Languages of sensing: Bringing neurodiversity into more-than-human geography

Abstract

As geography increasingly engages with multiple ways of knowing, opportunities to contribute to research have also expanded. This paper contributes a perspective on academic inclusion as a neuro-diverse geographer working in a more-than-human context. In doing so, it seeks to open dialogue around the potential for neuro-diverse contributions to research by engaging reflexively with sensory ways of knowing and doing, and differences in how autistic and non-human social engagements are considered. To do this, I draw on a range of autobiographic literature, including reflexive exercises in relation to my own research work.

Keywords

Neurodiversity more-than-human sensory knowledges more-than-verbal methodologies academic inclusion academic disclosure

Introduction

Reflexivity is critical to all research work that intends to effect social change and transformation (England, 1994; Etherington, 2004: 9–37). It asks us to reflect openly and critically on what strengths and limitations we ourselves bring to our work, and to consider how such factors contribute to knowledge (Dowling, 2000; Kleinsasser, 2000). Limitations do not necessarily equate to weaknesses in this regard. Rather, they provide insights into the ways that researchers, and research itself, can grow in both perspective and inclusivity. This paper has emerged from my own reflexive exercises in preparation for undertaking cross-cultural and more-than-human research. In addition to the usual dimensions of power typically encountered in such work (Rose, 1999; Suchet, 2002), I have had to grapple with an additional factor: I am an autistic geographer. The importance of this positionality cannot be understated. Typically, autism encompasses significant differences in ways of relating socially and in experiencing the world (Davidson and Smith, 2009) that can have important consequences for socially focussed research. I argue that such consequences are not necessarily limiting, but rather offer different perspectives that can potentially enrich research by adding new, unexpected dimensions to existing understandings and approaches; and in doing so, highlight ways to further the continual transformation of how we do research (Davidson and Smith, 2009; Rose, 1999).

Whilst this argument is hardly new, there is a noticeable gap in contributions from the explicit perspectives of neuro-diverse scholars. A legacy of damaging stigma around neurological-difference deters much professional disclosure, continuing to enforce a silencing of voices that have long been spoken for, and about (Corrigan and Watson, 2002; England, 2016; Shtayermman, 2009). Furthermore, the vastly different, often inexplicable experiences of the neuro-diverse can present significant challenges to traditional methodologies (Chouinard, 2012; Davidson and Henderson, 2010b; Davidson and Smith, 2009; Parr, 1999) – both in terms of how the researcher works with others, and the ways in which work is communicated. Deborah Rose (1999) encourages researchers to be available to the unexpected and surprising. This holds particularly true for neuro-diverse scholars who are increasingly finding room within the academy to engage with their own ways of knowing and doing (England, 2016; Robertson and Ne’Eman, 2008; see also Grandin and Johnson, 2006; Prince-Hughes, 2002, 2004). This paper argues not only for the support of open, explicit reflexivity by neuro-diverse scholars, but also for the nurturing of greater understanding and appreciation of neurologically different ways of knowing, thinking and doing within broader research communities. To do this, I have drawn on auto-biographical data from my own research reflections in more-than-human geography, as well as the auto-biographical contributions of fellow autistic scholars from similar fields. The use of auto-biographical materials is significant, as it gives voice directly to the traditionally voiceless (Davidson and Smith, 2009; Etherington, 2004: 137–149), presenting what Haraway (1988) describes as ‘a view from somewhere’, rather than ‘a view from nowhere’; that is, accounts by experiencing individuals, rather than about them. By drawing together the accounts of autistic scholars working intentionally from autistic perspectives, I hope to demonstrate the ways in which neurological-differences commonly understood as limitations can act as strengths, insights, and challenges to the ways in which we produce knowledge and do research, and the ways in which we consider neurological-difference generally.

Although the arguments presented could, and should, be applied to research of all kinds, I have focussed specifically on more-than-human geography. The justification for this is two-fold. Firstly, as my disciplinary context, I feel that I have the most to offer by sharing specifically from this position rather than attempting to speak for other fields. My intention is certainly not to suggest a ‘special’ autistic resonance with the more-than-human, or that autistic scholars are somehow especially equipped to work in this field. Secondly, fortuitous methodological overlaps emerge when one considers that neuro-diverse and non-human lives encompass similarly difficult phenomenal experiences that are not only challenging to verbally communicate, but may require radically different, more-than-verbal approaches to understanding and expressing entirely (Davidson and Smith, 2009; Greenhough and Roe, 2011). In particular, I am interested in the phenomenological spaces where relationality is derived through sensory knowledges, and more-than-verbal ‘being-with’, or communion as communication (Abram, 1996: 31–72; Davidson and Smith, 2009; Greenhough and Roe, 2011; Latimer, 2013). ‘Neurodiversity’ as a socio-political position for neurologically different strengths rather than deficits (Armstrong, 2011) provides an excellent lens through which to engage this. Whether reflecting on more-than-human or neuro-diverse research engagements, a shared need for flexibility around how knowledges are co-produced, embodied, engaged, and expressed, and an availability towards being surprised by the unexpected (Rose, 1999), exists around innovations to methodological approaches (Bastian, 2017; Dowling et al., 2017; Lorimer, 2010; Panelli, 2010). Such approaches may not necessarily fit neatly into academic and social structures, bringing a messiness to research that can be difficult to navigate institutionally (England, 2016; Robertson and Ne’Eman, 2008). Whilst these ideas are not necessarily new to geography, they are certainly under-represented from explicit neuro-diverse perspectives in both literature and practice.

The paper will begin by discussing some of the challenges commonly encountered by neuro-diverse academics. Drawing from my autobiographical reflections and the consequent questions arising from them, I will demonstrate how these challenges can limit the participation, inclusion, and genuine reflexivity of neuro-diverse scholars to the detriment of valuable, plural research contributions. Sharpening the focus on more-than-human research, I will then contextualise this within the historical less-than-human positioning of impaired-human and non-human lives to demonstrate important threads of marginalisation and solidarity that emerge between subjectivities that know and communicate differently. Drawing on the auto-biographical accounts of fellow autistic researchers, I will illustrate examples of how surprising, seemingly bizarre approaches to understanding ‘the Other’ have yielded important insights into how we understand and interact with more-than-human lives. I will then critically engage with autistic autobiographical accounts to consider how relationality between human and non-human entities can be understood through sensory and phenomenological experiences of ‘being-with’, whilst addressing the ‘exceptionalisation’ of autistic experiences.

