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On this CATChat episode, Krysia, Ian and Zoe are reflecting on the first few months of the podcast and thinking about the future of the podcast. They discuss what it means to be an authentic neurodivergent podcast, and also the need to invite others into the conversation.
If you have any questions, or just want to say hi, email us at cat@abdn.ac.uk or find us on twitter @autismtheology.
This podcast is brought to you by The University of Aberdeen's Centre for Autism and Theology.
Transcript available here:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/d7c75a70/transcript.txt
Website: www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/centre-for-the-study-of-autism-and-christian-community-1725.php
The Centre for Autism and Theology logo was designed by Holly Russel.
Creators & Guests
Host
Ian Lasch
PhD candidate at the university of Aberdeen researching autism and the Imago Dei
Host
What is Autism and Theology Podcast?
The Autism and Theology Podcast is a space where we engage with the latest conversations in the field of autism and theology, share relevant resources, and promote ways in which both faith and non-faith communities can enable autistic people to flourish.
Our episodes are released on the first Wednesday of every month. We have a variety of guests who are related in some way to the field of autism and theology. Some are academics, others are people with life stories to share, and some are both!
We also release CATChat every third Wednesday of the month. These are shorter and more informal episodes where your hosts will share news and give you as listeners an opportunity to ask questions and share your stories.
Ian: Welcome to episode five of CATChat, which is a space where we have some more informal conversations about autism and theology, share some of our own experiences and answer questions from listeners. This is a more reflective, uh, sort of meta episode of CATChat where we want to sort of look at where we've been and where we're going, um, things that we know that are, are going well and ways in which we hope to grow and flourish, um, and just sort of look at, um, look at where we've been and, and how things are going.
Zoe: Yeah, we were just, um, saying when planning this episode it's so important to reflect on things and chat to each other. Um, it's been really enjoyable, like, getting to know both of you and also just engaging with different conversations that maybe we wouldn't have had otherwise. And, yeah, it's been a really enjoyable few months.
Krysia: It's also been great fun to work with particularly Zoe and Ian on this. Obviously, I knew them from CAT before, although I'm not actually at CAT, but it's been really great to get to know more people in the centre and see how my work within, uh, sociology of religion so closely intersects with so much of pastoral and practical theology, even though it takes a slightly different lens, it prevents that feedback loop, which helps us basically strengthen our research and helps us ask more questions and also includes more people from different backgrounds in how we talk about, about, and think about autism and theology and church.
Ian: Yeah, and I think knowing that we are contributing in some way to the conversation, which is in the, in an academic timeline, um, autism and theology is really in its infancy, right? Um, so still growing, still expanding, still sort of finding its footing, and knowing that we're helping to contribute to that conversation and helping sort of bring people in conversation with each other, expose people to new ideas.
Um, I think that's, that's really exciting for me because it's, it's just, uh, it's a thrill to be involved in a discipline that's still growing, still developing and to be able to sort of have an influence on that, I think is really cool. And I think that's what we've been doing and will continue to do.
Zoe: Yeah, and I think that's also what I found really enjoyable about CATChat and these spaces is because it's a little bit more informal and just kind of for a field that is, as you said, in its infancy, just having fun with it informal conversations that aren't, that are reflective and not just hard theology and, um, going into detail about stuff. It's really nice to have these spaces.
Krysia: And I guess it kind of links onto what, for me, is the essence of the CAT podcast, is that we're trying to make the best neurodivergent podcast possible. All three of us are neurodivergent and we're trying to, to figure out, um, some things we've done really well and some things we're still at the beginning stages of figuring out what works for us in terms of how we make this look and be the best for us as three neurodivergent people, organising a um, a podcast, I mean one of the phrases which often comes to mind to me, obviously we're not all autistic, but in a lot of all autistic spaces, people often say is trying to manage groups of autistic people is like trying to, um, herd cats around.
And I think it's, and it always makes me laugh that because it shows how different all our needs are and how the different identities we have, the different life experiences we have, and all the different things that we bring to what we do to make CATChat as fantastic as it is and as fantastic as it will become.
Ian: Yeah. And I, that's, um, I think a really important part of this is, is trying to draw from the breadth of autistic and neurodivergent experience and bring in as many people into this conversation as possible so that it doesn't, um, become an echo chamber so that it doesn't become sort of self reflective and just, um, perpetuate the same sets of ideas that may leave certain people and certain experiences out.
