Year: 2026
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: This essay develops a phenomenological framework for reinterpreting autism through the concept of bodily diversity. While autism has long been explained within neurocognitive paradigms thatframe social difficulties as deficits in theory of mind, such accountsoverlook the central role of the sensing and moving body in shapingautistic experience. Recent empirical research and autistic first-personaccounts increasingly highlight sensory and motor differences as fundamental to autistic life, yet these remain under-theorized. Drawing onMerleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of embodiment, and through criticaldiscussion of existing phenomenological accounts of autism, I arguethat autism should not be understood as a disturbance of pre-reflective bodily experience but rather as a distinctive style of embodiment.Building on phenomenological analyses of the lived and the objectivebody, of perception, style, and intercorporeality, I propose the notionof bodily diversity to shift attention from neurological wiring to thelived, embodied differences through which autistic people engagewith the world and others. Drawing on qualitative research and otherfirst-person accounts, I illustrate how autistic sociality may productively be reframed by conceptualizing autistic styles of embodimentas structures of subjective and intersubjective experience. In conclusion, I argue that recognizing autism as a valid expression of bodilydiversity not only challenges deficit-based models but also expandsphenomenology itself, pressing it toward a more inclusive account of intersubjectivity that integrates marginalized ways of inhabiting the world.
Author: Boldsen, Sofie
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7163613009