1. Experiencing together ~ a self analysis in
the face of crisis.

2. Taking self as the subject …
Autoethnographies are highly personalized
accounts that draw upon the
author/researcher for the purpose of
extending sociological understanding
(Sparkes,2000)
Autoethnographers vary in their emphasis on
auto- (self), -ethno- (the sociocultural
connection), and -graphy (the application of
the research process) (Reed-Danahay, 1997).

3. Why Autoethnography ?
Autoethnography has been used as a way of telling a
story that invites personal connection rather than
analysis (Frank, 2000), exploring issues of personal
importance within an explicitly acknowledged
social context (Holt, 2001; Sparkes, 1996), evaluating
one’s actions (Duncan, 2004).
In this study I wanted to deepen my understanding of
self &/in society focusing on a crisis situation
experience that was novel for the ‘self’.

4. The event evoking crisis situation:
News of bus-bomb explosion in a nearby city, in a
background situation of ongoing war, experienced
by the author with other native students from that
city.
The ‘self’ in relation to the context :
A recent student visitor to the country or a ‘cultural
stranger’ or ‘outsider’.
The ‘self’ as the autoethnographer :
How ‘it’ is affected by joint experience of an adverse
socio-political situation interrupting daily life.

5. Data & analysis :
Art form as data –
A personal reflective drawing on the crisis situation experience
that was taken from the field & not created for research
purpose.
Phenomenological observation of drawing was done for open
& axial coding. The essential idea is to develop a single
storyline around which all everything else is draped (S.
Borgatti,1996). Content analysis was avoided to check own
subjective bias in analysis.
&
Personal text as data –
An email to a friend about the specific experience written on
the day of event – it was the only written data present from
the day of occurrence, and was in author’s mother tongue,
Bengali.
Selective coding was used to analyse the text.

6. Data : Art form :

7. The phenomenological observation of
drawing gave way to linking of concepts and
the axial coding of same,
o There is no clear boundary of complete physical
separation between five different looking human faces
though each is a complete face in itself
o All of them are kept & created in a similar background
context
o All of them are seen as portraying a shared human
expression bearing a universally similar connotation.

8. The selective coding of the text :
Language discourse, was analyzed here in use of parts
of speech representing individuals going through
the joint experience.
Analysis shows individuals were attributed in two
groups from beginning to middle of the text (using
equivalents of “them/their & me” or “I & they” ) to
a single group (using equivalents of “us/we”) at the
end of the same text.
o Content wise the email is more documentation, narrating
the event temporally, but the structural discourse shows
underlying re-formation in process that is reflected
explicitly in the visual representation of the same event.

9. What I could know more about ‘self’ ?
o Sharing a crisis experience together, re-
positioned self’s perception of belongingness
to the present societal context.
o Self’s ‘stranger/outsider’ identity was over
shadowed with a collective feeling of
belongingness to cultural in-group members.

10. What more..? & so how does it matter?
Directedness & openness of Self Expressivity towards
others follows the rule of performativity, or is
bound to the power equation between its creator
and audience
Performativity is the critique, the power relations
rooted in the socio-historical contexts of discourse
that are occurring in the act of performing personal
stories.

11. "Just as I write through my body, so you read
through yours, and none of us begins to know
how our bodies, with all that is sedimented in
their tissues, affect that writing and reading,
thinking and acting"
(Arthur W. Frank ,"Narrative Witness" 106)

12. …So ,
o When analyzing any personal text as data it
can be beneficial to attend to the relationship
dynamics shared between the writer/creator
& the reader/audience that might have
governed the character of expression as
whole.
o Personal Art works is out of this self-other
power dynamics and the expression is more
likely to be close to the intention or the
feeling that impedes it.

13. Limitations
o Both the data are personal documents and analysed
by self, working with personal subjectivity was a
challenge. Reflective journaling was done during the
whole procedure to be conscious as much as
possible and converse objectively between ‘self as
subject’ & ‘self as researcher’ while analysing the
data.
o The written text is in my vernacular and analysis is
done without translating the text in English, that
limits the accessibility to the raw data for many.
Being a student, this study is only an effort to start
understanding the realm of qualitative ethnographic research ,
self and society through my experiences in a new country.

14. Bibliography:
Borgatti, S. Introduction to Grounded Theory, from
http://www.analytictech.com/mb870/introtoGT.html
Duncan, M. (2004). Autoethnography: Critical appreciation of an emerging
art. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 3(4), Article 3.
Retrieved June 28, 2005 from
http://www.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/backissues/3_4/html/duncan.html
Frank, A. W. (1997). "Narrative Witness to Bodies: A Response to Alan
Radley," Body & Society, 3(3), 103-109.
Frank, A. W. (2000). The standpoint of storyteller. Qualitative Health
Research, 10(3), 354-365.
Holt, N. L. (2001). Beyond technical reflection: Demonstrating the
modification of teaching behaviors using three levels of reflection. Avante,
7(2), 66-76

15. …contd.
Kristin M. Langellier (1999): Personal narrative, performance, performativity:
Two or three things I know for sure, Text and Performance Quarterly
19:2,125-144
Reed-Danahay, D. E. (1997).Auto/ethnography: Rewriting the self and the
social. Oxford, UK:Berg.
Sparkes, A. C. (1996). The fatal flaw: A narrative of the fragile body-self.
Qualitative Inquiry,2(4), 463-494.
Sparkes, A. C. (2000). Autoethnography and narratives of self: Reflections on
criteria in action, Sociology of Sport Journal, 17, 21-43.

16. Acknowledgements:
I am thankful to my Israeli friends whose
presence led to my self realization.
And, off course to Johanna Czamanski-Cohen ,
our teacher without whose guidance this
work would remain incomplete.
Special thanks to my friend and colleague
Rosemare, who inspired me to present this
work !

17. Thank you