Um, but that means that, that it'll be different as a podcast too right, um, that it's not going to be, um, well, that it's, that it's, it's going to be something different maybe than, than a lot of podcasts are because of, um, because of who we are and who it is that we want to, we want to be in conversation with.
Krysia: Yeah, and I guess also who we want to have the conversations with. I guess some of the people I know we have lined up to come on, um, do have quite specific access needs, and I think because of the, um, the values that we three all have, and also the values that CAT have, we seek to be inclusive in what we do, and kind of metaphorically invite. I'd say invite anyone to the table, but there shouldn't be a table because we're all, we're all here, we should be here anyway.
But it means that perhaps the way we might do things might sound sometimes a bit where they have pre set questions. This is to help people be able to share their stories so it's not just us as two autistic people and a dyslexic person sharing everything with our views so that actually we can welcome more people to the conversation.
Zoe: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we've kind of had conversations about this, like, we want this podcast to be authentic and natural to whoever's speaking on it, including us as hosts. And, um, you know, things like we love a bit of structure, um it's helpful to know, like, who's speaking when. And we're kind of reflecting on that as creating spaces where neurodivergent people are comfortable maybe isn't always the smoothest thing possible, if that makes sense.
But that is something authentic, and it's how we work but yeah, it's important to do things in a way that's natural and helpful for us. And we hope that in doing that, we're then more inclusive and welcoming of other people as well, I guess.
Krysia: I guess it means that we're still figuring out, um, there are still things, some things we are figuring out in terms of, for some groups of people.
We're still figuring out how being part of the conversation would work best for them. Because what we don't want to do is set up a kind of a space that doesn't feel comfortable and that doesn't align with our values and the centre's values. It's really important that anyone who has something that is significant and everyone can share their story and everyone can contribute to the growing field and help shape what's out there.
Ian: And I think I think not to pat ourselves on the back, but I think that's one of the great things about this is that we are so open to feedback, right? So if you're listening and you know someone who would be a valuable contributor who has research to share, we are open to hearing that if you have feedback or research or even just random thoughts to share, we're certainly open to hearing those two.
And we always You know, end with where you can reach us by email and that sort of thing. Um, and I think that that openness, I don't know, maybe that's maybe a lot of podcasts are that way, but especially for something that, that could very well turn out to be a closed conversation with with firm walls in place, having that sort of porous barrier and saying, please give us whatever feedback you have is a really important measure of this so that we're not, you know, we can only come from our own experience. We only know the people that we know. Um, but being open to meeting new people and hearing new perspectives, I think is, is important too.
Krysia: Definitely. And there are people who are lined up from, from January onwards, who are perhaps not at the centre, but who are known to people at the centre, who we've, we know have done some interesting work, or have an interesting story to share, or have worked with some interesting people.
And actually it's about pulling in wider from the centre, firstly from our networks, but also you as listeners as well.
Zoe: Yeah, and also something that's been really, really cool is seeing how many different countries we're being listened to in. And I think I was surprised, um, I mean, our listeners, you're all predominantly UK and America, but there's a lot of listeners in a lot of different countries.
So we would also really like, if you have perspectives that are very different from our context and where we are coming from and where the people who we're bringing onto this podcast are coming from, please let us know like, as Grant McCaskill kind of talked about in the first episode, we want this, the Centre and Autism Theology to be a global conversation, and that's something that we hope our listeners who aren't from the UK or America or other places where there's a lot of conversations going on. We hope that you feel like you can share with us what, where we're missing, where we've got blind spots in the conversation, because that's really important to us.
Krysia: Definitely, as some, um, I don't know how many of you know, I did my first degree in foreign languages before I've kind of went into autism and theology. So, I did French and German, and having both worked in Germany and studied in France, I'm aware there's very different understandings of what it is to be autistic and how I was, I would say, handled and managed within the French university system, and that's even in a kind of kind of geolocation close to us in the UK.
So I'm, I think we're all particularly aware that there's so much globally that people are going to have to share with us and actually to help us and also help shape some of the future conversation that's going on.
Ian: And especially for a conversation like Autism in Theology, where the conversation around autism, one of the biggest criticisms that's lobbied is that it, it listens too much to one side or another, or one perspective or another.
