Essay – Animality and Autism: Honouring Shared Experiences of Otherness

Essay by Grace Rokesky for Contextualising Practice

‘Appearance and Behavioral Observations: Throughout sessions, Grace presented tidy and well-groomed. She had short stature, appeared to have a healthy BMI, and mobilised independently. Grace was reliably polite, friendly and cooperative. Grace initially presented with anxious affect; however, she settled gradually over sessions. Grace consistently presented with self-conscious eye contact. Grace was able to maintain appropriate small talk guided by the clinician’ (Personal Autism Assessment Report, 2023).

Within these observations, Grace is reduced to a set of physical and behavioural characteristics rather than a full and complex person (see for analysis of this tendency Hamby, 2018). Constant reference by name rather than the use of pronouns suggests a lack of the interpersonal relationships typical of people, and animalistic descriptors like ‘behavioural observations’, ‘groomed’ and ‘stature’ strip away any remaining signifiers of Grace’s humanness. Based on this description, Grace could be a human, and yet she could also be something else, some non-human creature, critter or animal.

The Uncanny Valley Theory suggests that people are more likely to experience negative affect¹ to stimuli that have a near-perfect human likeness compared to stimuli that have perfect human likeness (Burleigh TJ et al, 2013). Autistic² author and poet Joanne Limburg defines Uncanny Valley as an uncomfortable feeling that stems from representations of humans that blur the lines between being human/non-human and real/fake (2021). Within her book Letters to My Weird Sisters, Limburg explores what it means to embody the Uncanny as an Autistic woman and suggests that the othering experienced by Autistic people is a dehumanisation in response to their perceived Uncanniness (2021). While Autistic people aren’t necessarily obviously ‘other’³, many Autistic traits are perceived to be discomforting, unsettling, robotic and unhuman, resulting in allistic⁴ people not registering Autistics as fellow people and treating them as such (2021). Limburg’s assertion is supported by results from a 2019 study entitled Understanding, attitudes and dehumanisation towards autistic people, which suggests that allistic people still hold dehumanising attitudes towards autism, particularly when they deny Autistic people’s ability to hold traits of human uniqueness (Cage E et al). Similarly, a 2024 study finds that ‘[n]on-autistic individuals consistently rated autistic people as less human than non-autistic people’ (Kim SY et al). This dehumanisation encompassed denying Autistic people’s capabilities and agency, as well as perceiving Autistic people as child-like, machine-like or animal-like (Kim SY et al. 2024).  Within my own life, I have found that my most harsh othering was always in response to my Autistic traits. Most intensely, at the age of 14, my family was forced to move out of our hometown after not being able to mask our neurodivergent traits. This meant that we experienced harassment and violence in the form of being beaten, spat on, yelled at, cornered and intimidated – at school, at the supermarket, and outside our house. Each act of violence was intended to remind us that we were different, inferior and unwelcome, and ultimately expelled us from our own community.  We were treated like animals, because like animals we were seen as lesser beings that were allowed –if not encouraged, to be treated badly (see for further analysis Korsgaard, 2012). As Limburg plainly states: ‘It’s horrible being a not-person'(2021:14).

Philosopher and animal rights advocate Joan Dunayer discerns that utilising animal epithets in association with women (such as bitch, chick, cow and pussy) serves to mark women as inferior beings (1995). Limburg expands on this by observing how weird women, in particular, are constantly denigrated within media using animalistic language and associations (2021). She notes horror author Stephen King uses dehumanising pejoratives of frog, goat, ox and hog to effectively convey the weirdness of his protagonist Carrie – reducing her to a failed girl-critter, a being who is closer to a creature than a full person (2021).  Paralleling this, biologist Lynda Birke observes that while feminism doesn’t have a central focus on animal and human relationships, women and animals are intrinsically linked as othered beings (2002), and based on Limburg’s assertions, I would argue that this shared otherness is compounded for Autistic women. In response to this shared othering, Birke argues for abandoning the separation between humanity and the natural world and acknowledging the significance of the living non-human (2002). Chronically Ill artist and writer Abi Palmer describes an affinity to fungi within her essay Self-Portrait as a Mushroom for This Book Is a Plant. Palmer deeply relates to fungi’s ways of being and uses this connection to assist in explaining her own non-normative modes of living (Palmer et al., 2022). Like Palmer, the creation of my 2023 work nests began by relating to the nonhuman and acknowledging our intimate familiarities (Birke, 2002). Finding it hard to advocate for myself, I found solace in the shared experiences of autistic people and animals, trees and rivers, all of us ‘forced to exist in ways that are unnatural and uncomfortable within cities that don’t cater to [our] needs’ (Rokesky, 2023). While my experiences of dehumanisation meant that I found it impossible to advocate for my rights as an Autistic person, situating myself alongside the living non-human to create spaces designed for and catered to critters⁵ felt not only doable, but pressing.

