Mapping ADHD Globally
This was my first project in my research on ADHD. It took me a while to figure out how and what to plot on my map. I have been accumulating articles—both popular media and academic journals—and was not sure how to give each one a geographical location that the map demands. So, I started looking for the author’s geographical locations, or locations of geographical markers mentioned in the articles as I archived them. The geo-spatial dimension suddenly gave a new meaning to the information gathered. I still wasn’t sure or, to be more accurate, am not sure what the information will lead to; marking academic journals and related talks or videos was much easier than plotting origins of popular media articles since I could locate the university where the journal was authored or, where the talk was being given, but it was not always easy to find a geographical connection to an article in, for example, Bustle.com. However, as I started examining my emerging map, I began to see locations where ADHD related discourses were taking place and conversely, sites that they were conspicuously absent! Nevertheless, I don’t think that places of emergence of popular discourses necessarily mean that other places (say the mid-west, where I haven’t seen anything so far, and I must add that my research is still nascent) do not have the conversations at their disposal. This realization in turn led to a curiosity about the prevalence of ADHD on a global scale; I started looking at known support groups as a marker for a society’s awareness of ADHD and as a sign that steps had been taken to address ADHD. The list is by no means comprehensive and I do not know about the extent of their reach through the Internet or doctor’s offices. The marks are merely an indicator of ‘known’ trends in a given part of the world. No doubt, if I were to go into each country and look for literature and awareness of ADHD, I would find more (fig. 5).
I also started to see different dimensions developing such as, the role of media or discursive formations in the media, versus discursive formations in academia. I hope to juxtapose those reflections with personal interviews with mental health professionals, parents, teachers, and individuals to gain a three dimensional view of social and personal constructs of ADHD. In addition, as mentioned before, the map is beginning to define areas where ADHD is invisible and underrepresented raising questions such as, what social and cultural constructs help further the understanding of ADHD? What social and cultural constructs hinder the recognition of ADHD in these areas? How does media construct the social understanding on the one hand and what do professionals and those diagnosed say on the other? And, how do I map all this information for the consumer?
I was particularly delighted with Mei Po Kwan’s work in GS technologies and her quest to plot personal histories and emotions as a counter to the “omission of bodies” in development and use of GS technologies, (therefore there is no room for “emotions, feelings, values, ethics”), and secondly, bodies being merely treated as things. Kwan says, “the disembodied practices of GT, are contestable as they are largely the result of a particular understanding of science and objectivity (Kwan 2002a). This historically specific and socially constructed notion of science, as Donna Haraway argues, is predicated on the positionality of the disembodied master subject with transcendent vision…the kind of knowledge produced with such disembodied positionality denies the partiality of the knower, erases subjectivities, and ignores the power relations involved in all forms of knowledge production (Foucault 1977)” (24). Knowledge production, power relations, subsequent visibility and invisibility form the heart of my research. For instance, not so long ago in medical science the power lay with the doctor, or the expert, to speak about the disorder in a consultation (Bristowe , 552, Norris, 136). Claire Norris and Gwynedd Lloyd, researchers from the University of Edinburgh, UK, have done a study that addresses power in discourse called, “Parents, professionals and ADHD: What the Papers Say,” that looks at newspaper coverage of the disorder and the way newspapers furthered the parents’ skepticism of the disorder. The authors note that, “parents have challenged the medical profession publicly and vociferously argued their case,” something that might not have been possible a few years ago when the relationships between medical professionals and patients were very different (136). While I have not yet ascertained how I would represent power, knowledge, emotion, and personal experience in my mapping project, I am excited at the potential of artistic presentation of my research through digital humanities. I am also eager to engage with the gendered nature of this methodology in that, in GS technologies “objectivity and rationality may have been valued, and implicitly masculinized, while engagement, subjectivity, passion and desire have been devalued, and frequently feminized” (Anderson and Smith in Kwan, 24). I found this understanding of mapping and representation through Kwan, invaluable: “If the world is imbued with complex emotional geographies, GT practices are more relevant to real lives if they allow us to take spatial, temporal, and social effects of feelings into account. To neglect how research and social life are mediated by feelings and emotions is to exclude a key set of relations through which lives are lived, societies made, and knowledge produced (Anderson and Smith 2001)” (24).
It is really easy to take quantitative data and plot it on the world map. But how does qualitative analysis take on the form of quantitative data long enough to be plotted on the map, even if all it does is enact the role of a signifier? I think this is really important; as Kwan points out, my attention to ADHD in society was provoked by events in my personal life and my emotional reactions to those events. Questions remain: how do I show personal experiences on the map? How do I abstract my positionality without the very specific, physical geographical markers in space? A plot of experiences and memories might define my positionality (places I lived in, schools I went to) but what of the genetic components of ADHD? What of the workings of the brain? How do I map thought patterns of an ADHD brain? Perhaps each geographical marker could carry a memory in the form of a narrative, or art; each participant’s trajectory in my ethnographic research could be plotted through such a geographical-mind map. As I continue to work through this, I keep Kwan’s words close: “we can experiment with new geospatial practices that better articulate the complex realities of gendered, classed, raced, and sexualized spaces, and experiences of individuals” (24).