Critical realism, community psychology, and the curious case of autism: A philosophy and practice of science with social justice in mind

Community psychology (CP) is a transformative subdiscipline of psychology which aims to address inequality and social injustice and to attend to wellbeing. It has been argued that CP lacks an underpinning philosophy of science. Philosophies of science provide road maps for values, methods, and objectives, thus ultimately framing all research. This study will highlight how traditional philosophies of science such as positivism, interpretivism, and social constructivism fail to support the complexity of CP and often essentialise complex phenomena, such as autism, to the detriment of stakeholders. Critical realism will then be introduced as a promising philosophy of science for CP, which can reinvigorate CPs push for impactful research and social change. The study will highlight how CP provides a platform for appreciating the complexity of autism and for transforming structures of inequality experienced by autistic people, together with autistic people.


| I N T R O D U C T I O N
Community psychology (CP) is a field dedicated to understanding the contexts in which individuals exist and how those contexts influence their health, wellbeing, and quality of life (Orford, ). Underpinned by values like social 1992 justice, CP is intended to be transformative in nature, aiming to address existing inequalities with social action (Prilleltensky, ). CP arose out of the disenfranchisement researchers and practitioners had with clinical and 2001 applied psychology, which were described as individualistic, decontextualizing, and responsive to individual crisis, instead of preventative of social crisis (Evans et al., ; Orford, ). CP has had a strong tradition of multi 2014 1992  realism may provide a road map for the reinvigoration of social action and justice in CP given that part of its original aim was to address problems in the world (Bhaskar & Hartwig, ) and provide a bridge across these animosities. 2010 This article will start by introducing traditional philosophies of science (positivism, interpretivism, and social constructivism), and their underlying assumptions and limitations. I will discuss how these philosophies of science have shaped the autism literature to demonstrate the impact that underlying assumptions have on phenomena. I will then introduce critical realism as a philosophy of science which can support a value based approach and  practice, and support multi disciplinarity, while centering marginalized communities at the heart of psychology. I will  highlight how the ontological and epistemological configuration of critical realism also creates an onus for researchers to engage reflexively with their own work, helping to address the ways in which psychology and science have contributed to violent research. Last, I address how critical realism can handle the complexity of phenomena such as autism and disability in an ethical and transformative way, which when coupled with CP, can provide a powerful emancipatory tool for addressing systemic inequality by and for the autistic community.
Throughout the article I focus on autism to highlight the practical and often dangerous limitations of scientific paradigms that (in)advertently lead to essentialism (the idea that things or people have fixed, immutable characteristics regardless of context) and reductionism (the act of reducing something to the sum of its parts). Autism presents an interesting case because of ongoing disputes over who has epistemic authority to describe the reality or experience of autism (Gillespie Lynch et al., ; Hens et al., ), due to the often essentialised knowledge  2017 2019 production of autism (Milton, ), the rapid evolution in the construction of autism (Evans, ;20162013 Silberman, ), and how autism has a marked history of research and ethical violence (Cowen,  ;  2015  2009 Czech, ; Gernsbacher, ; Rose, ). While I address autism and disability, these are two distinct, 2018 2007 2020 overlapping concepts not everyone who is autistic will consider themselves disabled (Botha et al., ;-2020 Kapp et al., ). 2013

