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Autoethnographic exploration reveals insights about belonging in art, mental health, and education, suggesting new perspectives on identity.
I wrote this text when I participated in a PhD course, and felt this strange feeling of wanting to leave, wanting to speak up. But I had no idea about what I wanted to speak up about. In this text, I am exploring these feelings, trying to articulate what this exploration could bring to the table. I am using an autoethnographic approach, believing that “staying with the trouble,” as Donna Haraway puts it, can show us something new, and maybe something different, to how we understand our being in the world. Something that other great thinkers help me articulate. Like Haraway. Like Tony Adams, Alphonso Lingis, Gert Biesta, and Tore Dag Bøe. Among others. I think I am exploring and challenging our understanding of belonging to a field. Art field. Mental health field. Education field. Or any other fields that make a border between me, you. Them. Us. And how these categories can stand in the way of how we meet The Other, meet Ourselves. Are we in a field, or a part of the fields?
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Anne Kristine Aase Ugland (2025) studied this question.
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