A The line of becoming and the political-pedagogical design of the Autistic Spring

Abstract

The movement referred here as the Autistic Spring is categorized as such due to its emergence using social media by autistic youth and adults. As a political-pedagogical event, the Autistic Spring presents itself as a space for autistic individuals to express their perspectives, lived experiences, and challenges related to the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), moving away from pathologization and the biomedical paradigm that classifies them. This movement follows a line of becoming which, according to Deleuze and Guattari (2012b), takes the form of a rhizome rather than a classificatory or genealogical tree. This article aims to elucidate the political-pedagogical design of the Autistic Spring based on the discourses of five autistic youth and/or adults, who were invited to participate in this study due to the political relevance of their activism on the social media platform Instagram. Data was collected between January and February 2024 through semi-structured interviews. The findings indicate that the Autistic Spring can be understood as a political possibility of a line of flight within a space permeated by stereotypes, which tend to fix autistic individuals within rigid identity frameworks.