Neuronormative atmospheres and the language of the pathology paradigm

Summary

Deficit-based language about autism does more than describe; it actively shapes the affective atmospheres autistic people experience. The paper develops the concept of neuronormative atmospheres—affective environments that privilege neurotypical styles of embodiment while backgrounding or normatively discouraging autistic styles. Such language holds these atmospheres in place through institutional embedding and cross-contextual reactivation. Shifting to neurodiversity-affirming language is thus not merely semantic but an ethical and political intervention into the affective conditions of social life.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract The language of the “pathology paradigm” is not merely a vocabulary for describing autism—it participates in shaping the “affective atmospheres” that autistic people inhabit and move through. Drawing on some recent contributions to the phenomenology of affective atmospheres from Joel Krueger, Tonino Griffero, and Enara García, this paper develops the concept of “neuronormative atmospheres”: affective environments that selectively weight landscapes of affordances in ways that privilege neurotypical styles of embodiment while backgrounding or normatively discouraging autistic styles of embodiment. Further, I argue that deficit-based language holds neuronormative atmospheres in place via its institutional embedding and its capacity for cross-contextual reactivation. Transitioning towards the neurodiversity paradigm and its neurodiversity-affirming language is therefore not merely a semantic matter, but an ethical and political intervention into the affective conditions under which social worlds are lived and made liveable.