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Autoethnography in Media Studies

Digitalization of Television in Finland, or Carrying Home Cardboard Boxes

Johanna Uotinen

The text above is the beginning of an autoethnographical story on how our television gradually turned into a digitalized monster. Autoethnography as a research method had appealed to me for a long time before I actually tried it myself. My reasons for toying with the idea of autoethnography had probably something to do with the fact I had worked for almost 10 years as a project researcher and had done extensive amounts of ethnographic interviews not only for my own research purposes, but also for the interests of the research projects. Thus, I found myself becoming slightly tired of conducting series of interviews, organizing the fieldwork, facing informant after informant, transcribing the interviews, and analyzing the stories told by others: I longed for a change. Moreover, I had always had personal experiences relating to the topics on which I was interviewing, and eventually it began to feel odd that I would always rush to get an interview from someone else when I could answer the questions myself.

However, it was not until the digitalization of television broadcasting in Finland that I was finally encouraged to take the step from merely playing with the idea to actually doing autoethnography in practice – that is, trying to use my own experiences as research material. I began to contemplate my own relationship with television and the changes that had occurred in it by means of autoethnography using concepts such as domestication and agency (Uotinen, 2010a). What I found especially interesting were the links between technology, gendered practices, and agency as well as the fact that autoethnography turned out to be such an excellent tool for making these relationships visible. So I wrote another article on the topic (Uotinen, 2010b).

Doing autoethnography proved somewhat difficult, though. There were plenty of autoethnographical articles, which I read in order to get a grip of the method. The problem was that methodological texts proved to be more rare, and thus I found very little practical advice on how to actually do autoethnography (since then, textbooks have been published, for example, Chang, 2008, and Muncey, 2010). However, I came to the conclusion that there is a good reason for this scarcity: every autoethnographer tends to produce her own personal conceptions and research practices during the research process.

In this chapter my aim is to do autoethnography on autoethnography. I will therefore discuss autoethnography as a research method on the basis of my own experiences. I have already explained how I ended up trying to do it, and in the following pages my goal is to connect the theory to the method in a comprehensive way. I will further utilize my own autoethnographical accounts on the digitalization of television in order to illustrate the points I make. Although I am excited about autoethnography and have found it a useful method, I am not denying the problems and difficulties involved in it, and that is why I will not only discuss the strengths and benefits of the method but also its methodological weaknesses.

Autoethnography

Autoethnography is a method in which the researcher's personal life experiences form the starting point and the central material of research (Ellis, 2007). The method is based on the so-called crisis of representation in the field of anthropological research, on discussions that concentrated on the limits and conditions of ethnography and ethnographic knowledge (Spry, 2001). The crisis of representation dealt with the questions of the (power) relations between ethnography, ethnographic writing, and “the Others,” the objects of the research. These questions can be traced back to the earlier phases of the discipline – back to times when it was natural and acceptable to regard the researcher as the authority, who could brush aside the fields' multivoiced nature, to use the “objective” and “neutral” voice of science and the ethnographic present tense, as well as to objectify and exoticize informants (see e.g., Atkinson, Coffey, & Delamont, 1999; Clifford, 1986; Clifford & Marcus, 1986; Marcus & Fischer, 1986).

The earlier conventions of ethnographic research and especially writing were questioned, along with the crisis of representation. It was pondered whether it is at all possible to describe the Other's culture and if so, how and on whose conditions? As a result of these discussions, ethnography was no longer seen as describing the researched culture as it is. Furthermore, ethnographic texts were now read not as direct accounts of reality, but as interpretations transmitted by writing. The researcher was no longer seen as an objective observer, but his or her influence on collecting and analyzing the research materials and on reporting the results was acknowledged. Then also the research results were seen as a researcher's personal literary productions, which have their own writing conventions and rules.

Hence the discussions on ethnographic representation laid the foundation for the methods in which the researcher's visibility in both research and reporting became more and more acceptable, and therefore enabled the development of autoethnographic method. Originally, autoethnography referred to the researcher's manner of including autobiographical material in research texts describing the Other. Later the term started to mean a form of research that is (mainly) based on researchers' own life experiences. Now it offers multiple means, such as performative, poetic, and literary tools for the researcher's self-expression (Burnier, 2006; Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Reed-Danahay, 1997).

