Knowing yourself to educate. Performative autoethnography as a self-reflexive method for research and education

GRIT KIRSTIN KOELTZSCH

Congreso; 3rd International and Virtual Conference on Arts in Education ? CIVAE 2021; 2021

Autoethnography has gained importance as amethodological approach within empirical research, however, self-interrogationand critical self-exploration also plays a key role in our educationalpractice. In this paper, the performance titled: "Pachamama:Corporealities of an Andean-peasant woman? (Koeltzsch, 2020) is discussedinvolving creative processes to reveal research results, and emphasizing thebody as an interface between the social environment, society and scholarlywork. In this case, experimentation beyond textuality is achieved throughsystematic introspection, which led to a visual-performative result used for ahigher-education class of American History in Argentina. I argue thatautoethnography makes it possible to locate the researcher?s history and culturein relation to others, but it also reflects critically on other analytical categories,such as work and gender, in this case. I conclude that this approach can helpto draw new lines for a dialectical self/others comprehension, without dividingroles into observer, participant, or analyzer, but also to understand thebodily performance of ourselves and others as an act of intervention,resistance, a form of criticizing, and a way of revealing agency regardingcontents and performers in a subaltern situation.