“For the first time someone understood”: A study of noncoherence and heterogeneity in a Swedish autism support and advocacy association

Abstract

Autism has come to be portrayed as something complex, ambiguous, and heterogeneous. I therefore contend that what is now needed are analytical tools to further explicate the modalities of this heterogeneity and ambiguity. I propose that one way forward is to draw on analytical vocabularies intended for analyses of the (non)coherence of phenomena, more specifically Law et al.’s concept modes of syncretism. I employ this concept to stage a theoretical intervention in the historiography of autism through a close reading of a booklet published by the Swedish Autism and Asperger Association to commemorate its founding 40 years earlier. The analysis shows that the booklet contained several discursive enactments of autism, and that different syncretic practices were used to handle and balance these. I also discuss how modes of syncretism can be useful as an analytical vocabulary for studying other contested and heterogeneous topics, diagnoses, and issues in psychology.