There and Back Again: Neuro-diverse employees, liminality and negative capability

The workplace challenges faced by neuro-diverse employees are currently under-researched. This article considers how such employees experience the world of work, focusing on the demands they face to conform to established expectations around self-presentation and performance and how they utilise spatial resources in order to transcend them. Drawing on data generated from a series of in-depth interviews, it explores both their everyday experiences of frustration alongside how the mobilisation of liminal spaces can assist them in transitioning to and from the demands of the ‘neuro-typical’ workplace. The article seeks to contribute to an understanding of the lived experiences of neuro-diverse employees and how the design and practices of the workplace can contribute to feelings of marginalisation and even exclusion. It highlights the potentially empowering and emancipatory potential of embracing liminality and explores the relationship to ‘negative capability’ as a conceptual and diagnostic lens in studies of workplace diversity. Keywords: Neuro-diversity, liminality, workplace diversity, organisational space, negative capability