The practice of research conventionally entails an aspiration towards objectivity as a detached and impersonal approach to the object of study. In contrast, some artistic research practices and methods from social sciences -such as autoethnography- use the narration of personal experience as a departing point to rethink and comment on cultural accounts. Challenging the conventional opposition between subjectivity and objectivity, autoethnographers regard self-observation as a powerful source of information and inspiration for their work.

This course provides a theoretical and practical introduction to self-ethnographic methods used in artistic research practices. On the theoretical part we will study Donna Haraway’s proposal for a situated form of knowledge production. From the practical side we will focus on Gloria Anzaldúa's Autohistoria-teoría – the genre of writing based on storytelling, life-story, self-reflection, history, myth and theory.

Researching the Self
Grundlagen künstlerisch-wissenschaftlicher Forschung
WiSe 2020-21