ABSTRACT
As a feminist researcher, I am excited because I want to use autoethnography as a way of bringingmydrugs research alive formy readers. I have been in the drugs field for many years and have not used autoethnography before now. Having said that, I was delighted in 2011 to read Dina Perrone’s (2010) article, ‘Gender and sexuality in the field: a female ethnographer’s experience researching drug use in dance clubs’. In it, she introduces autoethnography as a way of giving more attention to the embodied researcher in the field, albeit I would have liked to see more evidence of ‘emotional recall’1 in her piece. Regardless of Perrone’s article, I am aware that autoethnography is still controversial within the field of qualitative research (Dingwall, 1992) and that using ‘an emotional narrative mode of autoethnographic writing’ goes against established canons in social science research, specifically in the area of health research2 (Ellis and Bochner, 1999) and, I would add, the related field of drug research. Often, I find in the peer review process, some reviewers doubt the ‘truth’ of my research or accuse me of being ‘self indulgent’ or ‘narcissistic’. This chapter brings me as a feminist autoethnographer squarely into the drugs field and it begins with a sense of encouragement, joy and expectation. I see myself as having an excellent opportunity to demonstrate why autoethnography is a useful way of doing not only drugs research but also feminist research with female drug users that involves dialogical exchanges as ‘data’. This chapter includes a series of inter-related discussions. I begin with a dis-
cussion of how inmy earlier work I noted the emergence of two related but disparate genres of speaking about oneself in the field of health research. Second, I turn the reader’s attention to the ‘methods and data’ in this particular autoethnography.
I want to demonstrate a way of seeing autoethnography as a useful methodological tool for speaking andwriting reflexively about one’s experiences as a feminist drugs researcher. Third, I tell my stories about doing drugs research with drug-using women and the intricate emotions and embodied reactions involved. Fourth, I want to explore the ways that autoethnography contributes to an overall analysis of particular kinds of problems associated with the issue of reflexivity and how feminism engages with these problems. Included within this discussion is a related discussion on the issues of reliability and validity and how autoethnographers view these issues. Last, I want to make some conclusions by asking the question, ‘where do we go from here?’ In earlier work (Ettorre, 2005, 2006), I argued that specifically within health
sociology two related but disparate genres of speaking about oneself appear: ‘modernist observers’ and ‘postmodernist witnesses’. I noted that these genres are not a strict binary: a few ‘modernist’ accounts hint at ‘postmodern’ autobiographies to come.3 Nevertheless, although both genres can be seen as autobiographical narratives, it is the postmodernists who are receptive to the vagaries of narrators’ experiences and ‘labileness’ of their embodied emotions. The ‘postmodern witnesses’ are more open to research that moves away from universalistic conceptions of respondents and embracesmultiple, embodied forms of narrative representations, replete with uncertainties. This postmodern turn goes beyond monolithic notions that a single cultural perspective, revealing a certain arrangement of truths to be known, exists. Postmodern witnesses bring the body, emotions, participation and existential uncertainty into the research arena. In a real sense, postmodernist witnesses deploy a type of ‘anti-narrative’ (Scholes, 1980) which frustrates closure, bringing performative codes (Denzin, 2003, 2006) to our critical attention and seeing these codes as cultural rather than fixed aspects of human life.4 As feeling, embodied and vulnerable observers, postmodernist witnesses give voice to the structured silence of embodied experiences, as well as social and cultural shape to the diverse, complementary and conflicting assistance that the experience of the self and the body brings to one’s personal narratives. In this chapter, my autoethnography draws on data and analysis from transcrip-
tions of narratives and research notes from visits to four women drug users.5 As shown inmy earlier autoethnographies, my notes include records of key events with times, places and people as well as feelings and emotions. The stories of drug-using women used in this chapter come from the ‘mountain of words’ (Johnson et al., 2010) produced in this study.Beforewriting, I do an intensive study of transcriptions of narratives and research notes. After my third reading and before data analyses, I write down all key events in a chronological order. This is difficult and trying because difficult emotions come to the surface for me. It feels like this will be a challenge because I am so used just to writing up research results and not using my emotions in my drugs work. As I said, I have been in the drugs and alcohol field for many years. All the difficult experiences that I have had as a feminist researcher are now reappearing. I am not sure why now, but these difficult emotions are here and I have to face them and feel them. My transcripts do make remembering easier. However, remembering is somewhat disturbing for me because my experiences
were at times difficult and emotionally draining. I am certainly ‘writing from my heart’ (Ellis and Bochner, 2000). As I write, I remember the melancholy I shared with these four drug-using
women. I look out the window and stroke the computer keys. I am starting to have a deep sense of sadness. I have the feeling that as I remember key events I shared with these women, I am processing data through my body as the now ‘sitting on my own in front ofmy computer’ feminist drugs researcher. It is hard because themelancholy pervades my being. Although reading, remembering, writing and processing this data brings me sorrow, I revisit the past by moving in and out of these sad, painful experiences. I am inspired by these women to drudge on. I am also energized because I know their voices will be heard if I listen to them. Except, I feel weak. It’s so hard because the autoethnographer does not get any story wholly accurate. Facts and conversations may change, but I am aware and that is OK. I can be fearful but I must also encourage myself through authenticity (Ellis, 1999: 674).6 I feel thankful. My story is about remembering the doing of this drugs research in the past, but I am building my analysis in the present. I am using the method of autoethnography to make sense of these acutely felt, research experiences with drugusing women. It feels good to use emotional recall (see Endnote 1). All of what I am going through now, what I am feeling is all about the emotions I felt and the instinctual responses I made with these womenwhilst doingmy research. I structure these emotions and responses as I remember them emerging from the social spaces and conversations I had with all of these women. Some conversations appear as unfinished explanations or descriptions in my research notes. I examine them according towhat eachwomanwas saying tome – her wholehearted responses. I am able put these exchanges in various points in time. All this work takes a lot of time and energy. It demands patience, steadfastness and curiosity. I notice in my writing and analysing a sense of success predominates, and yet in being focused onwhat my stories are saying, I found sadness within each story. But then again, my story is no less real than the women I speak with. As I noted earlier,7 I need to be ethically accountable to methodological principles of how I portray the people around me in my autoethnography. The sources of data are research notes and transcribed conversations with women with whom I speak and who give me informed consent.8
I feel as if I am beginning to findmy voice and thesewomen’s voices. I am aware that only when I find my voice can these women find theirs in my narratives. These voices emerge and possibly merge as I begin to write my social science prose. We create dialogical exchanges in relationship and display how our research conversations are always a give-and-take – a pull of emotions and a sharing of realities altered in these research exchanges. Now, I will go on to their stories.
