Writing "Self" Into Critical Sociology: An Autoethnography of Liberation From a Critical Academic Discourse

• In Event: Writing to Learn and Writing to Know: Self-Study and the Self as Text

Abstract

Critical sociology’s commitment to the emancipation of marginalized voices suggests an external research orientation, hence focusing on the nature of “self” in this context can seem paradoxical. In this paper I use auto-ethnography in order to turn Critical Sociology’s outward gaze upon itself and study the nature of 'self" it evokes in students and scholars to be. I show that when applied to marginalized voices whom critical sociology supposedly seeks to liberate, this theory is often characterized by inner contradictions and sweeping assumptions regarding the self and as such can become another form of oppression. I reflect on how this application of autoethnography carries an emancipatory power and serves my role as teacher educator.

Author

• Merav Nakar- Sadi, Beit Berl Academic College