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The mask of autism: Social camouflaging and impression management as coping/normalization from the perspectives of autistic adults

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  • Schneid, Iris
  • Raz, Aviad E.

Abstract

Autism entails impression management, including social camouflaging, under conditions of conflict and stigma, with reduced ability to perform such social interaction as well as an increased toll that accompanies it. To examine the meanings of impression management and social camouflaging from the point-of-view of autistic people, we conducted a participatory study that included semi-structured interviews with 24 Israeli autistic adults in 2017–2018. We present views on the difference between camouflaging and impression management; impression management as a social asset; the ambivalence of camouflaging; the limits of impression management; and autistic forms of social communication that provide an alternative to impression management and camouflaging. These perspectives are discussed as leading from prioritizing social integration to prioritizing autistic empowerment. We further explore how the stigma of autism is turned, through camouflaging, into the mask of autism, offering to deconstruct the neurotypical premises of academically-approved concepts of socialization and impression management. Emancipatory participative research thus provides a unique opportunity not only to sociologically explore the deeper contours of “social disability” but also the “disabilities of sociology”, offering directions for the neuro-diversification of sociology, in parallel with the recent thrust of building a “sociology of autism".

Suggested Citation

  • Schneid, Iris & Raz, Aviad E., 2020. "The mask of autism: Social camouflaging and impression management as coping/normalization from the perspectives of autistic adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:248:y:2020:i:c:s0277953620300459
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.112826
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Raz, Aviad & Jongsma, Karin R. & Rimon-Zarfaty, Nitzan & Späth, Elisabeth & Bar-Nadav, Bosmat & Vaintropov, Ella & Schicktanz, Silke, 2018. "Representing autism: Challenges of collective representation in German and Israeli associations for and of autistic people," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 65-72.
    2. Madeleine Akrich, 2010. "From Communities of Practice to Epistemic Communities: Health Mobilizations on the Internet," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 15(2), pages 116-132, May.
    3. Timo Lorenz & Cora Frischling & Raphael Cuadros & Kathrin Heinitz, 2016. "Autism and Overcoming Job Barriers: Comparing Job-Related Barriers and Possible Solutions in and outside of Autism-Specific Employment," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(1), pages 1-19, January.
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