Inclusion and reflexivity

Two key works have taken prominence in the self-reflective exercises that led to this paper. The first was by Joyce Davidson and Mick Smith (2009), who drew from autobiographies to demonstrate how more-than-human engagements could provide insights into the social lives of autistic writers, so often considered asocial and empathetically deficit. Their work highlighted the usefulness of autobiography as a method for recording and sharing rich qualitative data about social worlds that may be experienced in unique and challenging ways, privileging silenced voices. From their discussion, an inverse questions arose for me around what possibilities might exist for autistic ways of knowing to contribute to our understandings of more-than-human worlds, and how this might be achieved. I began to reflect on these questions in earnest, critically examining the role of my autistic mind in my research work for the first time.

As an autistic geographer working with more-than-human ideas, reflecting in response to Davidson and Smith's work seemed a fortuitous opportunity for dialogue, one that I hope is continued through this paper. However, I quickly realised that a number of significant barriers stood between my private reflections and public voice, the most obvious of which was my undisclosed Asperger's diagnosis. A search for self-reflective, self-disclosing academic works turned up very little, pointing to either a lack of autistic representation or confident disclosure in academia, or both. Being deeply engaged in research reflexivity at the time, this was a problematic, self-challenging discovery. I do not deny the important social difficulties attached to autism (Fenton and Krahn, 2009; Jaarsma and Welin, 2012; Robertson and Ne'Eman, 2008), and I wondered how autistic academics were navigating these in their work. I began to feel quite alone and without peer-guidance as I increasingly engaged with the very real challenges that my mind brought to my research practices. Whilst there was plenty written about autism in academia, almost none of it was written directly from autistic perspectives. Indeed, I found the most fruitful guidance from non-academic sources such as books, online blogs, and other sources of autobiographical data (e.g. Kim, 2013a; Prince-Hughes, 2002).

The second important work, and perhaps the most encouraging, was by Marcia England (2016), who courageously critiqued her own experience of bipolar as a geographer. England's work was the most comprehensive that I was able to find around neuro-diverse academic disclosure, and elegantly addressed the potential to contribute meaningfully and inclusively to research both despite, and because of, neurological-difference. England's disclosure as a fellow geographer provided a sense of solidarity and highlighted the importance of greater academic awareness around the need for, and difficulty of, disclosure, nothing that her decision was political. This struck a resonate chord with me after several years of quietly, painstakingly – and often at the detriment of good health – navigating my way through university with hidden neurological-difference for fear that it would damage my professional opportunities and hinder me from being taken seriously. Long had I felt the need for entrenched stigma around autism and mental health to be addressed. England's work highlighted to me that a key aspect of this would be the increased disclosure of neuro-diverse academics.

Despite best intentions and significant steps forward, and regardless of how inclusive institutions may seem on paper, significant challenges and gulfs in understanding continue to weigh heavily on the lived experiences of neurologically different students and researchers (England, 2016; Robertson and Ne’Eman, 2008). Such accounts flood neuro-diverse autobiographies and online support forums, but remain frustratingly absent from academic literature (see e.g. Kim, 2013a; Prince-Hughes, 2002; ‘Stella’, 2015). In particular, inclusivity based on vastly different ways of experiencing the world require more attention. A simple illustration can be found in the example of the common choice of fluorescent lighting within institutions, a well-known trigger of autistic sensory sensitivities that causes significant disruption to the cognitive-processing (Bogdashina, 2016: 94–95; Coulter, 2009) of a lecture or group discussion. Lights may seem trivial, but this simple environmental disruption can mentally and physically exhaust autistic students, or force exclusion from critical participation. When the simplest of challenges is so easily overlooked, clearly there is still much that can be done to improve academic inclusion in a multitude of ways.

The combination of these two critical engagements formed an important, complex question: what do I actually have to offer as an autistic geographer? How am I to be genuinely reflexive and self-aware in my research without actively engaging autism? The ways in which I think, relate and experience are both irreducible to, yet deeply entangled with, my neurology. Despite being capable of undertaking research, neurological-difference rarely fits comfortably within traditionally verbal academic approaches, placing neuro-diverse scholars in unfamiliar territory that can be restrictive to our different ways of engaging with and expressing ideas (Prince-Hughes, 2002: xvii–xxiv; Robertson and Ne'Eman, 2008). I am frequently humiliated by my inability to verbally communicate as coherently as I am able to write, and being limited to presenting my ideas as recordings due to the sensory violence that my own verbal speech and social ‘blindness’ can cause me. However, being able to communicate research through presentations, conferences, seminars, and other largely verbal, social formats is a key aspect of being an academic, one that I have had little choice but to struggle with throughout my education.

As geography and the social sciences increasingly engage with multiple ways of knowing (Chouinard, 2008; Fuller and Kitchin, 2004; Gevers, 2000), though, so too do opportunities to contribute meaningfully from neuro-diverse perspectives. For instance, rather than speaking or recording my ideas – a method that does not do justice to how I understand, or what I am attempting to express – it is now appropriate for me to ask an audience to mindfully place their hand in a bowl of water, or rub leaves against their skin, to add sensory dimensions to conveying more-than-human ideas. Though acceptable, and not particularly different to embodiment methods (see Dowling et al., 2017), I argue that a greater realisation of sensory knowledges specifically as language-like modes of understanding for some autistic academics needs to be highlighted and appreciated as something in and of itself. It is far too complex, overwhelming, and critical to the autistic experience to be conceptualised within a general category of ‘sensory’ experience. Autistic sensory worlds frequently hurt (Davidson and Henderson, 2010b; Jones et al., 2003), an important difference to most sensory experiences that, in failing to recognise this, can enact violence and exclusion. These same sense-itivities can also encompass ways of understanding and socialising that are not always easy to relate to, but that can enrich knowledges and practices when actively engaged, in much the same way that subsequent-English speakers might be better engaged in first languages. Currently, we are not actively thinking about autistic senses this way.

