Monique Botha on funding priorities and community justice

Why is the funding agenda for autism research so far from what the communities concerned want? There’s a long tradition of prioritising neurobiological and genetic work over qualitative, but how did it get this way? Sohail interviews Dr Monique Botha about citational justice, emotion in research, participatory research accessibility, and why letting community-led neurodivergence research out of its silo would benefit neurotypical and neurodivergent populations alike. 

Dr Monique Botha (they/them) is an Assistant Professor in the University of Durham’s Department of Psychology, where they are completing a Leverhulme Fellowship begun in their prior role at the University of Stirling titled “Fragile Knowledge: Dehumanisation & Interpretation Bias in Autism Research”.  They are a Community Psychologist with a focus on autism, social psychology, equality, and mental health. They are passionate about producing research that can help autistic people of all ages to live equitably in communities.   

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References and resources

• Monique’s publications

Articles discussed in this episode:

• Botha, M. (2021). Academic, Activist, or Advocate? Angry, Entangled, and Emerging: A Critical Reflection on Autism Knowledge Production. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, Article 727542. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.727542 
• Botha, M., & Cage, E. (2022). “Autism research is in crisis”: A mixed method study of researcher’s constructions of autistic people and autism research. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, Article 1050897. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1050897 
• Cage, E., Crompton, C. J., Dantas, S., Strachan, K., Birch, R., Robinson, M., Morgan-Appel, S., MacKenzie-Nash, C., Gallagher, A., & Botha, M. (2024). What are the autism research priorities of autistic adults in Scotland?. Autism, 28(9), 2179 – 2190. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613231222656 
• Pearson, A., Rose, K., Mitchell, A., Joseph, W., Douglas, S., Sedgewick, F., & Botha, M. (online). “It’s not a physical prison but you can’t get out”. How autistic adults make sense of the experience of intimate violence and abuse. Autism in Adulthood, https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2024.0145

Books:

• Chapman, Robert (2023) Empire of Normality 
• Kapp, Steven (2020) Autistic Community and the Neurodiversity Movement: Stories from the Frontline (open access PDF)

Networks, organisations & individuals: 

• Ann Memmot
• STARTS network
• Sunderland People First