| M A I N S T R E A M P S Y C H O L O G Y A N D P O S I T I V I S M
Mainstream psychology has been underpinned by positivism (as well as its successor logical empiricism) and falsification for most of its short history (Leahey, ). Positivism is based on ontological realism and epistemo-1992 logical objectivism objects exist within reality regardless of our interaction with them, and reality is observable, testable and established through application of the scientific method and deduction (Leahey, ). The move 1992 toward falsification shifted the onus from verifiability to falsifiability (Popper, ) but psychology has maintained 2002 core beliefs around objectivity, value freedom, and methodological rigidity. Positivistic work generally avoids all  discussion of meta theory, focusing on method, with an aim to establish view from nowhere (epistemological  " " transcendence), whereby the product of knowledge production stands alone from the scientists, completely unbound from cultural and social predilection (Nagel, ). As such, scientific knowledge is said to be value free 1989 (Breen & Darlaston Jones, ). While social science has generally given up the quest for governing laws, the  2010 ghost of falsification, replication, and epistemological transcendence still haunt the social sciences (Gorski, ). 2013 The idea of value freedom of science is partly based in the idea of epistemological transcendence (Nagel, ), but  1989 also based on the naturalistic fallacy: the Humean fact value distinction which rejects any transition from fact "  " (positive statements) to value (normative statements) (Black, claimed to be value free, the psychology of autism is predicated on the value of normative bodies and minds being  an ideal state of affairs, which is why it advocates for intervention, remediation and normalization, and rarely acknowledges meta theory (Glynne Owen, ; Pilgrim, ; Reynolds, ). Biological reductionism spurred by positivism has often conflated the outcomes of disabled lives with the disability or condition itself without regard for context (Reynolds, ). Suffering has been described in the very nature of 2017 the same right to integrity as nonautistic people, and that they are incapable of community (Barnbaum, ;2008 Russell, ). Epistemological violence has been highlighted in the fact that even when autistic people perform 2012 better than nonautistic people, in desirable skills or traits, it is still framed somehow as evidence of deficit " " (Gernsbacher et al., ). Arguments proposing eugenic methods of eliminating autism have been described as just 2006 being scientifically, ethically, and objectively rational (Barnbaum, ). By prioritizing nonautistic voices as ob-2008 jective and deeming autistic people as too close to the topic, it also leaves very little room for autistic people to contribute ontic or epistemic accounts of autism which challenge the predominant bio essentialist views of autism. (among other disability scholars) have. Rather, it is to say that structures within positivism do not actively facilitate such contributions. Naïve realism, or the thin reality that positivism endorses, over simplifies a highly socially " "  embedded set of events, powers, and interests involved in psychiatry and psychology which give rise to autism (Pilgrim, ) such is the challenge of accurately capturing the reality of autism as a naturalistic object 2014 -" " (Chapman, ). Autism is a moving target that is not determinable outside of time, culture, and social norms 2020 " " which makes the biological element just one fraction of autism (Chapman, ; Hacking, ; Hollin, ). 2020 2006 2017