The challenge academically is that without safe, supportive spaces for neuro-diverse contributors to be genuinely reflexive with their own experiences, it is difficult for transformative changes to occur (England, 2016). It is not enough for studies about autistic, or neuro-diverse, experiences to make recommendations. Rather, autistic researchers themselves need to engage critically with their own experiences in ways that are taken seriously despite dramatic departures from the familiar (Davidson and Smith, 2009). Haraway's (1988) ‘situated knowledges’ highlights the importance of such ‘views from somewhere’, the recognition of lived-experience as expertise, rather than the imposition of ‘views from nowhere’, where commentary comes from an outside, assumed position. Reflexivity is, largely, an engagement with one's situated knowledge (Kleinsasser, 2000). Rose (1999) illustrates this effectively as ‘a hall of mirrors’, where the self can engage in monologues about ‘the other’ with distorted reflections and assumptions; or strive towards dialogue by embarking on what Suchet (2002) calls ‘situated engagement’, where windows are opened from within to view beyond, reach out, and share whilst remaining ever aware of one's own position. Such dialogical engagements are critical, particularly since it is likely that in staying with the verbally inexpressible, non-representational messiness of different ways of knowing and doing that truly transformative methodological changes occur (Dowling et al., 2017).

‘Different, not less’

For both the neuro-diverse and more-than-human, there exists a significant stigma and focus on deficits, impairment and limitations rather than strengths and potential (Abram, 1996: 47–49; Bell and Russell, 2000; Corrigan and Watson, 2002; Davidson and Smith, 2009; Plumwood, 2002a; Shtayermman, 2009). For both, ‘difference’ has more frequently been framed as something ‘other’, rather than being recognised as alternative ways of knowing and doing. Davidson and Smith (2009) illustrate this well by demonstrating a range of meaningful autistic relationships with non-humans that are typically not taken into consideration when assessing social capacities. They argue that this is both an anthropocentric and exclusionary dismissal that falls short of recognising the different, yet rich ways of understanding and participating with the world experienced by both autistic and non-human lives. Only by engaging with difference through insider accounts and reflexivity can neuro-diverse contribution potentials be fully acknowledged, appreciated, and – when needed – appropriately supported to facilitate transforming limitations into strengths.

‘Neurodiversity’ is a relatively recent social movement that – whilst acknowledging the serious, often debilitating challenges of neurological-difference – seeks greater recognition of the diverse lives, experiences, and knowledges that are often overshadowed by an intense impairment-focus and exclusionary social framework (Fenton and Krahn, 2009; Jaarsma and Welin, 2012; Robertson and Ne'Eman, 2008; see also Armstrong, 2011). Encompassing a broad range of neurological states-of-being, including autism, ADHD, bipolar, and dyslexia (Armstrong, 2011: 8; England, 2016; Fenton and Krahn, 2009), neurodiversity highlights the vast differences between and within neurologies. Each individual experience of neurodiversity is unique and irreducible to a set, categorical assignment of symptoms and limitations (Davidson and Henderson, 2010b; Jaarsma and Welin, 2012; Yergeau, 2009; see also Armstrong, 2011; Silberman, 2015). For this reason, the term ‘neurodiversity’ elicits mixed responses. It doesn't work for everyone (Fenton and Krahn, 2009; Jaarsma and Welin, 2012), recognising that reality is important. Neurological-difference can have devastating effects on quality of life, and the concept of ‘neurodiversity’ may not only fail to have relevance to some, but also risks diminishing the very real suffering that they experience (Fenton and Krahn, 2009; Jaarsma and Welin, 2012).

However, for many, it also represents a united position from which to argue neurological-difference as marginalised states-of-being that are exacerbated by disabling societies (Jaarsma and Welin, 2012; see also Armstrong, 2011; Silberman, 2015). In particular, resistance to neurological-difference as ‘abnormality’ takes central position. For instance, neurodiversity has facilitated a strong reactionary position from within that resists the idea of autism as a condition requiring a cure, arguing that this view disregards autistic strengths and agency whilst ignoring the need for society to become a more inclusive, neurologically diverse space (Fenton and Krahn, 2009; Jaarsma and Welin, 2012; Yergeau, 2009). Despite a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome, now dissolved into the umbrella diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (Spillers et al., 2014), I find myself more comfortable using neurodiversity language. Clinical terminology like ‘disorder’ and ‘syndrome’ leave me feeling forcibly disabled and reduced to a condition that is only impaired. It leaves little room for recognition of, or pride in, the strengths and skills that I also possess as a consequence of the same neurological-differences. Being frequently assigned the designation of ‘high-functioning’ is similarly problematic. An irksome discomfort exists around the dualism of ‘high/low-functioning’ labels that disregard the strengths and struggles of each individual, and strongly imply categorisation based on one's capacity to ‘pass for normal’ rather than a true assessment of individual capabilities (Fenton and Krahn, 2009; Yergeau, 2009; see also Feminist Aspie, 2015; Kim, 2013b). Neurodiversity challenges such prevalent language that lessens and impairs individuals rather than implicating and calling upon society as a whole to work towards a more enabling, strengths-focussed framework (Fenton and Krahn, 2009; Jaarsma and Welin, 2012; Yergeau, 2009).

In this regard, I have found ‘neurodiversity’ a useful working term that matches my socio-political position as a neuro-diverse geographer. Whilst analysing the conceptual merits and limitations of ‘neurodiversity’ is beyond the scope of this paper, they are highlighted and acknowledged as being significant to the use of the term. For the purpose of this paper, ‘neurodiversity’ is used primarily as a collective term that includes the vast array of minds that do not necessarily fit the model, and as terms that avoid the lessening language of pathology (Yergeau, 2009). Despite criticisms from within, the overarching aim of emancipation amongst neurodiversity proponents is generally agreed upon, and best summed up by Temple Grandin's (2012) famous quote, ‘different, not less’. The rise of neurodiversity has heralded complimentary qualitative research, engaging silenced voices to communicate, express, contest, and advocate for themselves beyond dominant clinical paradigms that have thus far been the unchallenged authority on their lives (Armstrong, 2011: 1–26; Broderick and Ne’eman, 2008; Gevers, 2000; Jaarsma and Welin, 2012; Nolan and McBride, 2015; Robertson and Ne'Eman, 2008).

