Queer Ethologies and the More-Than* Potentials of Animality

https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n57.08

Ombre Tarragnat
Université Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis, France

Abstract:

With its focus on somatic embodiment, neuroqueer theory can contribute to a more-than-human understanding of neurodiversity and teach us new lessons about the role of desire, pleasure, and pain in neurodivergent and ethodivergent life. Drawing on Nick Walker and Remi Yergeau’s work, I first show that neuroreductionism pathologises neuroqueer life and therefore suggest that the «neuro-» in neuroqueer should be conceived as a way of queering and subverting neurocentrism. Next, I introduce the concepts of queer ethology and queersomatic practices and map out some of the connections and differences between neurodiverse ecologies—as theorised by Erin Manning—and ethodiversity, particularly in relation to the concepts of species, worlding, and choreographies. Finally, I turn to Mel Baggs’s autistic stimming, a queersomatic practice that displays a queer ethology of desire, pleasure, and pain. I suggest that attending to the more-than* potentials of animality allows us to more effectively challenge bestialisation and ethonormativity.

Keywords: neuroqueer theory, queer ethologies, queersomatic practices, ethodiversity, ethodivergence.