| I N T E R P R E T I V I S M A N D S O C I A L C O N S T R U C T I V I S M
The main counter philosophies of science to positivism are interpretivism and social constructivism. Both critique the claim that there is a single, readily observable and measurable reality, that science and social science can be value free, and to differing extents, that objects exist outside of our interaction and mental representation of them  (Gorski, ). Interpretivists argue that positivism holds for natural sciences, and instead draws a distinction 2013 " " between natural and human sciences, arguing (wrongly, according to Gorski, ) that social life is multiple, and 2013 dependent on meaning. In this way, interpretivism rejects ontological realism for social life that is, social life is composed of many realities depending on our interaction and interpretation of it termed ontological relativism -" " (Pham, ). This means that Truth is impossible for ontological reasons: it is intersubjective, complex, and 2018 " " constituted in meaning making. Interpretivists disavow the kind of positivistic empiricism of neo behaviorist psy-  chology (Schwandt, ). Ultimately, this results in a rejection of causality in favor of a focus on lived experiences 1994 (Schwandt, ). 1994 Constructivists share the emphasis on intersubjectivity, and the importance of understanding the world as a lived experiences which are undergone by social actors (Schwandt, ). However, constructivists further ex-" " 1994 tended this argument by asserting that both social and natural science are linguistically constituted and therefore just another part of social life which are governed by discourse and powers (Gorski, ). As such, constructivists 2013 are usually deeply committed to epistemological, and ontological relativism. Objective truth and knowledge is perspective (Schwandt, ). Latour and Woolgar ( ), for example, make the argument that scientific facts 1994 1986 bear the imprints of the social and conceptual life that they are borne from objects do not have essential char-acteristics outside of mental activity.
Critical or community psychologists may embrace interpretivism or constructivism as a response to the clear limitations of positivism (Parker, ), and the violence and disenfranchisement that positivism and logical em-2007 piricism have facilitated (Fondacaro & Weinberg, ). Both interpretivism and constructivism explore the con-2002 struction of knowledge and how it is situated within perspective (Gorski, ). The methods that are traditionally 2013 used are hermeneutical, qualitative, and deconstructive and eschew any quest for causality, because there is no reason or justification for a referent to be caused (Gorski, ). 2013 Key limitations for interpretivism have been described as it having a focus on phenomena, rather than problems related to empowerment within society (Pham, ), neglect of issues such as power and agency (Mack, ), 2018 2010 and a failure to address issues of political and ideological impact in knowledge development (Pham, ). Further, 2018 much like positivism, there is a methodological rigidity as there is a rejection of a singular reality, quantitative and experimental or quasi experimental methods are rejected (Schwandt, ). Instead, it favors meaning making 1994 methods because there is no basis for adjunction between anyone's realities (Gorski, ). 2013 While social constructivism recognizes the complex intertwining of power, language, and reality (with more nuanced fashion than interpretivism, and certainly positivism), it fails to appreciate the agency of humans outside of a discursive sense, presenting them as subordinate to some omnipresent power (Gorski, ) However, it must be stated that it is rare to find accounts of autism that lean in the strongest terms into complete interpretivism nor constructivism most accounts of the social construction of autism begin from the idea that there may be a biological essence that links autism, whether genetic or neurological, but that the condition itself is social constructed: …autism, or at least the idea of autism is fundamentally socially constructed. To make the claim that the idea of autism is socially constructed is not necessarily to reject a biological basis for the condition or symptoms that come to be labeled as autistic . Rather, I use the phrase socially constructed to point to highlights that the meaning of the diagnostic category is caught up in cultural and societal predilections, how people diagnosed with a category become ways of being people, interact with the category, and come to change the " " category's meaning (Hacking, ). The underlying biological mechanism of autism most likely has not changed, 2006 and yet over the last hundred years, the meaning of autism has rapidly evolved and has become a way to be a " person (Hacking, ). This means that although autistic people may have always existed, until we put a label on While not all social constructivism or interpretivism results in boundless relativism (ontological, epistemological, or judgemental), it can slip into it, which results in problematic consequences. Boundless relativism can result in the propagation of harmful myths, because all experiential evidence is considered judgementally relative (i.e., no knowledge is more truthful than any other evidence because all evidence is situated and constructed). If there is " " no metric by which to judge evidence give that everything is completely situated and contextual, then there are no grounds to challenge, for example, the idea that vaccines cause autism which some parents still believe ( ( ) argues that a relativist framework cannot account for all suffering or disability experienced by everyone 2015b who comes to be classified as autistic. The heterogeneity of autism is said to undermine essentialist social claims too (a claim which I address later in the article).

| T H E L I M I T A T I O N S O F P O S I T I V I S M , INTERPRETIVISM, AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM FOR UNDERPINNING CP
Returning to a discussion of psychological science generally, there are many aspects of CP that are not supported Bhaskar, helpfully delineates causality and causal inference not as singular properties, but as a laminated " process in which different layers with different properties are simultaneously governed by normic laws which is " -