‘Different, not less’ (Grandin, 2012) neatly highlights the key overlapping values of neurodiversity and the growing field of more-than-human geography that is geared towards rethinking human relationships with non-humans. More-than-human research aims to shift anthropocentric perspectives towards entanglement, where the human is no longer central, separate, or superior, but rather enmeshed in broader non-human worlds that are recognised as experiencing bodies with equal claim to agency and justice (Abram, 1996: 265–268; Davidson and Smith, 2009; Latimer, 2013; Panelli, 2010; Plumwood, 2002a; Wolfe, 2013). These relatively recent fields are complimentary in challenging assumptions of difference as deficit, calling for more engaging, enabling societies. A mutual focus on shifts in the thinking and function of societies as primary sites of change characterise both, alongside challenges to arbitrary models of what constitutes true, complete, autonomous beings worthy of person-hood status and consideration.

Poignant examples of this are highlighted by Davidson and Smith (2009) in their analysis of more-than-human relationships in autistic autobiographies, suggesting that conceptions of what constitutes a social life may be far more complex and diverse than what current (certain)-human-centred societal frameworks recognise (see also Philo and Wilbert, 2000: 15). Similarly, Bingham (2006) suggests that ‘there is no reason to think that…we have to conceive social life simply in terms of relations between people, but instead can revision it in terms of relations between people and things, recognizing that it is always coproduced’. Co-produced relationships and ‘being-with’ are significant themes in more-than-human thinking that describe the phenomenal lives of humans and non-humans – though individually and uniquely experienced – as shared alongside one another, contributing to the becoming-with of their respective individualities and mutual relationships (Bingham, 2006; Latimer, 2013; see also Haraway, 2003). Neuro-diverse autobiography frequently describes experiences of ‘being-with’ non-humans that have profound significance to authors who struggle with human–human relationality as a result of neurological-difference (Bergenmar et al., 2015; Davidson and Smith, 2009). Like many of these neuro-diverse authors, understandings of places, organisms, and objects with personality and feel often make more sense to me than human-people, whilst the sensory sensitivities that facilitate these relationships are the same that can isolate me from meaningful human–human interactions (e.g. see Bergenmar et al., 2015; Davidson and Smith, 2009; Williams, 1994: 113). Autobiographical writers similarly describe their relationships with non-humans as being free of the ambiguous meaning and confounding abstract communication that can make human interaction overwhelmingly confronting (Davidson and Smith, 2009; Grandin, 1995).

Such difficulties with human relationships are clinically considered deficits, the cause of which ranges from a lack of cognitive empathy to disconnection with reality, depending on diagnosis (Baron-Cohen, 1997, 2003; Broderick and Ne’eman, 2008; Chouinard, 2012; Gevers, 2000; Nolan and McBride, 2015). Davidson and Smith (2009) argue, however, that this is a narrow view of both neuro-diverse and more-than-human social lives critiqued from clinical, anthropocentric positions, where both non-humans and impaired-humans are deeply ‘othered’ (see also Plumwood, 2002a; Spivak, 1988). The idea that an autistic relationship with say, a tree, animal or place, or perhaps even a handful of seeds or sand, cannot constitute a meaningful social relationship limits not only the experiences of that person, but also the non-human entities being engaged – a direct result of those entities being considered ‘less-than-human’, and thus not worthy of inclusion as ‘social’. Such a view only considers the human as truly social, shutting out non-humans and effectively rendering important more-than-human relationships as deficits in ‘impaired’ persons, rather than recognising relationships that are ‘different, not less’ (Grandin, 2012).

Historical and ongoing ‘lessening’ of both non-humans and neuro-diverse humans (Bergenmar et al., 2015; Plumwood, 2002a; Wolfe, 2013) is a key overlap between fields, playing a profound role in how I, as a geographer, make sense of and consider our individual realities through empathetic common ground. Anthropocentric discourse tends to reduce non-human entities to background context in a human-centred world (Davidson and Smith, 2009; Wolfe, 2013; see also Haraway, 2003; Plumwood, 2002a) in much the same way that the intense impairment focus on neurological-difference has reduced our ‘qualification as human’ (Baggs, 2006; Bergenmar et al., 2015), often resulting in stigmatisation and exclusion (Corrigan and Watson, 2002; Philo and Metzel, 2005; Shtayermman, 2009). A ‘less-than-human’ condition has been applied to those who fall outside a very narrow status quo (Baggs, 2006; Bergenmar et al., 2015; Philo, 2016; Plumwood, 2002a). Important threads of marginalisation and solidarity emerge between subjectivities that have been rendered less-than-human, however, creating space for empathetic common ground. For neuro-diverse humans and more-than-humans who may know and communicate differently, for instance, shared experiences of marginalisation may offer insights into each other's lives. Does my experience of being considered socially deficit despite a rich sensory engagement with the more-than-human world around me provide new channels of insight into the subjugation experiences of non-humans? How are our experiences similar, and different? How do I think about, relate to, and challenge my understanding of beings and entities that are biologically different to me? How does feeling fundamentally different to, and often excluded from, my own human-kind influence this? Such reflexive questions hold much potential insight for both neurodiversity and more-than-human fields, doubtlessly strengthening the ways in which we do research by reflecting on how our individual knowledges are constructed. Importantly, shared experiences of being less-than-human can challenge assumptions through situated engagements (Suchet, 2002) that open windows in our ‘hall of mirrors’ and activate enriched, attuned dialogues with each other (Rose, 1999).

