Ethnomusicological Perspectives on Autism, Neurodiversity, and Music Therapy

Abstract

In this article, I suggest that a provisional paradigm shift from disability as pathology to disability as neurodiversity has the potential to productively resituate the epistemological orientations of music therapy, both as a field of inquiry and a domain of practice. I draw from my own work on the ethnomusicology of autism, as well as from research and writings in disability studies and autistic self-advocacy, in proposing that the relativistic foundations of ethnomusicology offer a potentially useful alternative and complement to the principally treatment-directed foundations of music therapy.

Keywords

• Autism
• autism spectrum
• Asperger's syndrome
• neurodiversity
• autistic self-advocacy
• ethnomusicology