Search for:
Apr 4 2023
Neuroqueer: Neuro-anarchy and the Chaotic Self

This article was co-authored by David Gray-Hammond and Katie Munday

Throughout this blog series, we have been discussing Neuroqueer Theory and the ways that it can be applied to people’s lives. We have considered gender identity, depathologising psychiatric conditions, and how one might embody their psychological wellbeing, to name but a few. In wider work, David has discussed neurofuturism and moving away from normative thinking. In this article, we would like to introduce the concepts of neuro-anarchy and the Chaotic Self to the discussion of Neuroqueer Theory, and consider how the two synergise with each other.

What is Neuro-anarchy?

Neuro-anarchy is the removal of oneself, either consciously or unconsciously, from the neuronormative standards that exist within one’s own neuroculture. Using the Autistic community as an example, our culture has its own set of rules and normative values, as does any cultural group; neuro-anarchy is a radical decentering of normativity. If we consider that our sense of Self is built upon the values and opinions or our prevailing culture, neuro-anarchy invites us to step outside of those values and carve our own space within which to form an identity. Munday (2022) discusses neuro-anarchy in the context of Autistic shielding.

What is the Chaotic Self?

In A Treatise on Chaos Gray-Hammond (2023) discusses the idea of our sense of Self being a fluid and moving entity, constantly changing and reshaping as we receive new information and interact with the environment. He discusses how to queer one’s neurology, we must first consider that changes we make are unable to be reversed. In this sense, the Self tends towards being a chaotic system that is in a constant state of change. You can’t unqueer a queer mind.

What is the relevance of these to each other?

Neuro-anarchy is an act of protest, it is how one neuroqueers in spaces that should belong to us but instead remain external in our relationship to who we are. Neuro-anarchy arises from a level of cognitive dissonance that presents when a person finds themselves an outsider in a group that they should fit into.

In response to this cognitive dissonance, we create our own individual values and concept of the Self that allow us to reconcile the dysphoria of rejection, and bring peace to a bodymind that recognises the fractures and contradictions in it’s own cultures and communities.

Neuro-anarchy invites us to step back from the minutia of community advocacy and consider how one’s community and culture fits into the world’s wider picture. This is where the Chaotic Self comes in. The concept of the Chaotic Self tells us that wider power dynamics and systems within our world inform the discourse around our identities, which in turn become a part of the Self.

A neuro-anarchistic approach to one’s identity teaches us to decentralise all systems of power and instead look to how the individual can build a community from the shared subjective experiences that constitute our culture.

As the individual Self grows and changes, so too must our community.

By stepping away from the power structures that exist in our society, we are able to pick and chose the concepts that form the Self. This in turn allows us to effectively neuroqueer through the subversion of all expectation, and not just those that our community desires us to subvert. Neuro-anarchy allows us to move fluidly throughout cultural identities, and internalise the concepts from within them that we feel are most relevant to us.

By understanding the nature of neuro-anarchy and the Chaotic Self, we are able to see ourselves not as a collection of identities but instead a single Self that belongs (to some extent) to multiple cultural groups. We are able to subvert identity politics while holding an awareness of where we do or do not have privilege.

If neuroqueering is a liberatory act, then neuro-anarchy is the tool we use for that act. The Chaotic Self, then, is the overarching way of understanding one’s sense of Self throughout the process of neuroqueering. It allows us to embrace the fact that once queered, the bodymind cannot return to it’s previous state. By embracing this we transcend normative values and enter a world of infinite possibility (Gray-Hammond, 2022).

References

Gray-Hammond, D (2022) The infinite and I: Embracing my Neuroqueer Self. Emergent Divergence. https://emergentdivergence.com

Gray-Hammond, D (2023) A Treatise on Chaos: Embracing the Chaotic Self and the art of neuroqueering. Independently Published.

Munday, K. (2022) Counterculture: Autistic shielding and neuro-anarchy. Autistic and Living the Dream. https://autisticltd.co.uk

David Gray-Hammond 6 Comments
Feb 11 2023
Neurodivergence and Normality: The meaning of words

“I understand now that boundaries between noise and sound are conventions. All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended. One may transcend any convention if only one can first conceive of doing so.”

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

The neurodiversity movement is predicated on three deceptively simple ideas:

  • There are as many variations of the human mind as there are humans.
  • Those who can not perform to neurotypical standards are neurodivergent.
  • Neurodivergent people deserve equity and inclusion in our shared environment.

Upon this premise, an entire collective culture of shared knowledge and community-connectedness has blossomed. Creating spaces where neurodivergent people have, for the first time, felt they belong. For many of us, including myself, it has been not just life-changing. It has saved us from an early demise.

But what is neurotypicality? What is it exactly that we diverge from?

Neurotypicality is a performance. It is a set of normative ideas that we have come to accept as “normal”. While those normative ideas my change based on the local environments culture, the truth remains that the word “normal” has been weilded as a weapon to justify the dehumanisation and oppression of all who can not, or will not, assimilate.

Normality is itself a social construct. It is an abstract entity. It is not measurable or tangible. While one could argue that normality is a word that represents that which most have on common, we could just as easily have given it the opposite meaning.