The term ‘less-than-human’ is used to illustrate how marginalisation impacts the ways that people see themselves and each other (Baggs, 2006; Bergenmar et al., 2015; Prince-Hughes, 2004: 4). As a neuro-diverse person who certainly does experience significant limitations and challenges, I do not see myself as fundamentally deficient, but as different in my particular composition of skills, experiences, and knowledges (see also Armstrong, 2011: 5). Temple Grandin, a revolutionary autistic academic, famously stated that ‘the world needs all kinds of minds’ (Grandin, 2010). Grandin is perhaps the most compelling example of how neuro-diverse minds, despite limitations, can contribute to non-human lives (among a vast breadth of other possibilities). Today, approximately half of the livestock handling facilities in America are based on her ground-breaking designs (Grandin and Johnson, 2006: 7; Wolfe, 2013; Worsham and Olson, 2012). One may wonder: how can improvements in slaughterhouse design possibly be a positive contribution towards non-human lives (Wolfe, 2013)? Grandin has considered this, acknowledging the significant flaws of the meat industry. However, considering the temporal context in which she was working as an autistic, female scientist, her contribution to the immediate realities of livestock animals was to reduce their suffering in an imperfect system, according to her skill-set (Grandin and Johnson, 2006: 307; Worsham and Olson, 2012), a positive achievement despite the potential for criticism from some animal ethics perspectives. During the testing of one particular design, Grandin stated that ‘a person has to really love the cattle in order to operate it humanely’ (Grandin, 1995: 150). Describing the operation of her equipment, Grandin goes on to explains how she ‘concentrated on holding the animals gently…I wanted to make them as comfortable as possible during the last moments of life’. Regardless of one's position on livestock farming, it cannot be denied that Grandin's contribution came from a place of empathy towards cattle.

Grandin's success is attributed to sensory knowledge associated with her autism, allowing her to identify fear-inducing stimuli for cattle based on sensory empathy (Grandin, 1995; Wolfe, 2013). To the surprise of her colleagues, Grandin would frequently crawl on hands and knees through cattle chutes and holding yards, noting what stimuli caught her attention or triggered sensory responses. Remarkably, these same stimuli tended to act upon cattle, and their identification and removal resulted in calmer, less stressed animals (Wolfe, 2013; Worsham and Olson, 2012). Despite autism being clinically described as a cognitive empathy deficit where subjects experience ‘mind-blindness’ towards the mental states of others (Baron-Cohen, 1997, 2003: 137), Grandin uses her own sensory ways of knowing to imagine herself in cattle bodies and experience things from their perspectives (Grandin, 1995; see also Grandin and Johnson, 2006). This aspect of her autism was clearly not a deficit to Grandin or the animals that she worked with, but rather a skill that she successfully used to improve the lives and deaths of those non-humans whose eyes she was able to briefly glimpse through (Wolfe, 2013; Worsham and Olson, 2012).

Grandin is not alone. Neurodiversity is brimming with unique perspectives and subsequent innovations around being-with and becoming-with more-than-human lives. Greg Krueger gained some notoriety after his interview with CBS-Minnesota (2014) became popular online. Krueger shares his life and space with cats, an arrangement that he describes as being ‘like a family’. His intimate understanding of the peculiarities of cats, coupled with a fascination for trails derived from his Asperger perspectives, has resulted in remarkable structural innovations to his home to accommodate his feline family. Krueger's extensive ceiling runs and hidey-holes are not only insightful, but enrich feline lives whilst also having obvious potential appeal to the ways that cat-lovers envision and design their homes. Krueger's insights resonate strongly with Haraway's (2003) concept of becoming ‘companion species’ and Bingham's (2006) discussion of friendships with non-humans, where reciprocity and relationality in human–animal encounters equate to meaningful social engagements that cross arbitrary species divides. Though seemingly eccentric at first, such extreme innovations derived from neuro-diverse perspectives have the potential to contribute to transformations in the ways that we live to better accommodate and become-with more-than-human lives. In Krueger's case, more-than-human relationships are mutually beneficial. His neurology is accommodated through the engagement of his particular skills, and the subsequent important social relationships he is able to have with cats that he is not always able to have with other humans.

Possibilities extend beyond physical innovations. In her autobiography, interdisciplinary anthropologist Dawn Prince-Hughes (2004: 3–6, 120–129) shares deep insights into the captive world of gorillas derived from her experiences of autism and the unconventional ways in which she came to know her gorilla subjects. Prince-Hughes (2004: 110, 132–136) would frequently undertake strange activities like sleeping in the empty gorilla beds, and imitating their often strange behaviours. What is striking about her descriptions is that they are thick with relational sensory empathy as she recognises parallels between her own and gorilla perceptions. The ways that voices and noises cause overwhelming sensory overload that, once tolerated beyond limits, erupt in explosive, confounding behaviours that elicit ridicule, amusement, frustration, and hostility from onlookers are intimately compared in their similarity (Prince-Hughes, 2004: 94–95, 128–131). Her personal relation to the anxiety of a mandrill (Prince-Hughes, 2004: 102), misunderstood as aggression, is at once both breath-taking and heart-breaking. The overarching frustration that Prince-Hughes experiences over the ‘ownership’ and objectification of animal lives (Prince-Hughes, 2004: 161–162) is poignantly derived from a relational connection with the ‘Gorilla-Nation’ that she considers more coherent than her human relationships (Prince-Hughes, 2004: 57). Through her sometimes bizarre field methods, Prince-Hughes became social with other species and was able to develop insights into their lives, and her own.

Davidson and Smith's (2009) paper is rich in similar autobiographical accounts of emotional relationships between neuro-diverse and non-human lives. They make a powerful argument for meaningful social engagements derived from more-than-human experiences, challenging traditional notions of what is and is not ‘social’. The important need to ‘trust insiders’ accounts, despite sometimes surprising departures from typical experience, expectations, or what is widely considered common sense, about how, for example, we cannot have emotional or social relations with piles of sand or patches of grass, or that we cannot be “friends” with worms or with rocks’ is highlighted (Davidson and Smith, 2009). Understanding non-humans as ‘people’ or ‘friends’ is a common theme in neuro-diverse writing, extending powerfully to places, elements, and abiotic entities such as rocks and soil – particularly for those journeying the autism spectrum (Bergenmar et al., 2015; Davidson and Smith, 2009; Prince-Hughes, 2004: 96; Simone, 2010: 101).

