Michael Arribas-Ayllon
Biographic Data
| ID | 2648432 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Arribas-Ayllon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Arribas-Ayllon |
| SIGNATURE | ARRIBAS-AYLLON M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cardiff University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2669-2781 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 62 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Autism and educational governance
This paper examines the historical entanglement of autism diagnosis and educational governance in England and Wales. It develops the concept of diagnostic regimes – the assemblage of laws, routines and classificatory infrastructures through which diagnosis functions as a policy instrument. Using autism as a paradigmatic case, the analysis demonstrates how diagnostic categories have become embedded in eligibility rules, funding formulae, tribunal …
Autism in Wales
Autism diagnosis in Wales
The medicalisation of autism has traditionally been framed as a process driven by professional expansion or parental advocacy. However, in state-managed healthcare systems, medicalisation is increasingly structured through governance and policy mechanisms. This paper examines governance-driven medicalisation in Wales, where neurodevelopmental (ND) care pathways regulate autism diagnosis through standardisation, eligibility criteria and administra…
Caring through things at a distance
The COVID-19 crisis in the UK precipitated a sharp rise in the use of remote technologies to provide therapy during the lockdown. With mental health care services migrating to devices and video-conferencing platforms, nearly all forms of therapy had become 'teletherapy'. Drawing on interviews with UK-based practitioners, this paper explores how existing ideas of intimacy and presence are challenged when care is practiced at a distance. Against th…
Can Genomics Remove Uncertainty from Adoption? Social Workers’ and Medical Advisors’ Accounts of Genetic Testing
Genetic testing is controversial in adoption with professionals taking different positions on whether children should be protected from genetic information or whether it can be used to assist adoption. In this article, we argue that advances in ‘genome-wide’ testing add further complications to these debates. Although next-generation sequencing (NGS) and microarray-based technologies can offer high-quality molecular diagnoses for a variety of con…
Foucauldian Discourse Analysis
After geneticization
The concept of geneticization belongs to a style of thinking within the social sciences that refers to wide-ranging processes and consequences of genetic knowledge. Lippman's original use of the term was political, anticipating the onerous consequences of genetic reductionism and determinism, while more recent engagements emphasise the productivity and heterogeneity of genetic concepts, practices and technologies. This paper reconstructs the gene…
Counselling uncertainty
In genetic counselling, uncertainty is central to the client–professional relationship where decisions are made on the basis of risk information/assessment. For various historical reasons, genetic counsellors adopt an ethos of ‘nondirectiveness’ to communicate risk and offer support without advising their clients on what decisions to reach. However, nondirectiveness remains an ambiguous and contested concept that has acquired a negative meaning o…
Sociological Ambivalence and the Order of Scientific Knowledge
Merton's early work on the ambivalence of scientists illustrates the productivity of importing a psychological concept to sociology. For commentators on the experience of modern societies, ambivalence describes the contradictory affective dimension of late modernity. In this article, our aim is to understand the extent to which sociological ambivalence reveals the contradictory relations between two orders of scientific knowledge: the epistemic a…
Complexity and accountability
This paper examines the role of complexity in descriptions of the aetiology of common psychiatric disorders. While scientists attest to the discovery of an underlying reality of complex inheritance — the so-called ‘witches’ brew’ of genetic and non-genetic factors — we argue that ‘complexity’ also performs rhetorical work. In our analysis of scientific review papers (1999—2008), we find a relatively stable genre of accountability in which descrip…
The practical ethics of genetic responsibility
Foucauldian Discourse Analysis
Managing self-responsibility through other-oriented blame
The micropolitics of responsibility vis-à-vis autonomy
Genetic testing and (non)disclosure of genetic information present ethical and moral dilemmas for the management of parental responsibility vis-à-vis the child's autonomy. Ethical guidelines aimed at professionals currently seek to defer childhood testing where there is no clear medical or psychosocial benefit. This version of autonomy is derived from a bioethical paradigm which brackets the individual rights and capacities of the child. In this …
After geneticization
The concept of geneticization belongs to a style of thinking within the social sciences that refers to wide-ranging processes and consequences of genetic knowledge. Lippman's original use of the term was political, anticipating the onerous consequences of genetic reductionism and determinism, while more recent engagements emphasise the productivity and heterogeneity of genetic concepts, practices and technologies. This paper reconstructs the gene…
Managing self-responsibility through other-oriented blame
The practical ethics of genetic responsibility
Sociological Ambivalence and the Order of Scientific Knowledge
Merton's early work on the ambivalence of scientists illustrates the productivity of importing a psychological concept to sociology. For commentators on the experience of modern societies, ambivalence describes the contradictory affective dimension of late modernity. In this article, our aim is to understand the extent to which sociological ambivalence reveals the contradictory relations between two orders of scientific knowledge: the epistemic a…
