TY - JOUR
T1 - The (im)possibilities of writing the self-writing : French poststructural theory and autoethnography
AU - Gannon, Susanne
PY - 2006
Y1 - 2006
N2 - Poststructural theories problematize taken-for-granted humanist notions of the subject as capable of self-knowledge and self-articulation while simultaneously providing a rationale for incorporating the personal into research. The body, emotions, and lived experience become texts to be written and read in autoethnography. However, a paradox arises for poststructural autoethnography in that autoethnographic research presumes that subjects can speak for themselves, whereas poststructuralism disrupts this presumption and stresses the (im)possibilities of writing the self. This article explores the work of pivotal French poststructuralists—Foucault, Barthes, Derrida, and Cixous—as they write themselves and put those selves under erasure in writing. The author identifies the implications for a reconfigured poststructural autoethnography, tracing textual strategies that evoke fractured, fragmented subjectivities and provoke discontinuity, displacement, and estrangement. In poststructural autoethnography, the writing writes the writer as a complex (im)possible subject in a world where (self) knowledge can only ever be tentative, contingent, and situated.
AB - Poststructural theories problematize taken-for-granted humanist notions of the subject as capable of self-knowledge and self-articulation while simultaneously providing a rationale for incorporating the personal into research. The body, emotions, and lived experience become texts to be written and read in autoethnography. However, a paradox arises for poststructural autoethnography in that autoethnographic research presumes that subjects can speak for themselves, whereas poststructuralism disrupts this presumption and stresses the (im)possibilities of writing the self. This article explores the work of pivotal French poststructuralists—Foucault, Barthes, Derrida, and Cixous—as they write themselves and put those selves under erasure in writing. The author identifies the implications for a reconfigured poststructural autoethnography, tracing textual strategies that evoke fractured, fragmented subjectivities and provoke discontinuity, displacement, and estrangement. In poststructural autoethnography, the writing writes the writer as a complex (im)possible subject in a world where (self) knowledge can only ever be tentative, contingent, and situated.
KW - autobiography
KW - autoethnography
KW - poststructural
KW - subjectivity
KW - writing
UR - http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/10593
U2 - 10.1177/1532708605285734
DO - 10.1177/1532708605285734
M3 - Article
SN - 1532-7086
JO - Cultural studies critical methodologies
JF - Cultural studies critical methodologies
ER -