Commentary: Autism and Anthropology?

Abstract The articles in the Special Issue, “Rethinking Autism, Rethinking Anthropology,” provide a ground for demonstrating substantive contributions to understandings of autism and mark the dilemmas and tensions inherent in anthropological approaches. Comments explore the ways in which authors attend to demarcation of the social world, establishment and negotiation of expertise, juxtaposition of autism as a phenomenon of interest and as an exemplar of sociality, and management of structured and improvisational approaches to the study of engagements in real life. The dilemmas and tensions that are briefly described here are only a partial list of still uncultivated spaces where autism and anthropology can–should–do meet. [sociality, autism, engagement, expertise, ethnography]