Dynamic Frame Building and Communitas in Autistic Workplaces: A search for field sites
In 2018, series of newspaper articles and United Nations memos from the Committee on the Rights of the Child reported that autistic children in France were frequently denied education, often only had access to inadequate psychoanalytic treatments or were sequestered in psychiatric day hospitals and were sometimes even removed from their homes (Chrisafis 2018). Ultimately, these accounts frame autism as a highly stigmatized and misunderstood condition, by both the French psychological community and the country at large, rooted in a fundamental difference in its clinical interpretation as compared to the rest of Western Europe. However, these critiques fail to demonstrate how autistic people successfully participate, exist, and thrive in the French social milieu. My project seeks to address this question through an ethnographic study of an employment training program at a special education facility (IME) in Paris, France which takes the form of an adaptive café. This program seeks to imbue autistic youth between the ages of 16 and 22 with the skills necessary to seek external employment in food service once they age out of the IME. The ultimate objective of the café project is to increase these youths’ autonomy, diversify their options for the future, and increase their social inclusion. However, it is necessary to interrogate what this objective means (both for educators and autistic youth), how it is enacted, and, ultimately, its attainability. I therefore guide my research by asking: “What does labor do for autistic individuals in France?”
With the funds awarded through the Robert Lemelson Fellowship, I was able to return to the field in the summer of 2023 to expand upon my previous research. Dynamics at the café have shifted significantly (and unexpectedly) since the summer of 2022. Three of my principal interlocutors departed the IME for other opportunities and the program has expanded to include a greater number of both youth and educators from the IME in an effort to distribute the labor demanded by the café more equally. At the same time, the café has experienced a significant increase in popularity and a decrease in efficacy, as a result of an influx of new educators who are not fully trained to work food service. These changes have produced an interesting dynamic in which the café’s institutional commitment to adaptation and inclusion is tested in the face of demanding clients who often are unaware of the social purpose of the café. I documented these shifting priorities carefully during my field visit. This analysis has served to challenge my previous conceptions of what, exactly, is going on at the café, as well as providing a valuable lesson in the precarious temporality of the field. This experience has been invaluable to building out a nuanced and layered exploration of my principal research question.
In addition to revisiting the café and its dynamics as a whole, I was also able to pay particular attention to labor training exercises through the collection of audio-visual data. I attended and recorded training sessions run by the IME’s speech therapist for several youth who were preparing to begin participation in the café program. I not only observed these sessions, but also participated in them. This allowed me to both observe the skills deemed necessary for the youth to gain in order to become productive participants at the café and also become aware of the challenges educators face in negotiating methods for adapting the café to the needs of autistic youth who require different and/more supports.
I additionally participated in several political/social outreach events the café hosted and/or participated in during my field visit. This included an inclusive event at the mansion of the mayor of the 3rd arrondissement, where the café is located, which featured representatives from various local organizations for individuals with disabilities. I also had various conversations with educators and administrators about the expansion program they are preparing to launch, which will place autistic youth in externships in the kitchens of the Louvre and French National Assembly.
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, I presented my work to-date directly to my interlocutors. This allowed me to gain renewed consent, strengthened my relationship with actors at the IME, and hear the perspectives of my interlocutors. This would not have been possible with the generous funding I received from the Lemelson Fellowship. I will continue this important work next year as I embark on my dissertation research.