An Intersectional Interrogation on Neurodivergent Labeling: A Critical Collective Autoethnographic Dialogue

Within this paper, we present a conceptual framework about the big D and little d D/discourse of neurodivergence. We do this in part through the use of critical autoethnographic texts given our positionalities and relationalities as dis/Abled scholars as an intersectional coalition, community building and critical resistance intervention. We ask: 1) How intersectional identities are formed and inform construction of neurodivergent labeling of the self and the wider cultural conceptualization of what it is and who can be neurodivergent? 2) What are the entities (and what are the characteristics of such entities) that construct the construction of neurodivergence? Thus, we came together to examine the complexities of neurodivergent labeling both as wider community and also the labeling of self. The three co-lead authors all have dis/Abilities that fall within the definition of neurodivergence. We all also grapple with what this means and what neurodivergent means for ourselves and the wider communities we find themselves. We center a spiritual paradigm in the qualitative sciences that allows us to speak and write from deep inside our souls and ancestral knowledge that breaks free from majoritian ideologies about our race, ethnicity, language, culture, emotions, feelings and affects as they are nested with our dis/Abilities in the big D discourse of neurodivergence.