Month: May 2023

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enjoying a marvellous workshop today at Oxford co-hosted by Morgan Clarke and Ali-Reza Bhojani exploring Ethnographic theology in Islam. We’re exploring the challenges of defining the meaning of “theology” and ethnographic practice for this kind of interdisciplinary methodology, and also the ways that each challenges the practices of the other in helpful ways.

Big questions around the ways we define positionality of the researcher (how much should one disclose? why are some religious agents expected to do more disclosure than their secular counterparts – and vice versa?). Highlighting the problems of activist / researcher binaries, and exploring the presence of messy forms of religion in hybrid formulations, secular theologies (of capitalism, liberalism…).

I’ve also had the terrific collection of essays in Parralax by @mhbastian and friends on “Field Philosophy and Other Experiments” in mind as specialists in Anthropology of Islam, legal scholars, and moral philosophers raise questions around disciplinary boundaries and the negotiation of personal and collaborative values and ethics.

Question for #ActuallyAutistic and #ADHD ers, as well as UK HE specialists and lawyers… I’m wondering if it is a breach of the UK 2010 equalities act to deny students reasonable accommodation until they have formal diagnosis of their neurodivergence?

I gather waiting lists for diagnosis are in some local authorities more than 3 years (eg an entire University degree) and the diagnostic instruments authorised for use in most cases (eg ADOS) are known to be significantly flawed (disproportionately denying diagnosis at rates of greater than 2x to non-male, non-cis and non-white folx).

I’ll post later on a deep dive I’ve done into HESA data on underreporting of invisible disabilities in British Universities which is pretty shocking.

But my key curiosity for now is whether it would be reasonable to suggest that Universities are risking viable legal action based on their disability and accommodation policies. It seems that the moral arguments are often less effective than procedural and legal ones, so just vetting tactics of resistance that work within these cultural dynamics…

For those who are wondering, you can find the specifics of the act re: disability here: https://www.gov.uk/definition-of-disability-under-equality-act-2010. A disability which qualifies is “a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities”. I know of some conditions which are de facto be self-certified, but this has always been problematic for autism which is far more medicalised and controlled as a category.

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I’ve been thinking quite a lot this summer about Autism/ADHD and digital accessibility. I’ve experienced a huge amount of personal friction and stress around the various digital tools we’re given, the instability around our offering, etc. but have struggled to articulate what exactly the underpinning source of that challenge is. I suspect there will be some conflicting or diverging needs coming from colleagues navigating similar impulses in different ways. One key issue, I think is that the current model works off of stereotypical presentations and is not drawing actual ND people into the design process.

One of mine big frustrations is when IT tools change their layout just “cause”. I am constantly cursing “try the new outlook” messages which keep popping up with increasing aggressiveness. When I know where stuff is, I can use it really efficiently. When stuff gets moved around, esp. without warning, but also without any functional benefit (e.g. rebranding), it takes energy to reorient, and then friction for several weeks as I get used to the new pattern. Way too many spoons for something that has no link to actual changes in work practice or productivity.

Approaching software from a ND perspective, interface design is really important. Good design has a kind of flow which can make work a joy. I don’t think this is unusual or uniquely neurodivergent as we’ve all worked with an app that made us want to throw a device across the room. But, bad interface design can be literally painful for ND folks to navigate (there is scholarly literature around good UX practice here). All that to say, putting in the time to learn an interface is a major investment of energy. With that in mind, I completely resent unnecessary interface changes that aren’t attached to feature enhancements. Changing the “look” of a piece of software for the sake of an arbitrary rebranding exercise may seem innocuous for many people, but it can actually be a pretty cruel thing to inflict on autistic end-users. So it’s with this in mind that I’ve got a question for the experts here… Microsoft wants me to “try the new outlook for Mac”. I have tried it and prefer not to bother as it is an unnecessary cosmetic change. Microsoft pretends that I have a choice not to adopt this change, but then badgers me with reminders every time I open the app. I have changed and reverted back several times as these “hints” escalate to enforced demands. TBH, if Microsoft can’t figure this all out I’m going to just have to find another email client, as this is the third arbitrary redesign in the Outlook UI in 5 years.