On the Actuality and Virtuality of Autistic Encounters: Respecting the Autistic Voice and Reimagining the Social

Autism is a highly heterogeneous phenomenon. Not only is it difficult to understand the various and diverse aspects of autism, their relation to each other is also complex and still poorly understood. In my article, “Material encounters. A phenomenological account of social interaction in autism,” I have addressed this heterogeneity by presenting an understanding of how social features of autism (e.g., difficulties with social interaction) relate to behavioral features (e.g., preoccupation with objects). Straddling this divide between the social and the non-social that still pervades much thinking in philosophy, psychiatry, and psychology is crucial for understanding the diverse experiences of autistic persons and how social connectedness may emerge out of practices commonly regarded as asocial (Williams, Costall, & Reddy, 2018). Thus, my approach to autism has been one of questioning deep-rooted distinctions within the field. However, in their generous and perceptive commentaries, Lucy Osler and Derek Strijbos both draw attention to the importance of making certain distinctions, such as between the different forms of social engagement that different objects afford and between the differential contributions of the various dimensions of such objects.

From The Digital to the Virtual

Strijbos suggests one way of teasing out the distinct contribution of materiality in facilitating social interaction by exploring how autistic persons experience social interaction in virtual spaces. This is indeed a promising line of research and an important contribution to the field because it opens the possibility of exploring and recognizing forms of interaction in which many autistic persons experience a social connectedness that they are missing in their everyday lives. However, I think one should be cautious about using the distinction between the physical and the virtual as a shortcut to delineating the distinct social role of materiality. I introduce this caution because the virtual should not be seen as disconnected from or in opposition to the material. Recent research on embodiment in E-sports shows that our bodies play a crucial role in the ability to interact in digital spaces, and thus, the gap between the physical and virtual is perhaps not as clearcut as is often assumed (Ekdahl, 2021). Rather than immaterial (and disembodied), we should think of digital spaces as virtual. The distinction between the actual and the virtual might be a promising direction for thinking about the role of materiality in facilitating social interaction for autistic persons.

In the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, virtuality is an intrinsic part of our perception of and interaction with the concrete world of everyday experience (Merleau-Ponty, 2012). In perceiving the world, we are not only presented with a series of “actual” perceptions but also a space of possibility or virtuality because its horizons transcend what is intuitively present in direct perception. Paraphrasing Merleau-Ponty, Irene Breuer beautifully emphasizes how “we are already placed in the virtual, at the end of the line which our finger prolongs into a centrifugal or cultural space” (Breuer, 2020, p. 2).

This understanding of virtuality is also brought out by Osler through the notion of finite provinces of meaning, with which she describes how interaction with and through objects opens different spaces of meaning. Digitally mediated spaces (e.g., online platforms like WhatsApp or online games like World of Warcraft or Elder Scrolls) modulate the structure and dynamics of social spaces and regulate our normative expectations of how interaction should proceed. Studies have drawn attention to how autistic communities have flourished in online spaces (Bagatell, 2010). More than two decades ago, it was noted that “in cyberspace, many of the nation’s autistics are doing the very thing the syndrome supposedly deters them from doing—communicating” (Blume, 1997, p. 6). As Osler emphasizes, the a-synchronicity of most online communication allows time to understand and form responses, and the virtual mediation of such spaces constrain aspects of social encounters that may be experienced as overwhelming to autistic persons. Moreover, through sources such as the autistic blogosphere and internet (e.g., WrongPlanet.net), online spaces may be a source of identity, community, and social connectedness in a life affected by...