An Autoethnography of Feelings and Crises

• In Event: Crises, Methods, and Knowledge Production

Abstract

This paper examines some of the ways that scholars can draw on - and work through - their own affective responses to crises. We are trained to suppress or disregard these embodied, situated inner wisdoms in the pursuit of “scientific objectivity.” Yet, personal sentiments and feelings, including anger, fear, pain, loss, confusion, uncertainty, and unease, shape our motivations, the stories we record as evidence, and the research journeys we undertake. What will we gain if, rather than omit or discard, we take the researchers’ subjective feelings seriously? Can inner and scientific knowledge coexist - and even dialogue - to guide our understanding of and reactions to the crises we study? I offer some practical examples that have arisen from my project on the Holocaust in Romania to illustrate how to detect, process, and analyze what is often discarded and lost. I argue that autoethnographic reflections on trauma and loss can complement conventional historical methods of inquiry.

Author

• Irina Nicorici