Neuro-Cartographies

Abstract

This craft paper explores the methodology of neuro-cartography, a hybrid practice of hand-drawn mapping and auto-theory used to navigate life as an autistic person existing outside the margins of neurotypicality. Drawing on the autiethnography of Martine Mussies and Nick Walker’s neuroqueer theory, this paper examines how my autistic “special interest” in geography and categorization can be reclaimed as a powerful tool for literary and political border-making.

In the DSM-V, the autistic drive for “lining up objects” and “fixated interests” is pathologized as a deficit. However, in this work, these traits are reframed as the foundational craft of a lived experience. By geographically placing parts of the self into distinct countries and using legends, poetic essays, and hybrid prose to describe these territories, I create a literal map of a social world that otherwise feels precarious and unnavigable. Just as the Global South is defined by the shifting politics of borders and natural elements, these neuro-cartographies use mountains, rivers, and intentional boundaries to negotiate the space between the individual and a world designed for the neuro-normative.

I argue that hybridity is not merely a stylistic choice but a cognitive necessity. A traditional essay lacks the spatial pattern-finding required for autistic sense-making, while a purely visual map lacks the theoretical depth of lived experience. Following the auto-theoretical traditions of Maggie Nelson and Sara Ahmed, this paper demonstrates how the act of drawing borders where they do not exist serves as a radical act of presence-making. To map the self is to define one’s own margins, transforming the periphery into a central site of meaning-making and survival.