ABSTRACT

Autoethnography has often been considered an existentialist and lived approach to research. In this chapter I examine the concept of love as a verb, love as action, and explore the connections between doing autoethnography and the philosophy of love. I consider how autoethnographic research connects to the three imperatives of love investigated by philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: love of self, preferential love, and agape love. I show how Kierkegaard provides another philosophical basis for personal narrative research, as well as practical and material action for autoethnographers through his conceptions of love.