Normality and Development
My work focuses, in one way or the other, on de- and reconstructing normality and development. My book project hopes to bring some insight into the modern quest for the normal.The question of “What is normal?”—or rather how did we conceive “the normal”—is the vantage point for a historical deconstruction of normality. A major influence on the conception of the normal was the invention of the "normal child" through the introduction of scientifically measured norms of child development into baby’s daily life. Today those norms, often described as "milestones," are ubiquitous on a global scale.
Developmental norms for assessing whether a child is developing "normally" have been subject to critique since their inception. While, for some critics, they were not standardized and precise enough, for others, they epitomized normative regulation and normalization. However, even today, they provide benchmarks for parents, teachers, doctors, and psychologists to judge the development of babies and children. Developmental norms shape pervasive ideas of a normal child and understanding of normal behavior generally. So how and why did this contested knowledge about normal development emerge? Who invented the normal child? In my dissertation project, I traced the formation of these developmental norms and followed normality’s development through a scientific research program that began, ironically, with a critique of that very conception of the normal.
In my second and new project, I build on these insights to detangle dynamics of normality and development in Arab communities and societies. I ask (1) how norms of child development have been implemented in Egypt, (2) how and in what form psychology is emerging in this context, and (3) how this connects to trauma as a concept that frames scientific, political, and everyday actions and interventions of (re-)establishing a sense of normalcy on an individual and collective scale.