self-indulgent or responsibility?
This question stems from Judy Marshall’s book ‘Living Life as Inquiry’, and really does cut to the chase of the guilt I often feel when writing or making for myself, especially when about myself. My works, my poems, are often inward-facing, self-reflective, and absolutely might draw accusations of being self-indulgent, ‘naval-gazing’, narcissistic. But are they? Why do I always return to the same topic - me - and should I embrace this or try to explore others?
Whilst my writing and making is most often for myself, and does not leave ripples in the big research pond, I cannot shake the sense that these creations might say something more to others too, should they hear them. And isn’t that part of what good research is all about? This is certainly my experience of every writing group that I have been a part of - the nods around the room after sharing, the metaphors from others that feel real, someone else’s idea or connection made that follows and stays with me after I’ve left the room. Every story resonates, in some way or another, in differing intensities. There is likely to be a reflection back in many other people’s writings, if you are open to it. If you take the time to notice it and hold hands with it.
And so my poems and artworks, sometimes shared, sometimes not, are perhaps the beginnings, a ‘dipping your toes in the waters’ of autoethnography, and are more worthy of my time than I give them credit for. Catherine Marshall and Gretchen B. Rossman discuss autoethnography as ‘an approach to understanding the human condition’ and assert that it is based on the assumption that an individual’s life, represented through personal stories and narratives, can resonate with the experiences of others.
Judy Marshall reassures that first person action research, or autoethnography, can be done with many different purposes, and that these purposes do not have to be ‘ego-obsessed activity’. She lists:
to develop a person (check!)
to address how one is in the world (check!)
to gain a sense of agency in a situation that seems potentially over-powering. (check!)
Even further, she responds to potential critics by arguing that ‘self-reflective enquiry practice is a responsibility’, as we seek to pay attention to our purposes and patterns, all the while inviting, listening and responding to challenge from others. That challenge is not easy though, and I know I back-away, sometimes ‘sit on the fence’ and struggle to know WHAT is the right thing to do. Yet I like to think back to this notion of responsibility. It comforts me and nudges me on. It elbows away the guilt and blows away the doubt.
Autoethnography requires that we observe ourselves observing, that we interrogate what we think and believe, and that we challenge our own assumptions, asking over and over if we have penetrated as many layers of our own defenses, fears, and insecurities as our project requires.
Carolyn Ellis (2013) Preface to the Handbook of Autoethnography
Photo by Xavier Foucrier on Unsplash