The autoethnographic approach

Following my supervision meeting #11 yesterday, Caroline mentioned this as a possible approach, when considering an alternative to the term 'case study'

The autoethnographic approach

As my practice in this area has evolved methodologically and philosophically, it has become increasingly clear to me that an autoethnographic approach, derived from the productive and creative interdependence between ethnography and autobiography, is a way of perceiving, experiencing and expressing the world, and the world of the ‘Other’, that works very well from an artist’s perspective. Autoethnography is, according to Denzin (Denzin, 2013) a working method that constitutes a combination of ‘performative’ actions that seek to articulate experience. In prioritising the analysis of the researcher’s personal experiences in relation to of the experiences of the Other, autoethnographic practice speaks not about or for the Other but rather to and with them. Autoethnography is an inclusive and open-ended way of observing and expressing. It is a showing rather than a telling, a mapping rather than a tracing, an invitation to moral and ethical dialogue towards understanding and, hopefully, to action for change. This is why and how art might ‘articulate’, and the image can, and often does speak louder than the word.