Concepts of autonomy and care in the context of parenting

Possibilities for interpreting the autonomy experiences of families raising children with disabilities

Abstract

The aim of the study is, on the one hand, to draw a conceptual framework in which the relationship between the supportive network and the experience of autonomy of parents raising a child with a disability can be shown. To do all this, it is necessary to describe the major theoretical approaches and debates that have unfolded around the study of the care experience of these parents in recent decades. A detailed overview of the very diverse literature is not possible within the framework of this study. I will only highlight one aspect in my analysis, which is nevertheless a decisive factor in both care research and disability research, and which is also a defining aspect in the field of disability and parenthood. In what follows, I attempt to outline the approach and emphases that the concepts of dependency and autonomy appear in care concepts in general, and how all of this is reflected back in the topic of parental care for children with disabilities. In this regard, the application of the concept of relational autonomy offers a fruitful approach to shed light on how parents experiencing many forms of exclusion and vulnerability find the experience of support and independence in the care network. The conceptual framework serves as a methodological basis for an ongoing fieldwork research, that examines supportive relationships of parents raising children with ASD in a Hungarian rural area. In the second part of the study, I reflect to the methodological questions of analysing autonomy experiences of these parents, with the implementation of relational autonomy, considering the complex relations around parental care. Using the concept of caringscapes this approach gives a prospect to ethnographic understanding of parental care.