Leading on from the one to one I have been thinking about a term I came across and was thinking about last year which changed the direction of my work and how I thought about the work I was making and why I was making it. I may not have even understood it or remembered it correctly. Here goes…..
Auto = Self
Ethno = culture
Graphy = study
A study of self to understand culture and our relationships to others.
The researcher forms the subject of lived enquiry within a social or cultural context.
What can we learn about culture through the identities, through the bodies, located in the cultural space, during the moment this happened.
A form of social scientific research. A research method.
Knowledge, action, identity, behaviour all tied to the bodies we are in and the social and cultural contexts we inhabit, and the power structures that surround us.
We have to perform our roles, if not we risk social ostracization.
All our identities and the consequences of deviation.
Aware of privileges and marginalizations.
Multi-faceted existence.
We can share our stories of the bodies and the lived experiences, our similar experiences.
If there was to be a detached observer they could look at the work produced and see what the subject was thinking and feeling, and relating.
Requires self reflection, analysis of the self, the lived experience, does the work express this.
Why?
Accessibility, stories reach people in deeper and more meaningful ways
Empathy, relatable, to ‘know’ one another
Social change, to see how we can change the world to make it more inclusive
Chelsea Swan 
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