All words are essentially meaningless. The objective truth of a words meaning is something of a social contract between ourselves and those around us. For the context of this essay, let us take normality or “normal” to mean the most commonly found attributes of a given population.

In this sense, Autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people are abnormal. We have diverged from normality, representing what is framed by wider society as an aberration in the status quo. On the basis of this, a global industrial complex has risen up in order to not only force our assimilation into normality but also turn that endeavour into a profitable business.

How does one move forward when the world is at odds with your existence?

Even in neurodivergent communities, we frame ourselves through our differences. Celebrating the idea that we are different to that which normativity requires. While their is beauty to be found in such an existence, I believe that we must transcend the limitations of normality. Not through our difference, but instead by our assertion that “normal” does not exist.

We are not different because of our lack of normality. We are different because we embrace individuality and diversity. The difference between normality and normativity is semantic in nature. Normality is the attractive package that is gifted to us to take into our home. We must challenge normativty at its core and not at its surface.

To move into a post-normal society, one must first be able to conceive of such a place. We must establish new boundaries that turn the sound of normality into background noise. Drowning out normative beliefs with the voices of those that refuse to assimilate.

This, of course, presents a problem for not just neurotypical society but also neurodivergent communities. Even in our own culture, there exists a kind of essentialism in the idea that you are either neurotypical or neurodivergent. In a post-normal world, words like “divergent” and “typical” become redundant. If we have no preconceived notions of normality, then there is no need for a counter-culture. There is nothing to assimilate into.

Such a world would allow for the emancipation of neurodivergent communities but fundamentally alter the meaning of what it means to be neurodivergent. We would not be connecting over our differences but rather our shared culture. Such culture is difficult to quantify at this stage because we still have a long way to travel.

For now, this kind of neurofuturism may sound naively utopian, perhaps even dystopian, depending on your outlook. If I can be sure of one thing, it’s that it’s time for us to conceive of a world beyond normality. It is the first step on a journey toward a world where the oppression of neurodivergent people is no longer possible.

David Gray-Hammond 1 Comments
Dec 30 2021
Autopia: The reality of accommodating Autistics

At Aucademy we have long talked about our vision of a perfect Autistic utopia, affectionately called “Autopia”. The vision is of a collective living scenario, away from the pressures of a world that puts neuronormative standards and culturally accepted neurotypicality, ahead of any neurocognitive type that does not fit into its restrictive box. We often imagine a world with sensory safe spaces, collaborative living arrangements, and a distinct lack of hierachy.

Such a world would be brilliant, and beautiful. However, the reality of creating a world where Autistics can live in peace and comfort as their authentic selves is more complicated.

As discussed in a previous article, we are at a transitional point for the world. The neurodiversity movement fights every day to ensure equitable and fair treatment of all neurodivergent people, but we are still some way off from a world in which no one is given privilege, and all can access the world comfortably.

What would such a world look like?

The world we wish to create is not as simple as safe spaces and collaborative living. It first must do away with the pathology paradigm. Currently, neurodivergence is treated as a medical issue, with any associated disability often being viewed through the lens of the medical model of disability. Converse to this we have the social model of disability.

Our first steps towards Autopia require us to understand the ramifications of the social model. Under this model, disability can be considered to be the result of oppression. Rather than arising from a medical deficit within the person, the social model suggests that we are disabled by a society that fails to give us equal access to the environment. Thus, this failure can be considered a form of oppression. In some cases the oppression is a direct thing, with those responsible intentionally refusing access to disabled people, in other cases the oppression is more indirect, caused by a lack of understanding that inadvertently perpetuates the oppression of the disabled person.

Ableism is also another consideration. Once society has effectively oppressed and disabled a person, it then discriminates against them. Many disabled people are forced out of the work force by such ableism, forced to survive off of whatever money their government decides is appropriate (often with little care as to whether or not that money is enough to survive on). People are judged by societies standard of what a disabled person should look like, and what they are capable of, with little interest in what the disabled person has to say about their experience.

Understanding the ramifications of the social model, and the ableism that follows societies oppression of those who do not fit into culturally accepted standards, allows us to start seeing the pathology paradigm that has kept the neurodivergent on a lower rung of the ladder for quite some time.

This is where the neurodiversity movement comes in, and where an understanding of the neurodiversity paradigm becomes paramount.

To create Autopia, we must do away with cultural neuronormativity, and accept that human minds are diverse and beautiful. We must understand that no single neurocognitive style is superior to another. Ultimately, we must create a world where words like neurotypical and neurodivergent become irrelevant. This bold new world would not need such words, because no one is considered “normal” or “typical”, and no one is considered “different” or “atypical”. It is a world in which we all simply co-exist. No one has privilege over another. The world and society at large are accessible to all.

Unfortuantely, such a world is quite some time away. There is a great deal of work to be done to achieve it. The current world we live in traumatises Autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people on a daily basis. For more reading on how society harms Autistics, please see the Creating Autistic Suffering series housed on this blog, the series is authored by myself and Tanya Adkin.

To achieve Autopia, we must challenge our beliefs and thoughts. Society has done a good job of forcing the pathology paradigm on us. Now is the time to unlearn those lessons.

David Gray-Hammond 2 Comments
Verified by MonsterInsights