Since we wrote our last editorial, the political landscape of the world has changed drastically . . . again. The continual barrage of news—both banal and horrific—continues unabated. For example, in the United States, Donald Trump is detaining and deporting documented and undocumented immigrants without due process.1 He has deployed active military units to Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, DC.2 He opened “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, which is being referred to as a concentration camp, comparable to Auschwitz.3 He and his supporters are assaulting higher education institutions.4 He bombed Iran in support of Israel.5 He is attacking the rights of the LBGTQIA+ community.6 His administration is dismantling labor laws and employee rights,7 as well as reproductive and women’s rights.8 He is upending the rights of the disabled.9 The One Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law, which will disproportionally injure the working poor and the working class.10 There’s no doubt: we are in a fight for the soul and the future of the nation.What do these actions have in common? They all “punch down.”11 They attack the powerless. They attack underrepresented groups. They attack the poor, weak, and vulnerable. They attack people who cannot protect themselves against the machinations of a formidable federal government headed by an individual with authoritarian leanings.12 And yet . . .As we write this, the president of the United States is losing major immigration cases in the courtroom.13 Judges are overturning his egregious executive orders.14 Trump is losing in the court of public opinion,15 and the country continues to lose credibility across the world.16 Millions of people are marching in “No Kings” protests17 and rallies against the administration continue.18 Moreover, voters in the latest election pushed back against the Trump agenda. As we write this, individuals are making their voices heard. What do these efforts have in common? Taking a stand so that others can witness bad philosophies, policies, and practices. And that’s what many autoethnographers do.In previous editorials we have provided conceptions, definitions, and opinions about autoethnography.19 A quick summary: Autoethnography is a first-person, and therefore subjective and reflexive research practice. Autoethnographers use personal narrative and evocative storytelling. Autoethnographers foreground personal experience within cultural contexts. Autoethnographers use lived experience and insider knowledge to offer novel insights about social life. Autoethnographers challenge traditional objective research paradigms by revealing and reveling in personal and cultural truths. Autoethnographers tell stories from the margins. The use of autoethnography is personal—and often very political.20The philosophical premises of autoethnography are complemented by the terms “testimony”21 and “witnessing.”22 In a legal context, a testimony is “oral or written evidence the witness gives under oath, affidavit, or deposition during a trial or other legal procedures.”23 To bear witness is to provide one’s (the witness’s) first-person account of events, to tell one’s truth, as evidence to and for others.24 However, both testimony and witnessing go beyond mere judicial definitions. They go beyond simply taking the stand to describe what happened. They include taking a stand for deeper, intangible, and ethical truths about humanity and social life.25Testimony and witnessing can carry religious connotations as well.26 When taking a stand in religious contexts, people testify by telling stories of their spiritual awakenings. Giving one’s testimony often involves conveying emotional and existential truths as they bear witness to a conversion experience. Religious testimonies are often stories, and thus evidence, of epiphanies—“significant, turning-point moments” that “alter the fundamental meaning structures in a person’s life,”27 an “aha moment,” like Archimedes yelling “Eureka!” And as Denzin noted decades ago, epiphanies make for good autoethnographic projects. Autoethnographers often offer first-person narratives of formative, sometimes epiphanic, moments from their lives, and they share them so that others can bear witness to one’s truth/experience.28Testimony and bearing witness also connect directly to “testimonio.” Arising from postcolonial Latin American studies, testimonios are told from experiences of marginalization to an interlocutor, such as an ethnographer, a journalist, or an oral historian.29 The interlocutor’s responsibility was often to make these experiences public, to and for audiences the original teller may not be able to access easily and so others can bear witness to the experiences. A testimonio is often a crisis narrative, a “narración de urgencia” that must be told and told now.30 Not telling, not being able to tell, and not allowing others to witness can be a matter of life and death.31 Like testimonio, autoethnographers tell first-person narratives from the margins. Like testimonio, autoethnographers often call for action. Like testimonio, marginalized voices can use autoethnography to speak truth to power, to take a stand, and allow readers to bear witness.Many of us turn to autoethnography to show what many of us don’t see because of naivete and privilege, to show where and how and why we need to take a stand. Maybe we cannot write from the perspective of a Black ciswoman, but through Boylorn’s autoethnographies we can start to understand these perspectives.32 Perhaps we are not asexual, but through Key, we can learn how an ace’s life is lived.33 Although we may not be able to write as a gay man from the southern United States, Whitworth can show us how that struggle feels.34 Perhaps we will never be a veteran with suicidal ideation, but we can identify with Hunniecutt’s words.35 We may never have psychotic distress, but autoethnographies by Johnston and Gullion can offer a glimpse into the madness.36These works illustrate the promise of autoethnography as testimony and the ability to bear witness. Autoethnographers—sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly—take a stand. We recognize research and knowledge as socially situated and profoundly shaped by the social, political, and economic contexts. We use autoethnography to tell truth(s) in a world of post-truth slop and shit. Autoethnography allows us to be prophets in the original sense of the term, telling truths to the powerful, often on behalf of the oppressed, and to offer corrective values and visions when society has gone awry.37In these unstable, divisive, and dangerous times we can use autoethnography to shout injustice from the mountaintops. We can recognize, celebrate, and advocate marginalized perspectives. We can promote understanding and understanding can facilitate change, empathy, and dignity. Let’s get to work.
Herrmann et al. (Thu,) studied this question.