highlighted excellently by Gorski ( ): 2013
The mere fact that a particular action does not violate a particular law does not mean it is fully determined by it either. For example, the movement of my fingers across this keyboard does not violate any laws of physics or neurochemistry or English grammar or academic life. Rather, it is simultaneously and jointly determined by all of them. It is a laminated process. Good causal inferences depend less on the " " rules of logic than of our knowledge of structure. (p. 665) Thus, experimentation is conducted to bring these domains into phase (to be observed) and to uncover lawsbut these laws are not regularities, but rather tendencies, and they govern entities and not events (Gorski, ). 2013 Ultimately then, to understand causality is to understand multiple laminated layers, at different levels, without reducing one level to the other.
Critical realists tend to feel a dissatisfaction with positivism and its regression based quest for regularities and Critical realism differentiates between structure and agency in what is termed the transformational model of social activity. Bhaskar argues that people do not simply create society; it preexists them and is a necessary conditi on for their activity. S ociety instead is a constellation of entities, structures, and practices, which individuals (consciously or unconsciously) either reproduce or transform, without which s ociety would not exist (Bhaskar, 2008). Based o n Bhaskar (1998) and Archer (2003) considers structure and agents to be emergent entities who cannot solely determine or be collapsed into the other. This has two implications-fi rst that to understand causal mechanisms, both structure and agency need to be addressed. Second, r eflexivity enables individuals to adopt stances toward society that constitute a micro-macro link to produce agency, meaning that reflexivity can be a mediator between structure and agency (Archer, 2003(Archer, , 2007. Reflexivity then is an emergent property which can "activate the causal powers of structures and allows individuals to deliberate on their future actions (Golo b & Makarovi " č, 2019). This means that methodological rigor and empiricism are still vital, but not sufficient grounds alone, for confidence in science (Pilgrim, 2014), preventing methodolatry (the commitment to methods over theory or value). Instead one must also reflect on the wider concept of knowledge and its production-including how we produce our own knowledge. Table 1 details the different configurations of various philosophies of science, including critical realism, to demonstrate the ways in which each philosophy of science discusse d her e vary from ea ch other in t heir conf igurations of epistemology, ontology, methodology, research technique, and axiology.
F I G U R E 1 Diagram describing the concept of stratified reality (laminated reality diagram, adapted with permission from Alexander [ ]) as it is the most comprehensive and comprehendible diagram describing 2013 CR laminated reality. It should be noted that whereas positivism conflates the real with the empirical, critical realism separates them out as distinct layers of reality, thus the empirical becomes the perception of what reality is. This notes the fragility of knowledge production, and how it is susceptible to the ways in which human knowledge is generated. Furthermore, the arrows denote how mechanisms derive from in between these layers to generate events which may or may not become empirical upon being measured.

| C R I T I C A L R E A L I S M , C P , A N D A P P R E C I A T I N G T H E C O M P L E X I T Y O F A U T I S M
There are several reasons why critical realism can facilitate the call for a reinvigorated CP which recentres social action and social justice and appreciates the complexity of autism. Importantly, critical realism does not only avoid the pitfalls of other philosophies of science (it is not just a philosophy of science which will make do ), but instead " " may actively advance the goals of CP. As such, this section will highlight the ways in which critical realism may help in CPs goal for positive societal impact and the pursuit of social justice. I will underscore this with specific examples relating to disability and autism, however; that is not to say that it is only in this case that it is, or would be, effective.
First, critical realism itself is a transformative paradigm which contests the fact value divide, the notion of Secondly, critical realism necessitates understanding at multiple levels to generate a full picture or social change, which is a key goal for community psychologists; to engage with interdisciplinary, multimethod work (Campbell et al., 2017).