What we, what is really important, I think, especially for a growing discipline is to listen to as many perspectives as possible, because this, this field being in its infancy means we have the potential now to set the terms of the conversation, and we can do that in a way that includes everyone and gives everyone voice and vote, or we can do it in a way that only listens to certain voices.
And we desperately want to do the former and not the latter. Um, so I, I think that's, I think we're, I think we're doing that as well as we can. I think that that's something that we need to continue to grow in and continue to hear from different people in, um, but I, it's important enough and I think important enough to us that I'm optimistic about it.
Krysia: Same, I'm really excited for some of the people we have who we'll be having conversations with and um, but also for the people we don't know who haven't reached out to us yet actually that we're yet to meet.
Zoe: Yeah I'm very much looking forward to seeing how this kind of grows and develops and how this podcast can flourish into something that is helpful and significant and impactful, um, and a way of communicating the amazing research that's being done in the field of autism and theology. And I hope that as the field kind of grows and develops that that comes into the conversations we're having as well.
And yeah, it's, I feel very excited to be part of this project and to be working with so many exciting people on it.
Krysia: And I guess also it's about bringing in other neurodivergent experiences as well. Um, and it's something we were saying just before the, we started our recording, was actually that there isn't kind of one autistic experience or one neurodivergent experience.
And it relates back to the comment I made about kind of chasing cats, we're all so different. Um, we're very welcome to as well hearing from people who have other Neurodivergent experiences as well because so many people have so many different kind of experiences of the world and that's wonderful.
Zoe: Yeah, I think this is something that I really appreciate about the Centre is how welcoming, um, the community has been of me not researching autism and not being autistic. Um, and just also how I think I've mentioned this in previous episodes, just finding better understanding of myself as a neurodivergent people through learning from people who, um, maybe have more of an understanding of what it means to be a neurodivergent person than I do.
Um, and just realising things like masking or whatever else and sensory overload that I didn't really understand before speaking to autistic people who have thought a lot more about it than I have. Um, and yes, it's really, I think it's important that we preserve spaces for talking about autism, but it's also really lovely to be brought into these conversations and to have other neurodivergent people in these conversations as well.
Krysia: I completely agree because there'll be many other autistic people who will either have other support needs or will come from different backgrounds and it's really important that we as a podcast when we talk about who we're talking about we don't default kind of the white middle class autistic person with no, with no other support needs that we look at people in all their wonderful wonder and all their beauty with all the different support needs and strengths and talents that they have to help us understand more about how to enrich both our conversation and the field of neurodivergence and theology.
Ian: Right, and how do we, how do we contribute to that conversation, advance that conversation in a way that doesn't establish a sort of autistic normalcy, right, that doesn't say, here's what autism is, and this is our prescription of it, and everyone has to conform to this, or they're not really autistic, or they don't, you know, they don't belong in this community.
That's the, that's the, the joy and the responsibility and the, the, um, anxiety in some ways around being part of this conversation so early is that we, we, we want to shape it in the right ways. And, and we don't even necessarily know what those are, because the truth is, we only have our own experience to draw from.
So, um, I think I like the fact that we're actively seeking to have more people in this conversation who have a variety of different experiences. I think we are always going to have further to go in that regard. Um, and so I'm, I'm excited to see where it takes us.
Zoe: Yeah and we're so pleased and really appreciative of all of our listeners who have got in touch with us to either share their experiences or give us feedback both, um, areas that we can grow and, um, things that they've enjoyed about the podcast and most of all we're very much appreciating all the cat pictures.
Um, I end up doing a lot of the emails for CAT and it just always brings me joy when there's a picture of a cat that pops up and it's, yeah, so very grateful.
Krysia: I'm glad we set that standard that people feel comfortable to kind of send pictures of cats.
Fudge likes seeing all the cats. She doesn't like other cats. Um, in person, but she likes seeing pictures of them. So definitely keep sending us pictures of your pets. Um, it brings us all such a smile when, especially Zoe when she's going through the email inbox, because it's something just nice and light and it's, it's enjoyable, which is what we want this conversation to be.
And I guess this is also a good point to wrap this conversation up, um, in essence. Um, if you have anything you'd like to share with us, we'd love to hear from you. So feel free to email us at cat@abdn.ac.Uk, um, and we look forward to, being with you again for our next podcast episode.