Programme full

Wednesday 15 April 2015 11:00 - 12:30
PAPER SESSION 2
provide care and also encourage self-direction. My research has detailed the complex but effective ways in which
relational autonomy upholds individual agency and supports decision-making through collaboration. Quoting from the
participants' comments and explicating aspects of my findings contributes to understandings of how independence
and agency can be experienced, despite a life-limiting condition. This understanding demonstrates how disabled
children, who may be considered 'vulnerable' and who can be marginalised both in research and society are able to
live well, with collaborative partnerships and approaches being vital to achieving this.
Aleatory not Illusory: Heterogeneity and the Elusive Search for Autism’s Essence
Hollin, G.
(University of Nottingham)
In this paper I argue that a defining feature of contemporary conceptualisations of autism is the condition's
heterogeneity: Autism has come to be a diagnosis determined by its indeterminacy. Researchers generally
understand this 'autistic heterogeneity' to be a unitary concept. Interviews with leading psychologists and
neuroscientists, however, seem to show heterogeneity to be comprised of numerous, separate elements. Firstly,
there is an epistemic claim which suggests that heterogeneity emerges following an inability to make the results of
various scientific methodologies cohere with one another. Secondly, there is an ontological claim of inter-personal
heterogeneity which suggests that no one thing unites all individuals with autism. Thirdly, there is an ontological claim
of intra-personal heterogeneity; this suggests that there is no single cause of autism within a particular individual and
that no one scientific theory is able to explain all the features associated with condition. Following this analysis, I
suggest that heterogeneity has become a facilitatory concept, allowing for a stabilisation and extension to the
classification of autism in the face of highly uncertain medical and scientific practice. I also argue that heterogeneity is
politically troubling and makes it difficult, or potentially impossible, for individuals to 'escape' a diagnosis because
agency, difference, and resistance are re-imagined not as properties of individuals but illustrative of the
heterogeneous properties of autism itself. Thus, I conclude that an understanding of autistic heterogeneity is
important to both understandings of clinical practice and the politics of autism/neurotypicality.
How to Help a Patient to be 'Physically Active': Analysis of the Range of Physical Activity-related Services
Offered by French Diabetes Networks
Perrin, C.
(University of Lyon)
The preventive and curative benefits of a regular physical activity on type 2 diabetes have been scientifically
recognised. However, health professionals' recommendations receive a limited response in terms of patient behaviour.
New services have appeared to help type 2 diabetics to become physically active. This qualitative study investigates
the conceptions behind how services related to physical activity are organised in French diabetes networks. A
significant difference in conceptions is highlighted with regard to the approach to 'physical activity' and the
encouragement of changes in behaviour. It is structured around two points of tension: the first one sets the
prescription model against the accompaniment of individual projects and the second opposes a vision of physical
activity limited to exercise against a cultural approach to appropriate physical sporting activities which emphasises the
social significance of the practices. Finally, the autonomy objective which is common to all the approaches fluctuates
between two extremes: a definition in terms of self control and a multi-dimensional approach which also incorporates
self-determination, independence and expressiveness. The proposals for an assumption in physical activity aim at the
demedication and ask the question of the personal tastes, pleasure and relationships toward peer groups. From the
desire to change the patients behaviour so that they become more observing, the objective of autonomy moves
towards a desire to support them in their self-determination, expressivity and independence. It is no longer simply a
matter of creating the conditions for self-incitement to take exercise to make up for a limited range of services.
The Changing Face of HIV Stigma in Romania
Lazar, F.
(University of Bucharest)
As a result of treatment advances, HIV is a chronic condition in Romania, but stigma is still a challenge for people
living with HIV (PLHIV). More than half of all registered PLHIV were nosocomially-infected between 1988-1990,
followed by adults sexually infected, but in the last three years HIV infection exploded among injecting drug users
(IDU). The objective of the present study was to explain the variations of HIV stigma in these three different social
groups.
Thematic analysis was performed based on twenty in-depth interviews with PLHIV from three groups: (G1) those from
the generation '88-'90, (G2) PLHIV infected as adults and (G3) the new group of HIV+IDU.
95 BSA Annual Conference 2015
Glasgow Caledonian University