The micropolitics of responsibility vis-à-vis autonomy
Genetic testing and (non)disclosure of genetic information present ethical and moral dilemmas for the management of parental responsibility vis-à-vis the child's autonomy. Ethical guidelines aimed at professionals currently seek to defer childhood testing where there is no clear medical or psychosocial benefit. This version of autonomy is derived from a bioethical paradigm which brackets the individual rights and capacities of the child. In this …
Caring through things at a distance
The COVID-19 crisis in the UK precipitated a sharp rise in the use of remote technologies to provide therapy during the lockdown. With mental health care services migrating to devices and video-conferencing platforms, nearly all forms of therapy had become 'teletherapy'. Drawing on interviews with UK-based practitioners, this paper explores how existing ideas of intimacy and presence are challenged when care is practiced at a distance. Against th…
Foucauldian Discourse Analysis
Managing self-responsibility through other-oriented blame
The micropolitics of responsibility vis-à-vis autonomy
Genetic testing and (non)disclosure of genetic information present ethical and moral dilemmas for the management of parental responsibility vis-à-vis the child's autonomy. Ethical guidelines aimed at professionals currently seek to defer childhood testing where there is no clear medical or psychosocial benefit. This version of autonomy is derived from a bioethical paradigm which brackets the individual rights and capacities of the child. In this …
Complexity and accountability
This paper examines the role of complexity in descriptions of the aetiology of common psychiatric disorders. While scientists attest to the discovery of an underlying reality of complex inheritance — the so-called ‘witches’ brew’ of genetic and non-genetic factors — we argue that ‘complexity’ also performs rhetorical work. In our analysis of scientific review papers (1999—2008), we find a relatively stable genre of accountability in which descrip…
The practical ethics of genetic responsibility
Counselling uncertainty
In genetic counselling, uncertainty is central to the client–professional relationship where decisions are made on the basis of risk information/assessment. For various historical reasons, genetic counsellors adopt an ethos of ‘nondirectiveness’ to communicate risk and offer support without advising their clients on what decisions to reach. However, nondirectiveness remains an ambiguous and contested concept that has acquired a negative meaning o…
Sociological Ambivalence and the Order of Scientific Knowledge
Merton's early work on the ambivalence of scientists illustrates the productivity of importing a psychological concept to sociology. For commentators on the experience of modern societies, ambivalence describes the contradictory affective dimension of late modernity. In this article, our aim is to understand the extent to which sociological ambivalence reveals the contradictory relations between two orders of scientific knowledge: the epistemic a…
After geneticization
The concept of geneticization belongs to a style of thinking within the social sciences that refers to wide-ranging processes and consequences of genetic knowledge. Lippman's original use of the term was political, anticipating the onerous consequences of genetic reductionism and determinism, while more recent engagements emphasise the productivity and heterogeneity of genetic concepts, practices and technologies. This paper reconstructs the gene…
Foucauldian Discourse Analysis
Can Genomics Remove Uncertainty from Adoption? Social Workers’ and Medical Advisors’ Accounts of Genetic Testing
Genetic testing is controversial in adoption with professionals taking different positions on whether children should be protected from genetic information or whether it can be used to assist adoption. In this article, we argue that advances in ‘genome-wide’ testing add further complications to these debates. Although next-generation sequencing (NGS) and microarray-based technologies can offer high-quality molecular diagnoses for a variety of con…
Caring through things at a distance
The COVID-19 crisis in the UK precipitated a sharp rise in the use of remote technologies to provide therapy during the lockdown. With mental health care services migrating to devices and video-conferencing platforms, nearly all forms of therapy had become 'teletherapy'. Drawing on interviews with UK-based practitioners, this paper explores how existing ideas of intimacy and presence are challenged when care is practiced at a distance. Against th…
Autism in Wales
Autism diagnosis in Wales
The medicalisation of autism has traditionally been framed as a process driven by professional expansion or parental advocacy. However, in state-managed healthcare systems, medicalisation is increasingly structured through governance and policy mechanisms. This paper examines governance-driven medicalisation in Wales, where neurodevelopmental (ND) care pathways regulate autism diagnosis through standardisation, eligibility criteria and administra…
Autism and educational governance
This paper examines the historical entanglement of autism diagnosis and educational governance in England and Wales. It develops the concept of diagnostic regimes – the assemblage of laws, routines and classificatory infrastructures through which diagnosis functions as a policy instrument. Using autism as a paradigmatic case, the analysis demonstrates how diagnostic categories have become embedded in eligibility rules, funding formulae, tribunal …
Sociology (10 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Political science (6 works) · BRCA gene mutations in cancer (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Ambivalence (3 works) · Argument (complex analysis (3 works) · Autism (3 works)