What could this mean for the way that autistic and other neuro-diverse scholars do more-than-human research? How does it influence the ways that social lives are imagined and critically engaged? What new perspectives could this potentially offer to the field? And, perhaps most importantly, should neuro-diverse researcher reflexivity be confined to private reflection, or should it be openly engaged as part of the research contribution to not only the field of enquiry, but also to broader issues of increased neurological awareness and engagement, and challenging the stigma around academic disclosure? Put simply, could autistic perspectives be seen more explicitly as an asset to research communities, rather than implicitly as something that needs to be accommodated in the name of inclusivity? And in doing so, might we be taking important steps towards breaking down the barriers of stigma that exclude and silence not only neuro-diverse academics, but multitudes of students who are potentially discouraged from pursuing research careers for fear that they bring only deficits to the table? Examples from autistic autobiographies certainly suggest that there is knowledge and insight to be gained through the unconventional seeing and doing methods of neuro-diverse researchers, which may have important contribution potential to the ways in which we undertake research with subjectivities different to our own. To illustrate this further, I will reflexively and critically engage with sensory knowledge-making in more-than-human contexts to consider how relationality between human and non-human entities can be understood from autistic phenomenal perspectives.

Different ways of knowing and doing

A stark parallel between neurodiversity and more-than-human fields are the communicative challenges for researchers. Both fields involve complex embodiments of knowledge that can be difficult to express in words (Brown and Dilley, 2012; Davidson and Smith, 2009; Grandin, 2002; Greenhough and Roe, 2011; Lorimer, 2010). Pushing traditional research boundaries in order to engage with lives that frequently defy verbal expression as a dominant means of communicating phenomenal experiences may need to draw from outside the box (Bastian, 2017; Dowling et al., 2017) and acknowledge multiplicity and complexity in what constitutes ‘communication’. Grandin (2002) believes that autistic sensory knowledges and communication, for instance, are similar to those of non-human animals in some regards, and may offer insights into animal lives in much the same way that her visual-thinking rendered her more attuned to fear-inducing stimuli for cattle. For myself, understanding waterways as communicative entities is an inherent part of how I think about them, largely because of the synesthetic (Robertson and Sagiv, 2004) way that my brain processes auditory information, eliciting visual, proprioceptive and tactile accompaniments. The sound of water looks and feels similar to human and non-human voices according to my senses, it has never occurred to me that a river is any less communicative than a bird or a human. This influences how I relate to a waterway and carry out research with (not about) it. I can be reflexive about this, bringing dimension and strength to my work, but how much does such a perspective really contribute? It cannot be quantified to ‘prove’ the communicative capacities of water, and is not considered evidence. However, it says something about a particular social engagement between a particular human person and more-than-human entity that is as real and worthy of consideration as any other. My expression of my experience can constitute data as ‘a view from somewhere’ (Haraway, 1988) that challenges notions of the autistic and non-human as socially or communicatively deficit, whilst simultaneously enriching work around water as an autonomous entity. But to do this, I need to be able to express it.

Such knowledges are difficult to represent, requiring both an engaged first-hand understanding and an open mind towards descriptively defiant experiences (Davidson and Henderson, 2010b; Davidson and Smith, 2009), particularly in terms of what is considered ‘communicative’. The highly subjective and individual nature of such experiences can be problematic in research where objectivity and consistent, repeatable evidence is prioritised. However, such rich experiential accounts can achieve a ‘more-than-representational’, embodied methodological approach that strengthens objectivity with phenomenal context (Lorimer, 2005). Laura Marks (2002: x) described such approaches as aiming to ensure that ‘the dry words retain a trace of the wetness of encounter’. Eva Hayward (2010) reported such ‘wetness of encounter’ in her ethnography of cup corals, describing sensory encounters as ‘fingeryeyes’ in order to capture the synesthetic ways that tentacular corals and human fingers touch to see, sensuously communicating cross-species knowledges and engagements with each other. Hayward suggests that ‘fingeryeyes’ is a ‘transfer of intensity, of expressivity in the simultaneity of touching and feeling’, a reciprocal sensory communication based on ‘having an impression of’ and ‘making an impression on’ each other. Working alongside biologists, Hayward combined scientific data on the ways that corals sense environmental changes in light and temperature to regulate reproduction, with her embodied ‘fingeryeyes’ ethnographic methods. Collaborative questions were raised as a result, one of the most striking of which was ‘how do corals feel their futures?’ (Hayward, 2010). Through inclusion of embodied, sensory communication across species, a more-than-representational view of the lives of cup corals was established – one that asked objective questions, as well as ‘wet’ questions that addressed the agency, autonomy and communicative styles of non-human participants. The sensory worlds of neuro-diverse researchers may hold similar potential in engaging with such ‘wetness of encounter’, provided that their sensing as a way of communicating and understanding is given due recognition rather than being diminished to the mere symptoms of ‘disorders’ and ‘syndromes’.

Conceptualising neuro-diverse sensing as a language is critically important to this. Many neuro-diverse writers suggest that ‘neuro-typical’ understanding and communication gives primacy to verbal reasoning and abstract interpretation, whilst neurologically different ways of knowing may rely more heavily on other modes of communication, just one of which is sensory engagements (Bergenmar et al., 2015; Davidson and Smith, 2009; Grandin, 2002; Williams, 1998: 102–117). Williams (1998: 102) highlights the importance of recognising how fundamentally different this mode of understanding is, arguing that ‘the language of the system of sensing does not conform to the rules of the language of interpretation and it would be irrational to expect it to.’ This is not to say that communicative systems occur as either/or, verbal/non-verbal oppositional binaries. To consider it as such would be to revert to polarised categories that limit and impose (Yergeau, 2009). Rather, the intention is to recognise that verbal communication is neither the sole form that communication can take, nor necessarily the primary way that beings – human and non-human – communicate. Such a continuous and actively fluid communicative spectrum requires an openness to different ways of knowing and expressing that may challenge solely verbal frameworks.