Autoethnography has become increasingly popular since its emergence in the 1990s. This tendency can be seen, for example, by examining the number of articles published on the topic. I conducted a simple test by searching the abstracts of all Sage journals on the Sage Journals webpage (http://online.sagepub.com/) using the keyword “autoethnography” in the advanced search tool box. The result was illuminating. Altogether, 284 journal articles with “autoethnography” mentioned in their abstracts have been published by Sage. Out of those, four came out during the 1990s (the first article was published in 1996: Simpson, 1996), 160 texts were printed in the 2000s, and in the period 2010–2012 120 articles had been published. So it is clear that autoethnography is not a passing fad or a curiosity among a small circle of enthusiasts, but a mainstreaming method in the ascendant.

The interpretation I find most helpful is to think of autoethnography as a type of autobiographical writing and a research method that connects the personal to the cultural and social (Ellis & Bochner, 2000). Thus, autoethnography is a research method and text that describes the writer's personal experiences and places those experiences in their social and cultural context. It aims to understand the general by studying the private and individual. This is possible, since a person's life is not merely unique, but also generalizable (Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Reed-Danahay, 1997).

Viewed this way, autoethnography comes close to the idea of situated knowledge (Ellis & Bochner, 2000). The concept of situated knowledge (Haraway, 1991) is used to emphasize the contextual nature of all knowledge: knowledge is always connected to a certain time, place, situation, and above all certain people. By situating the study in a certain person's (or persons') everyday experiences, understandings, and practices, by having these as the starting point and basis of the study, it is possible to achieve more general relations and meanings. In autoethnography, the situated knower is the researcher herself, and the other informants do not necessarily exist at all.

The concept of situated knowledge also links autoethnography to gender studies and certain feminist theories. One example of these is feminist cultural studies of technology (Lykke, 2008; McNeil, 2007), in which three relatively new interdisciplinary branches of research – gender studies, technology studies and cultural studies – intertwine (McNeil, 2007). The main idea of gender-sensitive cultural studies of technology is that gender and technologies are produced together in the signifying processes and thus affect each other. Thus, both technologies and the work and skills connected to them are gendered to the smallest piece of knowledge and practice (Faulkner, 2001; Wajcman, 2004). These ideas are also relevant in media studies because there is no media without technology, and therefore both media and its use can be seen as gendered to the core. Furthermore, gender is not the only relevant difference to be acknowledged but ethnicity, age, education, and class, for example, should also be taken into account when appropriate.

However, raw autoethnographic data alone is not enough to develop high-quality research, and it would be unjustified to demand that it does so (see Miller, 1991). Instead of relying on mere raw autoethnographic autobiography, research should seek possibilities for more subtle and multifaceted positions (Ellis & Bochner, 2000). When one is doing autoethnography, the most crucial point, in my opinion, is to carefully situate the research process and the produced knowledge – not only to write texts based on personal experiences, but also to position the study and oneself in the spirit of situated knowledge. This way research is based on a conscious and reflected position in a certain place and situation from where the researcher makes observations and does her work, and the knowledge that is produced is contextualized. In order to see and understand, one must be located somewhere – and this concerns the researcher as an informant as much as those who read the research report (Haraway, 1991).

The Problems of Autoethnography

Autoethnography is not just a way of knowing and achieving knowledge, but it also creates a research text in the way ethnography in general does (see Van Maanen, 1995). However, the main aim of autoethnographic writing is to break the writing conventions of traditional realistic ethnography. This aim is pursued by using, for example, literary and performative means (e.g., Boylorn, 2006; Denzin, 2005; Kaufmann, 2005; Spry, 2001). Therefore, strict demands are set on autoethnography: it should be personal and research-like, evocative and analytic, descriptive and theoretical all at the same time. Autoethnography should also have artistic quality, regardless of whether or not it takes the written or performative form. In addition, it has been mentioned that autoethnographic research should aim at offering care and support as well as producing change in the world and people. All this sets great – even impossible – demands for autoethnographers. It is not enough to be a capable researcher and scientific writer, but societal influence, literary talent, and even acting skills (in the case of performative autoethnography) are also required (Burnier, 2006; Ellis, 2007; Ellis & Bochner, 2000, 2006; Spry, 2001).

