Podcasting as scholarly practice of care. Producing, contributing to and listening to Autistic Counterstories

Objectives

This co-authored article examines podcasting as a scholarly practice of care. Our case study is Autistic Counterstories, a three-part podcast mini-series which sets out to celebrate and affirm the diverse perspectives of autistic people, informed by research developments and lived experiences. The authors of this article reflect on podcasting as a scholarly practice of care from within their specific positionalities as producers, contributors and listeners.

Methods

This article plays with the form and style of academic writing to capture the affordances of podcasting to both represent individual thought, as well as to stage dialogic exchange. The authors of the article first present their individual perspectives on their engagement with Autistic Counterstories before engaging in a dialogic exchange.

Results

The Individual Perspectives of the various contributors reveal a polyphony of engagement with Autistic Counterstories, including some unresolved tensions. The Discussion weaves together exchanges about three issues, i.e. the need for critical awareness of podcasting as mediated – and therefore limited – encounter; the specific kind of care involved in podcasting, which differs from traditional research projects; and the real value of podcasting – not as a finished product – but as ‘continuing conversation’ and ongoing process of encountering with care.

Conclusions

This article, we hope, constitutes such a ‘continuing conversation’ in action. One particular value of the encounter we have staged in this article (especially in the dialogic Discussion section) is that it provides space to critically reflect on limitations, imperfections and tensions in the podcasting process – in a way that they could not be addressed during the production process. Here, there is a clear synergy between the spaces of the scholarly podcast and academic article. This article itself serves to demonstrate that we should not aim for podcasting to deliver a final ‘perfect’ product, but rather that it should prompt continuing conversations, where we take care to navigate the complexities of the podcasting process.