Dissertation Research: Translating Diagnoses Across Cultures: Expertise, Autism, and Therapeutics of the Self in Morocco

博士生Brendan Hart（哥伦比亚大学）将在Lesley Sharp博士的指导下，对临床分类及其应用的社会文化和制度背景之间的关系进行研究。为了追求这些主题，研究人员将对摩洛哥自闭症类别的引入和重新设计进行理论驱动的细粒度案例研究。自闭症特别适合用于人类学研究，因为它直接涉及文化特定自我领域的交流、社交和行为领域。在摩洛哥，自闭症的标签尚未广为人知或普遍使用。但一些家长和专业人士目前正在努力改变这种状况，他们正在培训一批新的专家，提高人们的认识，并建立一个基础设施来识别和教育自闭症儿童。本研究调查了这些努力及其后果，以及更广泛的社会和文化对自闭症的理解和参与。这项研究将在拉巴特和塔鲁丹特进行。它将包括在家庭、教室、临床咨询和宗教治疗场所进行参与性观察；对专家和活动家的半结构化采访；与患病儿童父母的生活史；多媒体资料（包括家庭录像）分析。分析和比较不同地点和时间的数据，将使研究人员能够解决研究的核心问题：专家和活动家如何以及在多大程度上使自闭症成为摩洛哥的一个突出类别？自闭症这个标签，以及它的含义、定义、用法和制定，是如何改变和回应在摩洛哥社会生活的日常环境中引入自闭症所引发的复杂过程的？摩洛哥拥有多种相互竞争的治疗专业知识，包括本土和伊斯兰复兴疗法，以及精神分析、生物精神病学和行为主义，摩洛哥提供了一个重要的环境，有助于辩论关于“自我”概念的不同思想和实践系统如何在全球化进程中日益相互接触和冲突。该研究将为跨文化研究自闭症和其他精神病学类别的学者提供重要的比较材料。资助这项研究也支持了研究生的教育。

Doctoral student Brendan Hart (Columbia University), with the guidance of Dr. Lesley Sharp, will conduct research on the relationship between clinical classifications and the socio-cultural and institutional contexts of their application. To pursue these topics, the researcher will undertake a theoretically-driven, fine-grained case study of the introduction and reworking of the category autism in Morocco. Autism is particularly appropriate for an anthropological study because it speaks directly to domains of communication, sociality, and behavior in the realm of culturally specific selfhood. The autism label is not yet widely known or commonly used in Morocco. But some parents and professionals are currently working to change that by training a new cadre of experts, raising awareness, and building an infrastructure to identify and educate children as autistic. This study investigates these efforts, their consequences, and the broader social and cultural understanding and engagement with autism. The research will be conducted in Rabat and Taroudant. It will involve participant observation in homes, classrooms, clinical consulations, and sites of religious healing; semi-structured interviews with experts and activists; life histories with parents of affected children; and analysis of multimedia materials (including home videos). Analyzing and comparing data across sites and over time will allow the researcher to address the study's core questions: How and to what extent are experts and activists making autism a salient category in Morocco? How does the autism label, and its meanings, definitions, uses, and enactments, change and respond to complex processes initiated by its introduction within ordinary everyday contexts of Moroccan social life? Rich with multiple, competing types of therapeutic expertise, which include vernacular and revivalist Islamic cures as well as psychoanalysis, biopsychiatry, and behaviorism, Morocco presents an important setting for contributing to debates about how diverse systems of thought and practice concerning the idea of "the self" are increasingly coming into contact and conflict with one another amidst processes of globalization. The research will provide important comparative materials for scholars studying autism and other psychiatric categories cross-culturally. Funding this research also supports the education of a graduate student.