According to the autoethnographic canon, the researcher should describe his or her own experiences and emotions in such a way that the description touches the reader deeply and genuinely. Consequently, it has been considered as central for successful autoethnography that the description arouses similar emotions in the reader as the researcher has felt in the described situation. It is this evocativeness, the aim to arouse feelings, that separates autoethnography from other forms of ethnographic research (Ellis & Bochner, 2006; Reed-Danahay, 2001).

It is probably because of this demand that very difficult themes such as illness, death, racism, incest, violence, and problematic family relations have been popular in autoethnographic research (e.g., Brooks, 2011; Davis, 2009; Day, 2010; Eicher-Catt, 2004; Elizabeth, 2008; Ellis & Bochner, 1992; Ettore, 2005; Jago, 2006; Lee, 2006; Minge, 2007; Ronai, 1995, 1996; Weaver-Hightower, 2012). The problem-oriented nature of autoethnography is understandable, since more intense emotions – grief, despair, and anger – are probably easier to mediate in a text than milder feelings. However, the prevailing dramatic content gave the impression (at least, to me) that there is no point in doing autoethnography if everything is fine. This impression was strengthened by the fact that the objectives and research nature of some autoethnographic texts that are concerned with ordinary, everyday life experiences I managed to find – for example, watching television – were somewhat difficult to comprehend too (see Ott, 2007; Scott-Hoy, 2003).

The type of research that appeals to readers' feelings, aiming to arouse them, has understandably been criticized for concentrating too heavily on the researcher's personal problems and misfortunes (Anderson, 2006). An approach like this tends to make research either difficult to comprehend, or even awkward and embarrassing, and its relevance could be questioned (Walford, 2004). As justification for the approach, one has offered, for example, writers' empowerment (Ellis & Bochner, 2000). Writing about one's vicissitudes can be therapeutic – but does it need to be research? For me the greatest problem of autoethnography is the manner in which it concentrates only on the researcher's experiences. When all contextualization is neglected, this weakens the intelligibility and general interest of many studies regardless of how skillfully they are written.

Furthermore, when all misfortunes and intimate facts are discussed in detail, the reader's feelings might be aroused, but the question is: Are the feelings aroused the “right” ones? For me at least, reading genuinely evocative texts tends to be a somewhat awkward experience, which makes me wonder: Do I really want to know all these private, intimate, and even embarrassing facts the writer has exposed? Since discomfort and awkwardness are not the feelings texts usually aim to arouse, my reaction questions the basis of evocative autoethnography – the idea that the text should be able to transmit and arouse the feeling it describes (Ahmed, 2004).

Thus, the evocativeness is problematic, not only because of its practical consequences, but also from the perspective of situated knowledge and the critique of universal experience (see Skeggs, 1995). In autoethnography both experience and feelings tend to be seen as undeniable, universal, and transmittable. The researcher's experiences are supposed to be so general that it is possible not only to understand but also to experience them in the same way regardless of the audience's situatedness. This attitude may appear somewhat arrogant, since autoethnographers are convinced of the importance of their experiences to research (Miller, 2008). In fact, it results in a way of thinking that annoyingly resembles the God-tricks – relativism and universalism – that aim to hide the subjectivity and situated nature of the knowledge Donna Haraway (1991) criticizes.

The Benefits of Autoethnography

Why would autoethnography be worth doing if it is so contradictory? According to my own practice-based experiences, there are (at least) five good reasons for trying autoethnography. First, autoethnography offers tools for research that follow the idea of situated knowledge. As it is regarded as an acceptable starting point for research to position oneself in someone else's situation in order to gain situated knowledge (Haraway, 1991), research based on a researcher's personal position and commitments must be justified and acceptable as well. If researchers are unable to describe their starting points in a way that justifies their autoethnographic approach, how could they describe the starting points any better when they do research on others?

It is an increasingly recognized and recommended basis for research that researchers acknowledge the fact that knowledge is situated and committed. This emphasizes the idea that research results are reliable and understandable only when the knowledge's contextuality – the conditions and situations affecting both informants and researcher in the process of knowledge production – is taken into account. Acknowledging these conditions justifies the analytic move between the individual and the general that is essential in legitimating autoethnography.

Autoethnography further offers possibilities for researching groups, life situations, or experiences that easily tend to remain hidden in research. For example, the gendered nature of media technologies and habits connected to them is so deeply embedded in our cultural understandings – it is so natural and unquestionable – that it goes unnoticed. Autoethnography provides a useful tool to more consciously explore how this process of gendering takes place in everyday life in often subtle ways and “private” contexts.

