Interpreting and Treating Autism in Javanese Indonesia: Listening to Folk Perspectives on Developmental Difference and Inclusion
In chapter 5, “Interpreting and Treating Autism in Javanese Indonesia: Listening to Folk Perspectives on Developmental Difference and Inclusion,” Annie Tucker shifts our discussion focus from diabetes to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Following a year and a half of ethnographic fieldwork in Yogyakarta and Jakarta, Indonesia, Tucker observes that while the concept of “autism” remains comparatively new to the region, there are, in fact, operant models of developmental difference in Javanese Indonesia, and a robust repertory of available responses to ASD. While weighing the benefits and challenges of adopting and mobilizing a globalized paradigm of developmental difference, Tucker illustrates how looking at meaningful embodied folk practices of inclusion might identify potentially powerful local interventions that could be disseminated, specifically describing the work of a Yogyakarta gamelan group that uses traditional music towards individually and socially therapeutic ends.