ABSTRACT
In its brief history, autism has been fashioned primarily in psychopathological terms, almost always implicating emotional abnormality. In this chapter we offer a perspective on autistic emotionality that widens the psychological view, (1) by situating emotions at the nexus of personal and socio-cultural worlds, and (2) by exploring emotions as part of the semiotic repertoire for defining subjectivity and negotiating social relations. We also touch upon the politics of emotions and, drawing on the neurodiversity paradigm, we suggest reframing the discourse around emotion in autism to acknowledge a variety of emotional connections with the world of others, human and non-human.