I was guided to create nests by what artist Patricia Townsend calls the pre-sense, which was my overwhelmingly strong response and relatability to the living non-human (2019). All concepts for nests stemmed from this acute need to advocate for acceptance of the natural ways of being of the living non-human. Similarly to textile artist and academic Sera Waters, I knew that I wanted to employ a process of repetitive crafting to create ‘inter-human discourses that challenge typically encouraged modes of communication with the non-human world’ (Rokesky, 2024), but I didn’t yet know why. I decided to follow my pre-sense and found myself drawn to embedding knitting and crocheting craft styles into my ceramic practice. This intuitively led me to knit with ceramic coils in a way that I thought mirrored how a bird might build a nest or a spider might spin a web. I felt that these associations honoured my kinship with the non-human, and so I continued to expand this practice. As I embarked on the extensive, repetitive process of knitting extruded ceramic coils into nest-like structures, I noticed that the knitting was calming to my Autistic paradigm. Knitting coils created a way for me to implement self-stimulatory behaviours (stims⁶) into my artistic practice, which regulated my body and mind. This regulated state through embodied practice allowed me space to begin to process the concepts behind nests. After spending hours knitting together rows of Buff Raku Trachyte (BRT) coils, I came to realise that my need to advocate for the non-human stemmed from my feelings of non-humanness.

Within his book Unmasking Autism, Autistic social psychologist and author Dr. Devon Price explores how Autistic people can find comfort in identifying outside of binaries and even outside of humanity as this can voice the detachment they feel from society (2021). Recalling his own experience, Price describes being raised as something more of an odd freak than a boy or a girl and feeling like a creature more than he felt like a female or even a person⁷ (2022). While creating nests, I came to realise that like many Autistics, I find it easier to identify with non-human creatures after being so alienated from a neuro-normative way of life (Price, 2022). Mirroring what Autistic artist Dawn-Joy Leong shares in her essay Lucy Like-a-Charm – Elemental Empathetic Resonance, I have always felt that the living non-human had rich inner worlds and modes of communication (2023) – it was just that people failed to understand them, similarly to how people often fail to understand my  Autistic ways of being. Leong describes having intimate relationships with the non-human since childhood and developing connections with pets and other animals, plants and trees in her backyard, stating that ‘[like] many Autists in similar circumstances, [she] found solace in the non-human domain’ (2023). In 2009, a research article analysed various experiences of Autistic people and found that Autistic traits had a positive correlation with a connection to the non-living world, proving that Autistic people have rich social worlds when ‘social’ isn’t strictly defined as interactions with other people (Davidson and Smith). Similarly, results from a 2023 study entitled Autism, pets, and the importance of seeing human, showed that Autistic traits correlated with connection to the natural world (2023). These studies highlight the meaningful emotional relationships Autistic people can often have with the more-than-human world. Like Leong and many other Autistics, I’ve always connected deeply with the living non-human – from spending my childhood memorising various facts about the natural world⁸ to my teenage obsession with horses⁹ and current adoration for bird watching¹⁰. However, as I’ve explored through the creation of nests, this profound connection with the living non-human has shifted from one based purely on interest and wonderment, into an intimate familiarity based on our mutual othering.

Ultimately, nests intends to honour the shared otherness between the neurodivergent and the living non-human. While creating a work that responded to my feelings of exclusion from neurotypically designed societies felt too big and too overwhelming, my love and affinity for the natural world made it easy to express these feelings through the creation of microenvironments that allowed space for animals in cities that are designed to shut them out. By knitting structures from ceramic coils and slip-casting crocheted forms, nests became a collection of pieces designed to cater for the living non-humans within cities that don’t consider their ways of being. With openings that allow for animals to enter and nest within, these pieces are intended to be functional substitutes for the lack of nesting area and to provide places of respite and comfort in environments that may be overwhelming to their unique paradigms.

When engaging with the natural world, my Autistic ways of being were never inferior, rather my heightened Autistic senses only ever allowed for a deeper connection and reciprocity (also expressed in Leong, 2023). Within nature I was never othered, instead I was an equal among living beings that were often shunned, excluded and forgotten. Engaging with the more-than-human world has always brought me peace and respite from a human-centric world that refuses to accept my non-normative neurodivergent ways of being. nests is a love letter to the non-human domain and a feeble attempt to provide for them a microecosystem where they can feel the same love, comfort and nurturing that they have always provided me.

Footnotes:

1. Negative affect refers to observable presentations of emotional distress that can include sadness, anger, fear, irritability, anxiety, guilt and shame.
2. I capitalise Autistic throughout this essay as if it were a proper noun to honour it as a fundamental and fixed part of my identity.
3. It is important to acknowledge that high supports needs autistics, autistics with learning and/or physical disabilities, gender-diverse autistics and black and autistics of colour may be more intensely othered and dehumanised due to their intersecting marginalised identities.
4. Non-autistic.
5. Referring to autistic women (Failed Girl-Critters) and the non-human living (Critters). While a critter is officially defined as a colloquial word for an animal or creature, I personally define critter as an affectionate term that can be applied to all living non-human beings.
6. Stimming is a term for repetitive sounds or movements that Autistic people do to self-regulate.
7. While it is important to note that Price is a Trans-man, I believe that his experience of identifying outside of both genders as a child in part due to his social isolation, makes his experience relevant to this discussion.
8. I had a fact book on sea mammals (that I received from a McDonalds Happy Meal) that I always carried on me as a toddler, and I spent my recesses in primary school reading encyclopedias on mushroom species.
9. An obsession so intense that it was listed as a symptom of my Autistic paradigm within my ASD report – immortalising my label as a horsegirl, albeit medicalising it.
10. The feeling I get from seeing a rare (to me) species of bird is so encompassing and otherworldly that I can only explain it by comparing it to the feeling I would get when I believed myself to be experiencing the Holy Spirit as a Baptist Christian.

Reference List:

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