27 de octubre de 2022
Action research is a philosophy and methodology of research generally applied in the social sciences. It seeks transformative change through the simultaneous process of taking action and doing research, which are linked together by critical reflection. Kurt Lewin, then a professor a MIT, first coined the term "action research" in 1944. In his 1946 paper "Action Research and Minority Problems" he described action research as "a comparative research on the conditions and effects of various forms of social action and research leading to social action" that uses "a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action and fact-finding about the result of the action".
24 de octubre de 2022
ultimate form of practice:
Autoethnography is a research method that uses personal experience (“auto”) to describe and interpret (“graphy”) cultural texts, experiences, beliefs, and practices (“ethno”).
Autoethnographers believe that personal experience is infused with political/cultural norms and expectations, and they engage in rigorous selfreflection—typically referred to as “reflexivity”—in order to identify and interrogate the intersections between the self and social life. Fundamentally, autoethnographers aim to show “people in the process of figuring out what to do, how to live, and the meaning of their struggles” (Bochner & Ellis, 2006, p. 111).
TONY E. ADAMS, CAROLYN ELLIS & STACY HOLMAN JONES
autoethnography autotheory
My dissertation riffs on my third comprehensive exam paper, where I explored anthropological texts that push the boundaries of ethnographic form. What I called “offbeat” at that time is what I am now inclined to refer to as a strain of autotheory. Autotheory is “a term that has emerged to describe contemporary works of literature, art, and art writing that integrate autobiography and other explicitly subjective and embodied modes with discourses of philosophy and theory in ways that transgress genre conventions and disciplinary boundaries” (Lauren Fournier). Books that fall into this category include Maggie Nelson’s The Arnonauts, Paul B. Preciado’s Testo Junkie, Chris Kraus’s I Love Dick, and works by Kathy Acker, Christina Sharpe and Dionne Brand, Bhanu Kapil and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and Ann Cvetkovich. All share in common a kind of post-memoir-meets-high-theory creative nonfiction style of life writing.
To date, one of the most comprehensive takes on autotheory is by Lauren Fournier, who argues that it can be “traced through much of feminist performance art, body art, and conceptual art practices as well as intersectional feminist writings by women of colour like Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, and Audre Lorde.” As a reflexive and critical practice, artists, writers, art critics, and just about anyone in a creative field today, might be well served by it; however, one might also argue that as a mode of “personal criticism” (Nancy K. Miller 1991), autotheory is already embedded as a practice in much of the notable and trailblazing creative pursuits of the last 20–30 years. Indeed, elements of poststructural, affective, queer, and performative thought can be detected in works that, in bridging the personal and the political, might be described as examples of autotheory—which leads me to anthropology: if at all, where do the semi-autobiographical, highly reflexive, and theoretical ethnographies of Elizabeth Povinelli, Vincent Crapanzano, Kathleen Stewart, and others, fit in? And what is the difference between autotheory and autoethnography?
Fournier’s research positions autotheory as feminist practice in art, writing, and criticism. But one of the most exciting aspects of autotheory is arguably its broad methodological potential in other areas, particularly in fields, such as anthropology, where writing is the central mode of analysis. I look forward to reading the forthcoming edited collection Writing Anthropology from Duke University Press, as it seems to promise an updated version of James Clifford and George E. Marcus’s Writing Culture, an influential text widely regarded as having marked the discipline’s reflexive turn in the mid 80s. The new volume from Duke U Press boasts an impressive list of contributors, and includes none other than Lauren Berlant and Kathleen Stewart. I would say this book is long overdue and I’ll be eagerly perusing it for signs of autotheory once I have my copy.
To be cont’d: Autotheory vs Autoethnography
“Reed-Danahay (1997) suggests that autoethnography has a double sense, “referring either to the ethnography of one’s own group or to autobiographical writing that has ethnographic interest” (p. 2). She notes that this dichotomy is in fact transcended because these two approaches are related, breaking down the distinctions between autobiography and ethnography as well as questioning the self/society split and the boundary between the objective and subjective. Referencing Goldschmidt, Reed-Danahay (2009) notes, “in a sense, all ethnography, is self-ethnography” (p. 29) because ethnographers write reflexively and use autobiography in their work. That is, the autoethnographer needs the dual/multiple and shifting identities of a boundary-crosser to enable the researcher to transcend the everyday in rewriting the self in the social world. As one who has experienced cultural displacement and multiple views of the world, Reed-Danahay’s view encourages me to believe autoethnography is suitable for this project. Holman Jones (2005) asserts autoethnography is a powerful tool for social, political and cultural change by bringing to life crises that engender rage that needs resolution, adding: “Rage is not enough…[the] challenge – to me, to you – is to move from rage to progressive political action, to theory and method that connect politics, pedagogy, and ethics to action in the world” (p. 767).” (Peters, 6)
Peters, J. E. (2019). A Feminist Post-transsexual Autoethnography. London: Routledge, https://doi-org.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/10.4324/9781351212359
https://resonantedge.wordpress.com/contact/
24 de octubre de 2022
22 de octubre de 2022
Archetype
The concept of an archetype appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis.
An archetype can be any of the following:
- a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that other statements, patterns of behavior, and objects copy, emulate, or "merge" into. Informal synonyms frequently used for this definition include "standard example", "basic example", and the longer-form "archetypal example"; mathematical archetypes often appear as "canonical examples".
- the Platonic concept of pure form, believed to embody the fundamental characteristics of a thing.
- a collectively-inherited unconscious idea, a pattern of thought, image, etc., that is universally present, in individual psyches, as in Jungian psychology
- a constantly-recurring symbol or motif in literature, painting, or mythology. This definition refers to the recurrence of characters or ideas sharing similar traits throughout various, seemingly unrelated cases in classic storytelling, media, etc. This usage of the term draws from both comparative anthropology and from Jungian archetypal theory.
