Going to the farm
: a sociomaterial ethnography of autistic young people in a natural environment

Student thesis: Doctoral ThesisDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Abstract

This study sits at the intersection of three areas – autism, youth, and the natural environment. Autism is a contested phenomenon, where dominant accounts of it as a deficit-oriented condition are challenged by perspectives that call for acceptance of ‘neurodiversity’ and a valuing of the richness of autistic lives. There is simultaneously a growing call to re-orient and strengthen human – and especially children’s and young people’s -- relationships with natural environments, relationships that are seen to be beneficial and important, yet simultaneously diminishing. The role of education is implicated in both these areas of debate, but little attention has been given to what happens when these converge and autistic young people are supported by schools to spend time in a natural environment.

This study occupies that space. This is a ten-month ethnographic study that examined encounters of four autistic young people in a post-16 class from a UK special school that regularly spent time visiting a local farm. In conducting this study, I drew on theoretical resources from sociomaterial approaches, in particular from Annemarie Mol’s concept of ‘multiplicity.’ In line with these approaches, I examined the sociomaterial practices in and around these encounters at the farm and how these practices enacted autism and the farm environment. I suggest an understanding of autism-in-relation where autism emerges in the ways it is practiced in dynamic environments, rather than as something located inside an individual. Findings from the study are threefold. First, I suggest that visits to the farm environment enabled new practices for these young people, including: increased visibility and tangible interaction with the natural world; opportunities to adapt to evolving places within structured routines; and shared moments of common experiences. Second, I demonstrate how multiple versions of autism (specifically, routinised, emergent, extrasensory, and deficient autisms) were enacted through sociomaterial practices and co-emergent with different versions of the farm environment. Last, I propose that pedagogical practices that are attendant to relations among people, things, and places and that also accommodate uncertainty within routine could support ways to notice, value, and learn from autistic young people’s own ways of becoming in the world. This in turn could also have wider implications in supporting young people’s transitions to the ‘outside’ world beyond school.
Date of Award29 Sept 2020
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • University of Bristol
SupervisorKeri Facer (Supervisor) & Helen Manchester (Supervisor)

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