The implementation of the idea of situated and committed knowledge is, however, challenging in practice: research often results in pieces of general observation from the informants' life situations, which remain scattered and separate, although they are supposed to be contextualizing. Autoethnography offers a possible solution to this problem for the simple reason that it is easier to reach precision in contemplating one's own life than it is when one is trying to describe and situate the positions of others. This means that autoethnography offers a means to pursue situatedness and commitment and to avoid the oversimplification that otherwise threatens when trying to describe the life contexts of other people in relation to the goals of the research.

Second, autoethnography makes it possible to follow everyday life practices. Such practices are, naturally, at the core of ethnographic research in general as well. However, it is relatively difficult to study them with, for example, interviews. The reason for this difficulty is the fact that many mundane habits and tasks are so frequent that they have become invisible. How many of us pay attention to fixed habits and choices that are related to, for example, cooking, computer use, or television watching? As such, these practices are difficult to verbalize, even if the researcher is able to ask the relevant questions. In addition to interviews, observation is another method typically found in traditional ethnography. With observation it is possible to follow what people do, but to find out why they do what they do and what are the meanings of the doings, pure observation might not be enough. So it is often necessary to ask for further explanations and clarifications from the informants. Thus, the problem mentioned above of verbalizing the practices might concern observation too.

Autoethnography offers one kind of solution to these problems, because it is easier to concentrate on the details of one's own everyday life. There is also at least one less level of signification: one's own acts, motives, and understandings are probably more understandable than somebody else's explanations of his or her everyday life practices and their contexts. For example, I learned entirely new aspects of my television-related behavior and my choices concerning it when I proceeded to do autoethnography on the topic. Had I done traditional ethnography with informants, the results might have been interesting, but I doubt I could have attained the same kind of precision that autoethnography enables. This way of doing research naturally requires concentration and honesty, but when it is conducted in a careful and thorough way, autoethnography offers the possibility to achieve delicate understandings and to connect everyday practices (the individual) and social and cultural structures (the general).

The third benefit is the utilization of the researcher's own experience-based knowledge. It is quite possible that, on certain topics, the researcher himself or herself could provide more powerful and relevant information than other informants could. This is the case especially with research topics that may be difficult to access from the outside or that are out of the line of research in general. Furthermore, even when the research theme is not so intimate or otherwise demanding that it would make it difficult to find informants – as is the case with television – it might is be possible to gain thicker descriptions with autoethnography (on the concept of thick description, see Geertz, 1993). My engagement with autoethnography showed that it was possible to conduct convincing research that was ethnographic in nature while employing other methods than observation and interviews.

One must, however, be particularly critical about research topics, and choices must be carefully justified: credible autoethnography is not possible on any topic whatsoever. In my case, for example, digital television and my engagement with certain health technologies proved to be convincing research themes, since television is one of the technologies that influence my everyday life practices and health technology has also become part of my life experiences (Uotinen, 2011).

When doing autoethnography, the researcher puts himself or herself and his or her personal credibility at risk, not only as a researcher but also as a person. That is why it is particularly important in autoethnography to put special emphasis on the choice of research topic: it must not only be valid in the sense of researcher's experiences but also be theoretically and methodologically justifiable. In the end, the validity of the topic is demonstrated through self-reflexivity when conducting the research, and by following justified, ethical, and transparent research practices.

Fourth, autoethnography offers the opportunity to conduct research when a wider ethnographic fieldwork cannot be accessed due to lack of time, funds, or other resources. The resources for research tend to be scarce, and thus autoethnography might offer solutions to address topics that otherwise would have been neglected. Lack of resources or other purely convenient reasons should never, however, be the main argument for choosing autoethnography. The choice has to be done consciously and there has to be convincing research-based, theoretical, and methodological reasons for the use of the method or the result will be unjustifiable.

The fifth benefit of autoethnography is that it is the researcher's own life, not someone else's, that is under consideration and exposed to criticism. When research is conducted in cooperation with the informants, the aim naturally is to follow practices that are as ethical as possible and to have as equal relations between the researcher and the informants as possible, but the researcher still has the last word. So, there is always the risk of the researcher harming the participants unintentionally (Plummer, 2001). Of course, these ethical concerns do not mean that other people should not be involved in the research as informants at all for fear of “doing something wrong.” The choice must, again, be based on the aims of the research itself: Is autoethnography able to offer answers to research questions or are interviews and/or observation more reasonable solutions?

