Paper short abstract:

I will reflect on anthropological research with autistic children and adults, the unlearning of neurotypical modes of meeting and the co-creation of neurodiverse attunements. The possibilities for expanded research methods produced by these engagements will be explored.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I reflect on long-term research with autistic children and adults and learning non-normative communication styles. In this context, normative modes of communicating, that predominantly focus on speech and linguistically driven tempos of back and forth, needed to be unlearned. Instead, my attention shifted to the sensory worlds and embodiments of my interlocutors, and their own ways of communicating. By following these ways of being I attuned to neurodiverse modes and rhythms of meeting.

I offer a novel kind of approach - sensory-rhythmic attention - to conceptualise these instances of neurodiverse attunement. These insights are of importance for thinking about novel research methods. They provide alternative ways to think about ethnographic methods and participant observation in the context of neuro-medical subjectivities. Sensory-rhythmic attention as method prioritizes leaning into modes of being with. It importantly ruptures prevailing anthropological, and ableist, emphases on spoken conversation as a route to describing the perspectives of interlocutors. The approach detailed allows an acknowledgement of the multiple scales and temporalities of anthropological research methods, offering new possibilities.