Critical realism Positivism
Interpretivism and social constructivism subjectively, not all evidence is equal in every context. This is different to the type of subjectivism inherent in interpretivism which tends towards judgementally relativist, meaning evidence is so situated that it cannot be compared to anything else.
As the concept of stratified reality underpins the realist ontology of critical realism, multidisciplinary and multimethod work is not only desired, rather, it is required because it needs to attend to a necessarily laminated system-address ing multiple levels of reality which are not collapsible into each other, and also agency within those structures (Bhaskar, 1998;Gorski, 2013). Critical realists reject the simplistic essentialism that is offered by bio or social reductionism-a call often made in the autism literature (Grinker, 2015). Bhaskar himself discussed the power of critical realism for attending to the emergence of disability, specifically because critical realism attends to biological, social, cultural levels, and also the agency of people within those spaces (Bhaskar & Danermark, 2006).
Within this framework, autism cannot be reduced to a biological or social level, but should rather be considered as emerging from a constellation of structures-something that could help to enlighten why some autistic people are or consider themselves disabled, and others do not, or why some are described as suffering.
It addresses the interplay between biology, environment, social and cultural values, and discourses, and further, how the autistic person interacts with each other those structures. Essentialist and reductionist methods will always fail to capture this complexity. Thus, mixedmethod, or multimethods are required to deeply u nderstand phenomena. Critical realism provides a roadmap for taking into account how biology (often the expertize of positivism), interplays with cultural, social, and linguistic phenomena (often the expertise of constructivists and interpretivists) to produce enablement or disablement-which gi ven its complexity , can han dle the h eterogeneity of autistic people .
Furthermore, critical realism makes transcending methods and disciplines enlighteningly easy to accept and " work with, meaning it provides a roadmap to working across disciplines, specifically, to integrate multiple levels of realism makes it easier to transcend these disciplinary boundaries to work together. Critical realism's broad applicability across settings shows that inter disciplinary translation can close the distance between scientists and  non scientists; this has been described as a form of demystification and democratization of science (Price &  Martin, ). Closing this gap between research and practice is invaluable to addressing a range of social issues 2018 relevant to autism (such as poverty, homelessness, and discrimination) as this requires collaboration between research, policy, and practice. Furthermore, given that autism literature often spans multiple fields (philosophy, psychology, sociology, and biology to name a few) and practices (social care, nurse, social work, psychology, and psychiatry) providing a common ground through critical realism contributes to the ability to make impact.
Third, aspects of critical realism make the need for transparency and reflexivity explicit, meaning it can be further embedded into all parts of knowledge creation. This aligns with community psychologist's practice, as community psychologists usually aim for transparent, reflexive work (Reed et al., ;Suffla et al., ). Further, 20122015 it has been said reflexivity should be more embedded in our work (Cosgrove & McHugh, ) and critical realism 2000 may provide that onus because it differentiates between reality and our representations of it. Critical realism differentiates between reality and representations of reality as such it is epistemological relative. Importantly, this does not mean we have to relinquish skepticism toward the power and hierarchical systems imbued in scientific work, or any qualification of reality (Wiltshire, ). As described earlier this means that when describing reality, 2018 we process it through our own context and interpretations; our descriptions of reality do not necessarily reflect actual reality. Critical realism acknowledges that practices within science are always fallible, that knowledge is still wrapped up and produced by means of antecedent social products, and further, that knowledge is tied to imperfect methods of observation and so should be reflected on (Wiltshire, ). Further, the transformation model of social 2018 activity provides a framework for understanding how reflexivity might act as a mediator between structure and agency, allowing us opportunities to challenge the ways in which we reproduce or transform reality. As such, there is an onus to discuss how our context might shape our own interpretations and how as individuals we might aim to reproduce or transform structures preventing or facilitating social change (Golob & Makarovi , ). This means č 2019 being accountable for how our own social and cultural values mean can mean we either challenge or reproduce dehumanizing or ableist practices in autism research, or in accounts of autism.
Fourth, critical realism also provides a common framework for insider involvement in research. For autism specifically, it provides a strong base for participatory frameworks which argue to involve autistic stakeholders from the conception through delivery of projects and in the delineation of keys areas to address (Fletcher Watson Moreover, it is not only the duty of minorities to engage with reflexivity but also anyone who handles the production of knowledge. As such, as researchers, we have a duty to attend to our role in knowledge productionsomething which given the violence which has permeated autism research (as earlier described), can only be positive. This itself provides a route of social action to a more equitable science, because it means addressing the racist, homophobic, sexist, and ableist science and psychology that has produced knowledge. Further, given that knowledge is embedded, it then only makes sense to heavily involve members of impacted communities throughout all stages of research processes something that is advocated for in autism research (Fletcher Watson et al., ). AASPIRE used an inter disciplinary and participatory approach with autistic people and healthcare workers to  create a free to use toolkit for autistic people and services to promote equal access to healthcare. The project was   a partnership between practitioners, researchers, and autistic people with varying support needs. Furthermore, social and community action can be seen in building interdisciplinary partnerships between both autistic and non autistic researchers, autistic people as key stakeholders, family members, and charities with the express goal of framework that is ontically and epistemically coherent, across multiple and interdisciplinary methods.
Taken together, the value laden approach of CP would be adequately supported by critical realism, while  critical realism would provide an ideal platform for advancing CP's goal of social justice partly by providing an equitable approach to science. It would also provide an onus for embedding reflexivity even further into CP's repertoire, not only to provide an awareness of knowledge production, but also around the ways we as researchers or practitioners are reproducing or transforming structures an awareness that will be key if we want to recentre social action. A critical realist CP would ultimately provide a roadmap for a science which is based at a grass roots  level, embodied by the minorities it affects, and provide a deep understanding of phenomena (preventing further essentialism). The collective onus that critical realist CP would create for involving stakeholders as equals would go some distance to rectifying the issue that plagues the field of autism research currently, where there is a large gap between the kind of research being conducted, and the kind of research autistic people, and stakeholders want conducted (Pellicano et al., ). Alongside critical realism supporting the basic presuppositions of CP, it goes 2014 further, and provides ways of working that elevate minority voices into scientific practice, while urging reflexivity from all involved in knowledge production. Critical realist community psychology thus, provides a roadmap for the continued development of participatory autism research, can help to shape research with specific impact in mind, and ultimately provides a bridge across fields, professions, positions in a useful way for generating social action and change for autistic people.