If autoethnography is revealed to be a valid method for researching a certain topic, the ethical risks are slightly different in comparison to traditional ethnographic research. One does not need to exercise caution with oneself as with other people. Thus, it is possible to deal with questions that could not be otherwise discussed. It is also possible to write in a style that would be regarded as dubious outside the genre of autoethnography. For example, when I write on my television relationship I can freely aim at a somewhat (self-)ironic style, whereas it would not be proper to write about other people using a similar style. However, the limits and practices need to be carefully considered in autoethnography as well, especially regarding other people who may become involved in the study, such as those closest to the researcher. Exposing oneself is acceptable, but to do the same to one's friends and relatives involves ethical considerations (Ellis, 2007; Skeggs, 1995).

Connecting the Individual to the Cultural: Digitalization of TV in Finland

I have included the story of the digitalization process of our TV in this chapter, as it is a good example of how it is possible to intertwine the general and the individual in a way that tells something about the present, as autoethnography should do. The digitalization of television broadcasting was a long and somewhat complicated process in Finland. The first digital programs were broadcast as early as August 2001. The first digital receivers, however, were available only four months later. Furthermore, it was not until August 2005 that the digital network covered most of the country – four years after digital broadcasting had begun. There are still some very remote spots where digital broadcasts are difficult to receive without expensive special arrangements. The date on which analogue broadcasting was to end was also changed several times during the digitalization process. Eventually, broadcasting was digitalized in two waves, in August 2007 (aerial broadcasting) and March 2008 (cable broadcasting). So, the digitalization process began slowly and its continuation was vague, although digital television was an important part of the government's information society policy. The aim was to be at the cutting edge of digitalization in Europe as with the earlier development of the information society (see Castells & Himanen, 2002).

The process included some exaggerated promises of technical advancement, which were not realized. For example at the beginning of the digitalization process there were promises about interactive services among others, but these were all quietly dropped as the process continued. Furthermore, at the beginning of digitalized television there were complications because of unequal visibility, poor digital receiver supply on the market, severe technological teething problems (e.g., subtitles), and, above all, the top-down style of execution of the whole process. Therefore, Finns in general were not at all happy with digital television at first. Now, more than 10 years after the beginning of the digi-TV process, the situation has stabilized somewhat as the worst technical and other teething problems are over.

Still, the digitalization process produced substantial changes for Finland's television field. For example, statistics published on September 3, 2008, show that 98% of households with television had a digital receiver in August 2008. The same statistics, however, also show that just before the final digitalization, there were only 6% of households with no television at all, whereas after the change 10% of Finland's 2.5 million households no longer had a TV. During the previous year and after the end of analogue broadcasting, as many as 100,000 households had given up television. The trend has continued: according to the December 2011 statistics, 88% of Finnish households own a television – and 12% do not. The novelty is the number of households – 15% – that watch television broadcasts via a computer. This was such a rare possibility in 2008 that it was not even mentioned. Thus, the statistics show fundamental changes in the ways Finns watch television that have taken place during and after the digitalization process (Statistics Finland, 2008, 2011).

Experiences in the digitalization of television are especially interesting because of their collective nature. Since the beginning of digital broadcasting, the majority of Finns have faced cracks in their TV-related everyday life practices. Therefore, anyone who complained about digital TV belonged to the mass who even had a language of their own: digi-complaint discourse. This discourse appeared on Internet chatrooms, in letters to the editor, and in everyday discussions. So, the digitalization of television led to a collective experience backed up by individual experiences.

This shows that I was by no means alone with my digitalization-related feelings of irritation and reluctance. So I can assume that my personal experiences were generally representative of the broader social and cultural situation in Finland at the time. Especially because the change from analogue to digital television affected practically everyone in Finland, it is quite probable that I have managed to write about something that touches many other people. It is exactly this argument that justifies my use of the autoethnographical method when researching the digitalization process of television in Finland. Consequently the autoethnography consists of not only my autobiographical descriptions but also the analysis of television's digitalization and even the self-reflexive assessment of the research process and its results.

