Redefining The Autistic Community

Rhizomatic Autistic Communities and the Practice of Collaborative Anarchy

When I speak of rhizomatic Autistic communities, I am drawing on the Deleuzian idea of the rhizome; a network without a centre, without a clear beginning or end, spreading in all directions vertically in a hierarchy. Rhizomes are non-linear, unpredictable, and generative. They don’t grow according to blueprints or hierarchies, they emerge through spontaneous connections and proliferations.

For Autistic people, this model captures something essential about how our communities actually grow. We are not bound together by institutions or top-down organisations, but by connections made in shared spaces; mutual support, storytelling, activism, resource-sharing, or simply being together without the need to explain ourselves. These connections, taken together, form networks that are both fragile and resilient, fragile because they are not bolstered by state or corporate infrastructures, resilient because they cannot be destroyed by cutting off a single branch.

But to really understand how these communities thrive, we need to consider the role of collaborative anarchy.

Anarchy as Collaboration

Anarchy is often misrepresented as chaos or violence. But at its root, anarchy is a refusal of imposed hierarchy, a commitment to self-organisation and mutual care without a central authority dictating the rules. When placed alongside the rhizome, anarchy reveals itself not as disorder, but as a practice of collective flourishing.

Collaborative anarchy is the way Autistic communities negotiate our belonging together. It’s not about the absence of structure, but the refusal of rigid and hierarchical structures that dominate most social organisations. Instead, responsibility flows laterally, emerging through relationships and shared values rather than through orders handed down from the top.

This is what makes rhizomatic Autistic communities possible. The collaborative aspect ensures that community development remains non-linear, open-ended, and resistant to capture by gatekeepers or self-appointed leaders. No one person has to hold the reins. In fact, there are no reins to hold.