Autoethnography in Social Science Research

There is a growing interest in methodologies that incorporate the researcher's personal experiences into research and writing. This trend, known as 'auto-turn', has been criticised as solipsistic and too particularistic, allegedly hindering generalisation and theory building. A recent example of this is Kornbluh, who describes autoethnographic tendencies in her polemical book “Immediacy” (2023) as a sign of what she calls the "too late capitalist” obsession with the self and a contribution to a variety of contemporary social ills, from the perceived zeitgeist of pessimism and lack of solidarity to the absence of a unifying narrative of the Left. The autoethnographic methods derived from insider research have nevertheless been enthusiastically embraced by a variety of research fields closely associated with activism and collective struggles. Transparency about the researcher's embodied presence in the field has been widely praised as a means of debunking the myth of detached observation and theorising. In previous work (De Graeve 2024), I joined this chorus, arguing that sexuality and intimacy researchers in particular should be transparent about how their own intimate experiences in the fuzzy zone between research and life have affected their interpretation and understanding, even if openness in this regard is still often seen as inappropriate, too risky, or inconsistent with institutional research ethics.

In favour of the "I"

In this paper I want to build on this argument and argue in favour of vulnerably exploring this uncomfortable terrain. To do this, I will reflect on how life has intra-acted with my research in recent years. Going through “the change” and separation confronted me with an overwhelming and paralysing complexity of change in my personal life, leading to burnout and a temporary withdrawal from discussion and activism. At the same time, these experiences have given a new direction to my attention as a researcher, expanding and adding complexity to my understanding of the possibilities and impossibilities of unruly intimacy for older women and of dialogue and solidarity across intersectional positions. Although some of my experiences resonate with Kornbluh’s message of doom, I believe they can still open up alternative horizons of resistance and possibilities for solidarity.

About the speaker

Katrien De Graeve is an associate professor at Ghent University, affiliated to the Centre for Research on Culture and Gender. She is the recipient of an ERC starting grant 2019 for her project ‘Later-in-Life Intimacy: Women’s Unruly Practices, Places and Representations’ (2020-2025). She obtained a PhD in Comparative Sciences of Culture from Ghent University in 2012 and she worked as a postdoctoral research fellow, both for the Research Foundation Flanders (2013–2019) and the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (2013–2014). Her research interests include the anthropology of gender, sexuality and old age, and the anthropology of love, care, families and relationships.