Small Is Beautiful

In my opinion, the problems that are inherent to autoethnography can best be avoided by doing research on topics that are not dramatic but instead describe the researcher's everyday life practices, as I have suggested in my articles on digital television (Uotinen, 2010a, 2010b). However, I do recognize and admit the difference between the type of autoethnography that concentrates on everyday practices and the evocative autoethnography that deals with deep emotions. Consequently, I regard myself as practicing small autoethnography (see Rambo, 2007). By small autoethnography I mean autoethnographic research that especially concentrates on everyday, ordinary, “small” themes, whereas “big” autoethnography deals evocatively with the dramatic turning points of life.

I chose the term “small” in order to emphasize small autoethnography's pivotal connection to the concept of small agency: the advantage of small autoethnography is that it offers a possibility to study specifically small agency. Small agency is a concept developed by Marja-Liisa Honkasalo and it refers to the everyday agency that is labeled by invisibility. Honkasalo (2006, p. 103) points out how small agency is “characterized by repetition and conventionality, small movements, unchangeable rhythms, non-unexpectedness of its outcomes, returning the same and so-called invisibility at the same places.” Small agency exists especially in the domestic sphere – for example, within housework, and thus is heavily gendered in nature. However, it is not mere monotonous repetition, but it also offers space for holding onto the world, doing things differently, coming up with creative solutions and change (Honkasalo, 2008, 2009). All this means that autoethnography is a suitable tool for approaching small agency.

Generally speaking, agency has become a central concept in the fields of cultural studies, gender studies, and cultural studies of technology and media, to name a few examples. It offers possibilities to conceptualize the interfaces and relations between people's life, culture, and society – and therefore suits well the principles of autoethnography. The starting point of my understanding on agency is Laura Ahearn's (2001, p. 112) definition: “agency refers to the socioculturally mediated capacity to act.”

Agency is produced in everyday practices where people negotiate and try to act in harmony with the surrounding society and culture and with the expectations and demands set by them. Understanding agency requires that one analyze not only the practices but also the differences. The differences, such as gender, age, ethnicity, class, education, and even location, have effects on and in agency (Lister, 2003; McNay, 2000). What is especially interesting in the concept of agency is the possibility it offers for discussing temporality, changes, resistance, and even creativity in spite of the outlining social and cultural practices and structures (Ahearn, 2001; Certeau, 1988; McNay, 2003). Thus, autoethnography as a method correlates well with the concept of agency and especially small agency.

In addition to agency in general, it is also possible to concentrate on, for example, media and media technology-related agencies: how media and relevant technologies are made part of our existence and how they become part of our existence. Here the concept of small agency is particularly useful, as the practices connected to media tend to be especially routinized and are thus invisible due to their plain repetitiveness – as my own pondering on the use of digitalizing TV shows. For example, the housework-like, repetitive nature of digitalized everyday life would have remained unnoticed without autoethnographic means (Uotinen, 2010b; see also Cowan, 1985).

What could then be the criteria for high-quality (small) autoethnography? In my opinion, the same criteria that apply to ethnography in general. The knowledge produced by autoethnography is based on the same starting points that are used in more traditional ethnography as well. All ethnographic knowledge is subjective, context-bound, and partial; it is committed to the personal perspectives and starting points of the researchers, readers (and informants), and has to be accepted – or rejected – as such (Clifford, 1986; see also Medford, 2006).

It is of utmost importance that autoethnographic research be theoretically informed. A theoretically solid starting point is the premise for formulating research questions. Explicit research questions, on the other hand, form the conditions that enable the autoethnographer to locate and analyze from everything that she remembers those particular experiences that are linked to the research topic. Without clear theoretical starting points and research questions, autoethnography easily becomes something that could well be described as accidental roaming in one's own reminiscences. Therefore it is important to understand what and why one is studying before taking any action – this naturally concerns any research but is even more important in the case of autoethnography. For research credibility, it is necessary to take these notions into account in situations in which the researcher produces both the materials and the interpretations.

The credibility of (auto)ethnographic research is based on the whole concept and process of the research: the critical choice of research themes, the careful description of starting points and positions, the self-reflexivity of research, the density of research reports, and the fact that social and cultural contexts and connections are created and baselines offered. The most crucial aspect of sustainable (small) autoethnography is to make sure that research does not merely describe the private, but that it also consciously produces connections to the general, social, and cultural. This way autoethnography – instead of being just a hermetic self-report of the researcher – offers possibilities for making observations and interpretations on everyday life that other people can find interesting as well.

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