Autoethnographic Challenges: Confronting Self, Field and Home

Abstract

Anthropologists working at ‘home’ or in realms of the familiar often share a considerable sense of connection with participants. In these contexts, the researcher's potential position as an ‘insider’ offers particular opportunities for utilising self as a key resource. Through my own fieldwork at ‘home’ in Melbourne as an ‘insider’ among Bosnian migrants, I was confronted with the challenge of using my self to understand others' experiences. In this paper I discuss the autoethnographic process and consider how its application enabled me to consciously understand my own experiences and utilise my experiential self to inform my study.

Object-love at the Science Museum: cultural geographies of museum storerooms

“…44 We are, of course, well-aware that using our experiential selves to inform our work might be subject to criticism for being 'self-absorbed indulgence'. 45 Yet, we argue, our recollections offer both a rich source of 'data' and a 'contrastive tool' for our argument in three important ways. 46 First, gaining access to a national institution such as the Science Museum is difficult.…”

“…45 Yet, we argue, our recollections offer both a rich source of 'data' and a 'contrastive tool' for our argument in three important ways. 46 First, gaining access to a national institution such as the Science Museum is difficult. However, our respective collaborative doctoral awards furnished us with behind the scenes access, although as we highlight below in two very different ways.…”

“…47 Second, the field diary elements as dispersed throughout the introduction and theoretical discussion and in what follows enabled us to collaborate and revisit our data through a different analytical frame. We were able to develop our argument based upon the 'convergences and divergences' in our experiences of Blythe House, 48 ensuring that our writing is more than merely evocative. It helped us to build our arguments around the affective space of the store and geographies of love we experienced and witnessed.…”

A walk in the park: political emotions and ethnographic vacillation in activist research

“…I ran into research participants while grocery shopping, going to work, and relaxing. Voloder (2008: 30) says that this intersection of sites in the home/field dichotomy ‘suggests an increased sense of connectedness between researcher and researched, often considered to exist prior to the commencement of the research endeavour’. So, while I was by no means a ‘native’ to the Aboriginal movement in Townsville, and was actually quite unfamiliar with the local specificities, the social distance between me and my research participants was much smaller due to our shared home, and our shared activist identity.…”

“…Zaman (2008) found, while researching a hospital in Bangladesh, that his medical background precluded him from asking doctors about procedures because they expected him to know. Likewise, Voloder’s (2008) shared cultural background with her Bosnian research participants led them to assume shared knowledge and opinions. Because I was still far enough outside, though, I was able to ask basic questions without this interfering in my attempt to get as far inside the movement as I could.…”