The deeply embodied nature of neuro-diverse experiences means that the mind and senses are intimately connected in ways that may defy a verbal conceptualisation and explanation (Chouinard, 2012; Davidson and Henderson, 2010b; Grandin, 1995; Parr, 1999). Neuro-diverse individuals, for instance, sometimes just know things that may not be as immediately apparent, or explainable, to others (Simone, 2010: 35–41). When anyone feels rain on their skin, or hears it on a roof, they know that it is raining without needing to explain or reason it out. Neuro-diverse sensory experiences of everyday life are much the same, except that realisations can be unfathomably complex, overwhelming in the extreme, and often invisible in the same fine detail to others (Chouinard, 2012; Davidson and Henderson, 2010b; Grandin and Johnson, 2006: 8; Parr, 1999). This is not to exceptionalise the autistic experience as some kind of ‘super-power’, but rather to emphasise different primary communicative modes as strengths alongside current understandings as deficits only. But any perceived ‘special’ skill comes with significant trade-offs. Overloads of sensory information can quickly lead to physical and mental violence, and subsequent ‘shutdowns’ (Davidson and Henderson, 2010b; Jones et al., 2003). Such intense, deeply debilitating experiences mean that these different, sensory language systems are usually framed as impairments, but only as impairments, excluding recognition as an important means of communication with the surrounding world.

Neuro-diverse sensory knowledge-making has a myriad of potential strengths and applications, many of which may facilitate new ways of relating to and understanding non-human lives, as has been demonstrated by the innovations and insights of Grandin (Grandin, 2002, 1995: 149–150; Wolfe, 2013), Prince-Hughes (2004), and other autobiographical accounts (Bergenmar et al., 2015; Davidson and Smith, 2009; Savarese, 2010; Williams, 1994, 1998). Davidson and Smith (2009) recognised the relational synergy between neuro-diverse and more-than-human sensory communication, noting that research has tended to ‘emphasise the construction of social meanings around [non-human] entities/places rather than the phenomenology of encounters with them.’ Abram (1996: 31–72) suggests that phenomenology applied to sensory ways of knowing is critical to meaning-making around more-than-human lives. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, Abram describes how sensing bodies attune to ‘the style of [the] other presence’, whether tree, rock, light, or animal, through ‘its ability to actively engage us and to provoke our senses’, thus engaging in a reciprocal, silent and ‘continuous dialogue that unfolds far below…verbal awareness’ (Abram, 1996: 52–56). In other words, being attuned to how we perceive and how the various stimulating features of both ourselves and other bodies facilitate perception is very much a method of communication, one that intense neuro-diverse sensory experiences may lend perspective and insight to.

A diagnostic criterion of Asperger's is ‘special interests’, an unusually intense and specific focus on particular subjects (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). I conceptualise this less condescendingly (‘special’?), recognising that ‘interest’ is not strong enough – they are core to one's identity. We don't play with trains, coins, maps, birds, dates, or whatever. We live and breathe them! Birds are part of who I am, my understanding of them is deeply sensory and communicative, encompassing patterns in shape, aesthetics, vocalisations, and so on that allow me to recognise categorical types first. But beyond this, my engagement with subtleties in movement, glance, posture, plumage, and voice communicate via my senses who this particular bird is, giving insights into what is meaningful to it now, and how my presence and interaction with it physically, emotionally and mentally affects us both. I sense the mood of the bird, its personality, its intentions. When I am seeing a bird, I sense that the bird is also seeing me. We are thus communicating through our mutual sensory presence in this moment. We become part of each other's stories through sensory dialogue. Such perceptions are in no way unique to autism. In her encounter with cup corals, Hayward (2010) describes how she and the corals by ‘responding through our different perceptual worlds…improvised and entwined with each other, producing texture, a tissue of incitement that made us with and through the world’ (Hayward, 2010). But Hayward's engagement is considered valid. That similar autistic engagements with non-human others – whether ecological entities or abiotic subjects like machines or architecture – are classified as ‘symptoms’ demonstrates the devaluing and pathologising of autistic perspectives and skills. Whilst one would tend to consider that the combination of intensely focussed interest and deep sensory engagement with a subject might be a valuable professional asset, here we see a clear difference in the way that sensory knowledges are considered according to a normal/abnormal neurology binary.

Despite phenomenal possibilities, challenges with verbal communication barriers remain problematic in engaging with neuro-diverse contributions to research. Though the usefulness of firsthand autobiographic contribution of neurodiversity to research has been highlighted here and elsewhere (Bergenmar et al., 2015; Davidson and Smith, 2009; Prince-Hughes, 2002: xi–xiv), there are many who are unable to verbally communicate their knowledges according to oral and written academic requirements. Sentence structures and word-use may diverge dramatically from accepted, familiar formats (Prince-Hughes, 2002: xii–xiii) along a broad verbal spectrum (Bogdashina, 2011). Many – including myself – struggle to give subjective verbal language primacy, particularly around abstract concepts (Bogdashina, 2011: 132–163; Grandin, 2002, 1995: 145–146; see also Williams, 1998), making effective theoretical and phenomenal description confounding. Outwardly expressing my thoughts is usually a far cry from the quality and clarity of what I actually think. The result is that I often fail to convey my ideas coherently or effectively to my peers, leading to personal frustration upon receiving feedback that reflects communicative failures. Whilst such feedback is helpful in terms of improving my communication skills and approaches, it frequently places too much focus on aspects of my understanding that are not as problematic as they communicatively appear, whilst not addressing those that are. Grandin reveals that she ‘thinks in pictures’ and conceptualises her ideas as complex visual images, translating them into verbal language afterwards (Grandin and Johnson, 2006: 16–18; Grandin, 1995, 2002: 141–142). Non-verbal autism activist Amanda Baggs (2007) uses video and communication technology to provide a glimpse of the world ‘in my language’, where she poignantly states that despite being considered non-communicative, she is in ‘a constant conversation with every aspect of [her] environment.’ These examples suggest that verbal communication can be very much a second language in the autistic experience. Indeed, I have reflexively drawn on this realisation in my cross-cultural research to develop greater empathy towards my collaborators and the language barriers we encounter together.

Notably, more-than-human research deals explicitly with non-verbal subjects, and synergies may exist here both methodologically and empathetically. Autistic writer Tito Mukhopadhyay does not speak, but he communicates with exquisite beauty through poetry and prose writing inspired by intense sensory relationality (Savarese, 2010). Tito expresses his experience of being non-verbal by becoming, and empathising with, a banyan tree that wishes to speak, but is unable to do so with human words. The banyan tree, like Tito, is able to hope, imagine and love, but ‘cannot ask’ (Mukhopadhyay, 2003: 169; Savarese, 2010). Speaking as both himself and the tree, Tito explains that ‘…my concerns and worries are trapped within me somewhere in my depths, maybe in my roots, maybe in my bark or maybe all around my radius’ (Mukhopadhyay, 2003: 169). Tito, like he imagines the banyan tree, can feel and experience something that cannot be pinned down or easily identified in verbal language. His words are a poignant insight into the embodiment of experiences that may defy strictly verbal communication of experiences and knowledges in both neuro-diverse and more-than-human contexts. What insights might an autistic researcher be able to offer to methods for engaging non-verbal, more-than-human lives by sharing their own experiences of communicative restriction?

With technological innovations and increasing advocacy, more individuals considered ‘non-communicative’ – including non-humans (Grandin and Johnson, 2006: 280–283; Prince-Hughes, 2004: 201–203; Worsham and Olson, 2012) – are finding ways to express themselves and defy the imposed limitations of communicative/non-communicative, verbal/non-verbal binaries (see examples from Baggs, 2007; Fleischmann and Fleischmann, 2012; Higashida, 2013; Mukhopadhyay, 2013). Such direct challenges are raising important questions around agency, autonomy and personhood. How, as researchers, do we navigate this understanding to ensure that non-verbal and sensory ways of knowing and communicating also have meaningful opportunities to be engaged? The fields of more-than-human and neurodiversity research may have a lot to offer each other in this regard, since both feature ‘less-than-human’ lives that have been denied consideration of their phenomenal knowledges and sensory language systems as richly communicative and worthy of inclusion. Indeed, the logic of research with non-verbal more-than-human worlds drawing from insights by researchers who communicate in ways that may not necessarily assign verbal primacy presents possibilities around a ‘more-than-verbal’ (Greenhough and Roe, 2011) approach to the inclusion of knowledges. Grandin's work stands as strong testimony to such possibilities. Challenging verbal language as the only means of effective, intelligent communication or consciousness (Grandin and Johnson, 2006: 262–263; Wolfe, 2013), Grandin (2002) states that if ‘animals are not truly conscious because they do not have [verbal] language…I would have to conclude that as an autistic person who does not think in [verbal] language that I am not conscious’. Rejecting this conclusion, Grandin posits ‘obviously I am conscious, even though I don't think in words, so there's nothing to say an animal can't be conscious just because an animal doesn't think in words’ (Grandin and Johnson, 2006: 262). By engaging with neurodiversity and more-than-human experiences both independently and collaboratively, the potential to uncover opportunities for more-than-verbal approaches to research is both clear and important to ongoing disciplinary growth.

Conclusion

The purpose of this paper has been to reframe neuro-diverse limitations explicitly as potential assets to research. Whilst I am not suggesting that autism equates to more-than-human affinities and insights, or contributes something vastly different or ‘special’ to current embodied approaches, I am arguing that such experiences need to be considered in and of themselves given the intensely central role that they play in autistic lives. This is particularly important in researcher reflexivity, coupled with the entrenched stigma that continues to restrict academic engagement of neurological-difference (England, 2016). Given the critical role of reflexivity to research (Dowling, 2000; Etherington, 2004: 9–37), and the inseparability of one's neurology from how they understand and relate to the world, neuro-diverse academics need to be able to openly comment on how they navigate their own challenges when working with others, and how alternative approaches to such challenges – though potentially unconventional – can strengthen enquiry and unlock the capacity of individuals to turn limitations into assets based on what works for them. I have argued that differences in ways of knowing can potentially enrich research engagements by adding new, unexpected dimensions to existing approaches; and in doing so, highlight areas for improvement that further the continual transformation of academic practices. By critically engaging with neuro-diverse researchers, the scope to open channels of understanding is both widened and deepened to inform how we work with others, contributing neurologically attuned perspectives within research communities.

To do this, I have drawn from autistic autobiography, including autobiographical data emerging from reflexivity exercises around my own research. By drawing together the accounts of autistic scholars working intentionally from autistic perspectives, I have attempted to demonstrate the ways in which neurological-difference can act as strengths, insights, and challenges to the ways in which we produce knowledge and do research, and the ways in which we consider neurological-difference in society and academia. Although the argument is relevant to all fields, I have focussed on more-than-human geography as my disciplinary context. Fortuitously, methodological overlaps emerge when one considers that neuro-diverse and non-human lives encompass similarly difficult phenomenal experiences that may require radically different, more-than-verbal approaches (Dowling et al., 2017; Greenhough and Roe, 2011) that challenge traditional methodologies – both in terms of how the researcher works with others, and the ways in which knowledges are expressed. Both fields require open-minded, collaborative, and innovative approaches to sensory languages and embodied experiences that may defy verbal communication.

Significantly, more questions have arisen than specific answers, indicating important gaps in understanding and a need to keep dialogues open and active. Far from complete, I consider this work a dialogical contribution emerging from my reflexive position as an autistic geographer collaborating with diverse humans and more-than-humans. It has created multiple dialogues within my research community, ultimately serving as an intentional act of disclosure understood and accepted as personal responsibility towards enacting the changes I argue for. Through my disclosure and subsequent dialogues, the ways in which neurologically different and non-human knowledges have been impaired into something less-than-human has been powerfully highlighted. For myself, and many neuro-diverse academics (England, 2016; Prince-Hughes, 2002; ‘Stella’, 2015), this reality is deeply felt as a silencing stigma that perpetuates fear of disclosure and truly engaged reflexivity. It is my hope that this paper will challenge that stigma as a matter of urgency, and compliment important work that furthers dialogues around neurological-difference as an asset to undertaking research.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge all public textual sources and their respective authors cited in this article. All public authors have been notified of reference to their work where possible. Importantly, thanks to Emily O'Gorman for her supervision and guidance, and Sandie Suchet-Pearson for additional support and encouragement in my decision to disclose. Their combined support has been invaluable.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Sara M Judge is currently based at Macquarie University and undertaking collaborative cross-cultural and indigenous research focusing on experiential knowledge-making and more-than-human geographies.

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