A General Theory of Masking : Competing Relevance Orders in Neurodivergence, Art and Society
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Masking is currently described primarily as a phenomenon of neurodivergent adaptation. Particularly within Autism Research, the term refers to strategies of social camouflage aimed at concealing deviations from neurotypical norms. The present paper argues that this description is too narrow. Masking is understood here as a general mechanism that emerges wherever different relevance orders must be stabilised simultaneously. From this perspective, masking constitutes neither mere pretence nor mere adaptation. Rather, it appears as the operative management of incompatible forms of world-binding. Drawing on the theory of Eigenzeit relations, it is shown that different cognitive, cultural, and institutional systems produce different forms of attention, coherence, and relevance. Since no world-binding can process all differences simultaneously, processes of prioritisation necessarily emerge. Every prioritisation simultaneously generates blind spots, opportunity costs, and exclusions. Masking therefore appears not as a specific deficit of neurodivergent people, but as a general consequence of structural incompatibilities between competing relevance orders. The analysis is applied to neurodivergence, art, science, work, and poverty, and develops a theory of structural violence that is based not primarily on oppression through prohibitions, but on the persistent redirection of attention, time, and energy into foreign relevance systems.
Author: Speed, Timothy
Language: English
Subfield: Safety Research
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7162869452
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