Robert Chapman

The Politics of Self-narration: Self-Diagnosis as Digital Counter-Narrative - Topoi This article explores the epistemic, political, and affective dimensions of self-narration in relation to neurodivergence and self-diagnosis, focusing on how such practices can resist forms of epistem...

"digital platforms can serve as arenas of epistemic resistance, where lived experience is claimed as collective expertise, challenging traditional medical authority"
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

💫 Highly recommend diving into the new amazing work on the mental hygiene movement in India by my colleague Dr. Shilpi Rajpal. From her concluding remarks:

"This research has investigated an era when the mind sciences gained control and defined every aspect
of the so-called ‘ideal citizen’.... ⏬

"...these diagnoses are increasingly used by students & workers for organising to push back against oppressive systems & institutions of exploitation. The backlash against the expansion of these diagnoses is thus, in significant part, a ruling class backlash against a demand for change..."

THIS is great. I feel like it really just skims the surface too and so much more could be added

"To miss the health element of the current fascist global offensive is to miss a core part of that offensive—we ignore late health fascism at our peril."

💯

Very interesting take on Wes Streetings' recent display of ignorance with regards to what he claims is an 'overdiagnosis' crisis.

ADHD & autism "diagnoses are increasingly used by students & workers for organising to push back against oppressive systems and institutions of exploitation. The backlash against the expansion of these diagnoses is... a ruling class backlash against a demand for change by those who are disabled..."

Something i didn't have time to say is: the standard liberal neurodiversity response of *actually theyre underdiagnosed, the increase is just us getting better at recognising neurodivergence, etc.* is a dead end here as it precisely depoliticises the issue and reifies and essentialises diagnosis.

This is typically brilliant from Robert

The Fascist Echo in Labour's "Over-diagnosis" Inquiry Why Wes Steeting's new inquiry is about more than just renewed austerity

A talk I gave earlier this year has, unfortunately, become relevant again this week so I've published it here.
open.substack.com/pub/neurodiv...

🧔🧠🧙‍♂️

Enemies, Comrades, and The Counterrevolutionary Logic of Cisness - Historical Materialism Nat Raha and Mijke van der Drift, Trans femme futures: Abolitionist ethics for transfeminist worlds. Pluto Press, 2024.  Sophie Lewis, Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses against Liber...

www.historicalmaterialism.org/enemies-comr...

Public Health in the Vilna Ghetto as a Form of Jewish Resistance We describe the system of public health that evolved in the Vilna Ghetto as an illustrative example of Jewish innovation and achievement during the Holocaust. Furthermore, we argue that by cultivating a sophisticated system of public health, the ...

This is an incredible article on how Jews forced into ghettos under the Nazi regime organsied forms of public health as resistance. We can still learn a lot from their efforts, i think, which in some ways seems like an early form of disability justice organising.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

I spend a lot of time searching for things like "fascist health gurus" and the algorithms have noticed.

Advert for Jordan peterson educational course, billed as the perfect anti-woke gift.

This is the sort of advert I've been getting more since I began focusing my research more on the contemporary far right.

Girlguiding bans trans girls from all scouts groups Girlguiding scouting groups will ban all trans girls under policy amendments made this week, according to a national regulator.

Time to start a gender abolitionist youth movement call the Soy Scouts imo.
www.thepinknews.com/2025/12/02/g...

I think if you are an academic emailing precariously employed postdocs asking them to be on advisory panels or to serve as external advisors you should offer to pay them for their time and say exactly how much too.

Its interesting to see how the Your Party conference was reported on. Potential headlines could have included "Your Party becomes first UK Party to include a commitment to trans liberation in its founding documents". But you wouldn't get that from reading the papers.

Now another neurodivergent comrade speaking, critiquing a limited conception of the working class due to its association with a neurotypical and ablebodied ideal.

Great to see a Your Party conference comrade talking about why they need socialism "as a trans, mad, disabled neurodivergent comrade", to much applause.

Nigel Farage’s alleged teenage comments are a distraction from the damage of his politics Reports of such appalling behaviour – and Farage’s reaction – give us an insight into the leader of the UK’s rising far-right party.

If Farage had not acted like this as a teenager or if he apologised, would that mean the politics he has helped mainstream for decades are now acceptable?

While Farage must be called out for these horrible allegations, the issue is far deeper than this or him

theconversation.com/nigel-farage...

Your party Our party Popular Alliance For the Many

You can now vote on what to call Your Party and the shortlist is utter shite.

Israel still committing genocide in Gaza, Amnesty International says The NGO’s chief says last month’s ceasefire ‘risks creating a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal’

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Love to see all the people Farage bullied at college getting revenge almost fifty years later just when he thought everything was going so well. I am here for this.

Marxist theories of fascism see fascism less as a tradition and more as a reoccurring symptom of capitalist decay, like the periodic flaring up of a dormant virus. This helps us understand why many contemporary fascism supporters, stripped of historical memory, don't see themselves as fascists.

Books Not Bars 2025 Holiday Campaign BOOKS NOT BARS FOR THE HOLIDAYS Haymarket Books is committed to making our books available for free to people who are incarcerated. In an effort to support those inside who are dealing with the imm...

Help us send 2,000 books to readers who are incarcerated this winter through our Books Not Bars program

One of the striking things about this article is the role of severe poverty and lack of access to healthcare play in people choosing murderous health cults

"Crip guts, stomas, and the violence of ‘returning to normal’: a feminist queer crip approach to the gut" by Órla Murray
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@drrobertchapman.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/rich...

Eight books to read for UK Disability History Month - LSE Review of Books For UK Disability History Month the LSE community recommends eight books about disability & neurodiversity and the experiences of disabled & neurodiverse people

Nice to see Empire of Normality recommended here.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofb...