Neurodiversity and Relationality: Beyond the Cultural Divide
This article explores how including neuroatypical stories in mainstream environmental narratives can heal the divide between nature and culture.
First Glance
In an era where the divide between humans and nature often seems insurmountable, the concept of relational identity offers a compelling bridge. This approach invites us to see ourselves as integral parts of the natural world, fostering deeper connections and a greater sense of responsibility. As part of the Human Nature Culture campaign, IRB is exploring this theme through the lens of neurodiversity, highlighting the unique ways in which autistic individuals engage with the more-than-human world. My research is based on a myriad of papers and case studies from neuroatypical scholars and neurodiversity researchers, qualitative interviews with neuroatypical people involved in environmental projects, and my own autistic embodied experience of the world. These stories offer profound insights into the diverse of ways we can relate to the rest of nature.
To provide some background, if you are not familiar with the term, neurodiversity is an umbrella word that regroups neurological cognitions, or brains that function differently from what is typically expected, often including Autism, ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), Dyslexia, and other neurological differences. Unfortunately, neurodiversity, shaped by the medical model, has long been understood as an illness. It's difficult for some people to understand that it is more like an aspect of your personality.
“I think the misconception that people have about autism and ADHD is that it’s not real. That I can control it, they look for exterior reasons.” (Anonymous Interviewee)
Autistic activist Jim Sinclair writes, “Autism isn’t something a person has or a ‘shell’ that a person is trapped inside. There’s no normal child hidden behind autism. Autism is a way of being. It is pervasive; it colours every experience, every sensation, perception, thought, emotion, and encounter, every aspect of existence. It is not possible to separate autism from the person—and if it were possible, the person you’d have left would not be the same person you started with” (1993).
“I am very grateful for being neuroatypical, I wouldn't want to be someone different than what I am. I think I am hilarious, joyful and I like to be swept away. I like that I see things in the big picture, I see many answers at once, many possibilities, how things are connected, and I find it exciting, that intensity makes me feel alive.” (Anonymous Interviewee)
It is true that, through the medical lens, disability is mostly imagined as a condition that disabled people would love to get rid of, there is no room for the idea that an autistic person can be content about their neurodiversity. By labelling neuroatypical people as ‘abnormal’, what can be questioned is a very problematic conception of ‘natural purity’. Indeed, there is a tendency to think about terms like nature, wilderness, and environment, as self-evident, assuming their meaning to be universal, stable, and monolithic (Kafer,2017:204). I am keenly aware of the narrative I've been told throughout my life about ‘nature’ and its supposed perfection, portrayed as an entity devoid of flaws, where everything is crafted in harmonious order. Visions of nature are often idealised and depolarised fantasies, and disability play an integral, if often unmarked, role in marking the limits of these fantasies (Kafer,2017:203).
Eli Clare, in Politics of Cure, talks about the desire of the medical model to ‘restore’ the health of disabled people, and it is nonsense:
“But for some of us, even if we accept disability as harm to individual bodies, restoration still does not make sense, because an original non-disabled body does not exist. How would I, or the medical establishment, go about restoring my body? The visions of me without tremoring hands and slurred speech, with more balance and coordination, do not originate from my body’s history. Rather it arises from the imagination of what my body should be like, some definitions of ‘normal’ and ‘natural’.”
Then again, terms like natural and unnatural, normal and abnormal represent the fundamental illogic rooted in the white Western framework that separates human animals from non-human nature (Clare,2017:259). These four concepts, in all their various pairings, form a matrix of intense contradictions, wielding immense power in spite of, or perhaps because of, the illogic (Clare,2017:263).
I wish to acknowledge the important reality that each experience is unique and cannot be homogenised. For this reason, the term ‘neurodiversity’ may fail to have relevance to some. However, for many, it also represents a united position from which to argue neurological differences as marginalised states of being that are exacerbated by disabling societies (Jaarsma and Welin, 2012; see also Armstrong, 2011; Silberman, 2015). For the purpose of this essay, ‘neurodiversity’ is used primarily as a collective term that includes the vast array of minds that do not necessarily fit the neurotypical model, and as terms that avoid the lessening language of pathology (Yergeau, 2009). I hope to demonstrate how neurological differences commonly understood as limitations can act as strengths, insights, and challenges in how we produce knowledge and do research about non-human nature, and how we consider differences generally.
Redefining Human-Nature Relationships
To explore the biases in environmental discourse, Alison Kafer in Bodies of Nature questions: “Whose experiences of nature are taken as the norm within environmental discourses? What do these discourses assume about nature, the body-mind, and the relationship between humans and nature?”
This inquiry reveals how environmental interactions are understood and highlights the need to consider diverse perspectives, particularly those marginalised by dominant narratives. Building on Kafer's inquiry, it's clear that Western anthropocentric society is profoundly marked by the nature-culture divide, leading to a disregard for nonhuman life. This divide is entrenched in environmental discourses that often prioritise human experiences over those of other beings.
Furthermore, what do we really mean when we say “human”? According to autism activist Amanda Baggs, we (in Western Societies) certainly don’t mean “autistic” (2010c). We mean “neurotypical.”
Commonly, autistic people are described as empathy-deprived and unable to socially connect with their surroundings. However, Robert M. Figueroa, in Environmental Justice and the Chains of Empathy, explores the autistic environmental identity, which he argues is a crucial concept and process for delivering the most effective recognition perspectives in environmental justice studies. He points out the contradictions in how autistic people are medically defined by empathetic deficiency, while simultaneously being noted for a unique capacity for environmental empathy.
“What is the most shocking to me is the idea people have about the relation between emotions and autistics, and this idea that there is a lack of empathy and compassion as if autistics were stuck in their bubble with no understanding of their environment, with no desire to interact with it,” said Opale, a gender-fluid, autistic environmental activist and architect interviewee.
Instead of adopting a reductive view of what it means to be disabled, it is time to recognize the complexities of the embodiment of autistic people and their unique qualities. In fact, the way autistics approach and experience the world is chained to empathy in a different, far more vulnerable way than neurotypical conceptions. As Robert M. Figueroa argues, if autistic voices are quieted by normative environmental interpretations, the healing of environmental traumas cannot be fully integrated, because normativity dislodges environmental identity and reinserts the individual. He continues by explaining that interspecies environmental justice will require an intentional recognition stance, a reconfiguration of empathy for environmental identity, and co-relational agency. Recognition of environmental justice requires that autistics are more than a subject of study or a bridge between human and nonhuman justice; they are self and community advocates with environmental identities that raise difficult questions for nature-culture reconciliation.
Autistics, relationality & non-human nature
Numerous moving testimonies reveal the deep empathetic relationships that autistic individuals often have with nonhumans. For example, Olga Krumins states in Judith P. Miller's Women from Another Planet: Our Lives in the Universe of Autism:
"I attend to everything the same way with no discrimination so that the caw of the crow in the tree is as clear and important as the voice of the person I’m walking with."
This book is a collection of essays and personal narratives by women on the autism spectrum. Krumins' statement reflects a common experience among individuals with autism, where sensory inputs are often perceived with equal intensity and without the usual hierarchical filtering that neurotypical individuals might experience. This can lead to a heightened awareness of environmental sounds and stimuli, revealing meaningful autistic relationships with non-humans that are typically not considered when assessing social capacities.
Similarly, Temple Grandin, in Animals in Translation, addresses how autism has informed her work in animal studies. She argues that the predominantly visual nature of her inner life provides her with a unique perspective on how non-human animals respond to their environments. She determines that they possess far more sophisticated perceptual and sensory processes, and hence more thought and consciousness, than is commonly understood. Grandin concludes that (non-human) animals and humans share a capacity for non-verbal thought that is overlooked by human exceptionalism.
Neuroatypical stories often highlight a comfort with nonhuman animals, stemming from an authenticity and directness that bypasses social masks. Therefore, it is easier for them to read and relate. The autistic scholar Sara M. Judge emphasises that the sound of water looks and feels similar to human and non-human voices according to her senses. It has never occurred to her 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” (Judge: 2017:15).
What does it mean to you to be in a reciprocal relationship with non-human people?
“To me it represents a level of care, giving care, tending a little pot of land or composting, also in the sense of tuning in, going in with an open heart, having that openness to being affected by the world, and the subtle nature of nonhumans frequencies. The care, for me at least, is always given, and the care that I give back needs to be intentional because of that, and that's what makes it reciprocal. It’s just getting to know someone and being open to the fact that this person is not human.” (Anonymous Interviewee)
These features reveal a rich and nuanced emotional life and contradict the ‘robotic’ stereotype of autism. Something that is common to a lot of autistics is how they struggle with understanding social cues and insinuations, which, as a result, can create difficulties in grasping social frameworks. Thus, as the concept of alienation between nature and culture is socially and politically charged, it is something autistics are less susceptible to integrate or feel concerned with.
For instance, Opale is a gender-fluid, autistic, environmental activist, and architect. I met them in 2019. As I was asking them questions on their way of relating with nature, they emphasised the fact that it didn’t make sense to them because they don’t feel the need to be present in wild spaces to feel either related or connected to them. In the way their mind perceives, there is no feeling of alienation as they already feel a part of an interconnected world. They are nature in the cities and in the forests. The change of scenery doesn’t impact their perception about nature. In fact, even that term doesn’t resonate accurately; one doesn’t spend time ‘in’ or ‘out’ of nature; it is not an entity in the background of human landscapes. Opale argues that their autism can open up to wonderful connections with the beings who surround them:
“It can also be a problem when I am confronted with toxic behaviours. Yet, I have this capacity to love that is so profound and vibrant, and it provides me with so much joy. It’s a power to live things with such intensity.”
Concluding Thoughts
The fact that humans are the only species to have evolved such a complex language is one of the main arguments used to justify their alleged superiority. What neuroatypical research highlights is that there is not only one way to engage in conversations and that language can also be used in different ways for inter-species connections. The fact that human beings lack the language skills to communicate with nonhuman nature does not imply that the rest of nature is not intelligent; however, it speaks to human lack of capacity for broader communication. Possibilities might exist for autistic ways of knowing to contribute to the understanding of more-than-human worlds (Judge: 2017:15). However, it is important not to attempt to romanticise autism or neuroatypicality in general and understand that discriminations still apply within that sphere. Here, the emphasis is mainly directed toward neurodiversity, although I acknowledge the interconnection with other marginalised groups and their fundamental role in this context. The liberation of disabled bodies is deeply linked to the liberation of all oppressed people and must be approached from a decolonial, queer, anti-speciesist, and feminist perspective. Not all neuroatypical people hold the same privileges, and not all of them can relate to this discourse or experience. Indeed, the goal is not to add more to the hierarchy by suggesting that neurodiversity is better than normative cognitions but rather to encourage more mingling and diversity of narratives. What I have been exploring is the potential to access different approaches and manners of experiencing the world and its sensations to better understand its richness. Indeed the spectrum is so vast, not everyone is going to have an ‘intimate’ relationship with the Earth. However, the ones that do, see a different perspective, and see that their version of reality is real, valid and worth protecting. If human people are able to open up to that truth, the animacy, the aliveness, there is a whole world so wondrous and mind blowing that opens up.
“It is important to remember how small we are.” (Anonymous Interviewee)
For both autistics and nonhumans, ‘difference’ has more frequently been framed as something ‘other’ rather than being recognized as alternative ways of knowing and doing. Perhaps if we were able to open to these minds and see these different angles and realities and hold them as truth, then, at least for Western societies, we wouldn't be so disconnected from the rest of the natural world.
How can neuroatypical beings offer different perspectives by adding new, unexpected dimensions to existing understandings and approaches; and in doing so, highlight ways to create harmonious relationships with non-human nature?
“I guess just a different way of thinking, an hypersensitivity to the world, to its connections, thinking on a multi-scalar level, which offers a different perspective. When you allow yourself to let go of normative dimensions that society says are acceptable and what it means to be normal, where you are not shamed to be who you are, you can definitely see a world that is more understanding, you can imagine inter-species kinship, you see communion. I have this sentiment that we are all stuck in those rigid boxes with acceptable behaviours and not interested in understanding each being for what they are, for what they are trying to communicate to you as themselves and not as you projecting” (Anonymous Interviewee)
Compelling stories, including those from autistic perspectives, deepen our understanding of what it means to be human and should be fully embraced. This research highlights that empathy, far from being absent in autistic individuals, is uniquely expressed—one of the many facets revealed in my broader study. Many have shared their profound connections to the nonhuman world, never feeling separate from it. This perspective can enrich our understanding by fostering diverse viewpoints. In times of crisis, placing compassion at the core of our actions is essential.
Something that, on the edge of the sixth mass extinction, is more needed than ever before.
Human Nature Culture
As we move forward with the Human Nature Culture fundraising campaign at the Institute of Relational Being, we are reminded of the intersections between human experience, neurodiversity, and our relationality with the Earth. In this article we explored how understanding neurodiversity can deepen our connection to the more-than-human world, challenging normative assumptions and fostering empathy across species boundaries, emphasises the importance of diverse perspectives in ecological discourse. The Human Nature Culture campaign seeks to restore and celebrate these relational entanglements. By supporting IRB's mission to bring humans into flourishing relational equilibrium with the Earth, we acknowledge that our future lies in embracing and nurturing these connections.
Join us in this journey of exploration and action. Every contribution helps weave a tapestry of resilience and reciprocity with the living world, directly supporting IRB's mission to nurture these vital connections.
Words by
- Ecological Ambassador of Imagination & Creativity at the Institute of Relational Being.I would like to extend my gratitude to the interviewees who participated in my research for my dissertation in 2023. Special appreciation goes to the anonymous interviewee and to Opale, a gender-fluid, autistic, environmental activist, and architect, whom I met in Paris during an Extinction Rebellion meeting in 2019. Opale, who grew up in a French-Vietnamese family, co-founded the eco-feminist collective Voix-Déterres.
References:
Armstrong, A., 2011. All Day I Hear the Noise of Waters: Autistic Culture, Identity, and the Education of an Environmental Ethic. In: N. J. Yergeau, R. A. McGrath, and A. H. Wernimont, eds. Intersectional Rhetorics: Invention, Performance, and Discourse. New York: SUNY Press, pp. 169-186.
Baggs, A., 2010. In My Language. [online] Available at: https://ballastexistenz.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/in-my-language/ [Accessed 12 February 2023].
Clare, E., 2017. The Politics of Cure: Disability as Disproportion in the Legal Courts. Chicago Law Review, 78(3), pp. 235-276.
Davis, L., 2002. Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body. London: Verso.
Dunnayer, T., 2004. Speciesism. In: Encyclopedia of Ethical Considerations in Nature. New York: SUNY Press, pp. 53-72.
Figueroa, R. M., 2016. Environmental Justice and the Chains of Empathy. Ethics & the Environment, 21(1), pp. 99-124.
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Jaarsma, P., and Welin, S., 2012. Autism as an Identity: An Introduction. In: P. Jaarsma and S. Welin, eds. Autism: A Foundation for the Disability Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, pp. 1-25.
Judge, S. M., 2017. Communicating Environmental Identities: Autistics and Nonhuman Animals in the Landscape. Journal of Environmental Philosophy, 14(2), pp. 5-28.
Kafer, A., 2017. Bodies of Nature: Intersectional Disability and Environmental Justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Miller, J. P., 2015. Women from Another Planet: Our Lives in the Universe of Autism. New York: Vintage Books.
Nocella, A. J., 2017. Ableism, Speciesism, and Civilisation: The Power of Domination. Critical Sociology, 43(1), pp. 148-165.
Silberman, S., 2015. Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. New York: Penguin Books.
Taylor, S., 2011. The Relationship between Disability Studies and Animal Rights. Ethics & the Environment, 16(2), pp. 199-218.
Wheeler, E. A., 2017. Moving Together Side by Side: Human-Animal Comparison in Picture Books. Children's Literature in Education, 48(4), pp. 593-620.
Yergeau, M., 2009. Clinically Significant Disturbance: On Theorists Who Theorize Theory of Mind. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 42(3), pp. 267-290.
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