inclusion/Exclusion Dec. 16-17, 2021 (online). A Franco-Canadian Symposium.
Come on out to hear a slate of amazing scholars talk at Scolhandi, a Franco-Canadian Symposium on Disability, Education and the Politics of Inclusion/Exclusion Dec. 16-17, 2021 online (times listed are Central European Time Zone). The event has been co-organized by the fabulous Michael Orsini who is a collaborator on Re•Storying Autism. Patty Douglas will be speaking about some of our initiatives under COVID-19 and implications for re-making inclusion.
Call for Participants: Decolonizing Stories of Autism
This international workshop is for anyone in Canada, New Zealand and the UK interested in making a story about their own life and their experiences with autism. Times displayed are in EST. You will be part of a creative group where you will learn to make a short video.
Re•Storying Autism Fall 2020 Newsletter
Our Fall 2020 Newsletter is here! Have a look to learn about all of the activities and research we’ve been working on these past few months, and what we are looking forward to in 2021.
Autistic, Surviving & Thriving under COVID-19: Imagining Inclusive Autistic Futures
Call for Participants!
The Re•Storying Autism in Education research project is seeking autistic and neurodivergent BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) participants for online interviews about experiences of education and COVID-19.
RE•SEARCH | RE•VISION | RE•STORY: The Power of Story to Change Your World
Join us for an evening talk and screening of 3 short films exploring the power of multimedia storymaking and the arts to change worlds with Dr. Carla Rice (University of Guelph, Ontario) and Dr. Patty Douglas (Brandon University) at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba. The event takes place Thursday, November 19th from 6:30-8 pm CST. Audience members can attend by Zoom (https://zoom.us/j/97770033021) or at the AGSM in the Drawing Studio (10 person capacity). For those wishing to attend the screening at the gallery, please reserve a spot with the AGSM, by emailing info@agsm.ca or calling 204.727.1036.
Re•Storying Autism on Screen
Join us for a screening of twelve short films, and an evening of conversation with filmmakers. Get tickets for this FREE event here. We look forward to seeing you then!
Re•Storying Autism and Resilience During COVID-19 through Creative Research
This talk explores the power of story and creative approaches in research to transform us—storyteller, researcher and the world—including how we know ourselves, each other and those who are ‘different’ than us (Finley 2014).
Zine-making workshop
The Re•Storying Autism in Education research project is seeking autistic and neurodivergent participants for an online digital zine-making workshop and research interviews about experiences of education and COVID-19.