Project Director

Cummiskey, Julia, 1982-

Department Examiner

Rigler, Michelle; Smith, Morgan F.

Department

Dept. of Sociology, Anthropology, and Geography

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

In a world that is increasingly becoming more and more active online, social groups formed on the basis of interests and passions have the propensity to intersect with communities of those who experience marginalization, in this case, autistic people. As such, this work seeks to examine what the basis of an autistic cultural identity is, and how the social factors that it is built on, those being belongingness, social connectedness, and political connectedness, and how they manifest among various online communities, whether it be cosplay fandom, fanfiction communities, or virtual worlds within Minecraft and Second Life. These online communities illustrate these tenets of the autistic cultural identity, as well as how these communities, by the basis of being online, enable autistic social connectedness to occur more readily and smoothly then within everyday life in the “real” world, and the implications of online communities having their own culture groups have on both disability studies and anthropology.

Acknowledgments

This work is dedicated to the UTC Mosaic Program, who have helped me better understand my own autism as something that is inexorably part of me for the better, rather than something that drags me down. It is also dedicated to my family, friends, and professors that have helped me on this journey with no hesitation, and I am forever grateful.

Degree

B. A.; An honors thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Arts.

Date

5-2024

Subject

Autistic people--Social networks

Keyword

Autism; autoethnography; digital worlds; disability studies; autism as culture

Discipline

Sociology of Culture

Document Type

Theses

Extent

ii, 34 leaves

DCMI Type

Text

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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