Camouflaging – also known as masking – has recently been described as a set of actions and strategies more or less consciously adopted by some autistic people to navigate the neurotypical social world. The nature of the phenomenon is still insufficiently understood, along with its significance in autism and other mental conditions – such as BPD – as well as its occurrence in social relationships among neurotypicals. This Knowledge Exchange Event aims to promote a comprehensive discussion on camouflaging that explores phenomenological aspects and people’s experienced life-worlds. The online workshop will bring together clinical, philosophical, and lived experience perspectives from researchers and practitioners. 

** All times are based on Central European Summer Time (CEST) **

Day 1 - September 28 

4:00-4:30 PM: Introduction (organizers) + Thomas Fuchs (Heidelberg) (case-study)

4:30-5:30 PM: Amy Pearson (Sunderland) - "Understanding Autistic Masking as a Response to Stigma"

5:30-6:00 PM: Ana-Maria Hojbota (ARCHER) & Daniel Nica (Bucharest) - "Between Camouflaging and Authenticity: Examining Impression Management and Frame-Switching in the context of Cross-Neurotype and Cross-Cultural Communication"

6:00-6:30 PM: Break

6:30-7:30 PM: Valeria Bizzari (Leuven) – "Gendered Experiences. Camouflaging in Female and Queer Autistic"

7:30-8:00 PM: Emily Hughes (York) - "Camouflaging and the Female Autism Phenotype"

8:00-9.00 PM: Valentina Petrolini (Basque Country) & Philipp Schmidt (Heidelberg & Würzburg) - "Integrating Research on Camouflaging":

8:00-8: 15 PM: Philipp Schmidt (Heidelberg & Würzburg) – "'Master of Disguise'? – Camouflaging in BPD"

8:15-8:30 PM: Valentina Petrolini (Basque Country) – "Camouflaging in and beyond Autism"

8:30-9:00 PM: Valentina Petrolini (Basque Country) & Philipp Schmidt (Heidelberg & Würzburg)  – "Camouflaging in Autism and BPD: Same or Different?" + Q&A

Day 2 - September 29 

3:30-4:30 PM: Heidi Maibom (Basque Country & Cincinnati) - "'I’m Just a Nice Guy': Self-insight, camouflaging, and psychopathy"

4:30-5:30 PM: Anna Bortolan (Swansea) - "Pretending to Be Myself: On Concealing and Selfhood in the Experience of Anxiety"

5:30-6:00 PM: Break

6:00-6:30 PM: Ruby Hake (Exeter) - "As Intersectional Identities Add Up, There Become More Things to Mask: an Early Exploration of Autistic Trans Camouflaging"

6:30-7:30 PM: Joel Krueger (Exeter) - "Loneliness, Masking, and Affective Injustice in Autism"

7:30-8:00 PM: Roy Dings (Radboud) - "The Camouflaged Self: How Camouflaging May Give Rise to Experiences of Self-Self Ambiguity in People with Personality Disorder"

8:00 PM: General Discussion 

Click here to see the abstracts!

Camouflaging has been described in recent years as a set of actions and strategies more or less consciously adopted by some autistic people to navigate the neurotypical social world. Camouflaging is taken to encompass a wide range of different behaviors, including, for instance, forcing eye contact even when one feels uncomfortable doing so, suppressing self-stimulatory behavior, imitating bodily gestures and facial expressions, or following predefined scripts that one deems applicable to social scenarios. Despite the increased interest that this phenomenon has garnered, there are several open questions regarding its nature. One key issue concerns whether camouflaging should be understood as a uniquely autistic phenomenon, or whether different forms of camouflaging may crop up in other mental conditions as well as in non-neurodivergent behavior. On the one hand, camouflaging appears to be related to everyday forms of impression management that are routinely enacted to regulate how people appear in social situations. Other aspects of camouflaging – such as the peculiar mixture of “hiding” and “fitting-in” – resemble complex phenomena such as passing, which have mostly been investigated in the context of minority and marginalized groups. On the other hand, first-person accounts of other mental conditions – such as Borderline Personality Disorder – describe a similar gap between the person’s outside appearance and their inner feelings. 

One key question is thus the following: Can all these phenomena be described in terms of a continuum of similar structures varying primarily in degree, in terms of a spectrum of family resemblances, or are they qualitatively different and so best kept apart from each other? 

The workshop's objective is to stimulate a dialogue surrounding these questions and initiate the search for a preliminary set of answers. We welcome abstract submissions for 30-minute presentations that explore any aspect of camouflaging or related phenomena. Abstracts should not exceed 400 words (including references). We encourage contributions that delve into the various practices of camouflaging in different social contexts and shed light on the experiences that drive and accompany camouflaging behavior. We are especially interested in abstracts that tackle questions surrounding the continuity (or discontinuity) between different forms of camouflaging, offer insights into the distinct strategies people use to camouflage in various situations and across different conditions, or those that highlight important aspects of the subjective experiences of camouflaging.

Abstracts should be prepared for blind review and sent to pschmidt.philosophy@gmail.com and valentina.petrolini@ehu.eus by June 25th, 2023 (extended deadline). 

Notification of acceptance or rejection will be communicated by the end of June 2023.