Department of Anthropology, Durham University, Durham, UK.
Med Anthropol. 2021 May-Jun;40(4):375-388. doi: 10.1080/01459740.2021.1894558. Epub 2021 Mar 18.
Autism is a fluid category with sensory difference recently emerging as a key aspect of the lived experience of the condition. In concert with the "fight or flight response", sensory sensitivities are used to articulate chronic stress caused by "sensory overload" from living in sensorially "toxic" environments. Based on long-term participant observation in the UK and USA with practitioners and participants of an autism-specific horse therapy method I offer an ethnographic window onto this ecological model of autism that entangles material flows, embodiments, and environments. I detail a novel hormonal understanding of autism, in which oxytocin and cortisol act as material-semiotic messengers of sociality. I ask what is at stake and show how notions of hormonal "balance" and proportionality provide a means of comprehending simultaneities of behavioral, diagnostic, and material fixity and flow in autism.
自闭症是一个流动性的类别，最近出现了感官差异，成为该病症体验的一个关键方面。与“战斗或逃跑反应”一致，感官敏感度被用来表达由于生活在感官上“有毒”的环境中而导致的“感官超负荷”所引起的慢性压力。基于在英国和美国与自闭症特定的马术治疗方法的从业者和参与者进行的长期参与式观察，我提供了一个关于自闭症的生态模型的民族志窗口，这个模型纠缠着物质流、体现和环境。我详细介绍了自闭症的一种新的激素理解，其中催产素和皮质醇作为社会性的物质符号媒介。我提出了什么是利害攸关的问题，并展示了激素“平衡”和比例的概念如何提供一种理解自闭症中行为、诊断和物质固定性和流动性的同时性的方法。