| C O N C L U S I O N
CP is a value laden subdiscipline in psychology which aims to tackle social inequality and social injustice, and to  promote wellbeing (Nelson & Prilleltensky, ). Traditional philosophies of science cannot support its pre-2010 suppositions, such as being value laden, its explicit aim to address inequality (blurring the fact value boundary), its   multi disciplinarity, multi and mixed method approach, and its quest for impact. Positivism, interpretivism, and   social constructivism all have key limitations for meeting the needs of CP and complex phenomena. This is highlighted throughout the paper by examining the ways in which autism is and has been shaped by different philosophies of science, and the methods that they entail, and further, how this can shape autistic lives with sometimes devastating consequences.
CP may be supported by critical realism. Critical realism works on the principle of a stratified ontology, epistemological relativity, judgemental rationality, and most importantly, offers a way forward from the fact value  boundary which positivism argues to be impenetrable. This means that a value based approach is viable, alongside  methods which address both causality and interpretation, and enough reflexivity to address that this knowledge is situated, without relinquishing the claim to some form of reality. Community psychologists therefore can aim for social change and impact, work in multi and inter disciplinary groups, and use critical realism to establish a common  framework to understand how phenomena like social inequality, disability, or autism arise from complex relationships between different levels of reality. The practical implications of a critical realist CP approach has (hopefully) been highlighted in less abstract terms, through the inclusion of autism as an example of complex phenomena. A critical realist CP would have a multitude of applications across a range of social issues, and minority groups. While critical realism provides a philosophy of science which can handle complexity, CP provides a further framework for honing in ethical, participatory, and indigenous methods which prevent further scientific objectification and  violence.

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
Robert Chapman for his feedback on a draft of this study. The guidance was invaluable for increasing clarity. This study was supported by the University of Surrey, Department of Psychology, and the Economic and Social Research Council (Grant number ES/V012347/1).

D A T A A V A I L A B I L I T Y S T A T E M E N T
There is no associated data with this manuscript.

PEER REVIEW
The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1002/jcop.22764