Body, Paper, Stage: Writing and Performing Autoethnography

by Spry,Tami

• ISBN13: 9781598744873
• ISBN10: 1598744879
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2011-04-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Tami Spry provides a methodological introduction to the budding field of performative autoethnography. She intertwines three necessary elements comprising the process. First one must understand the body - navigating concepts of self, culture, language, class, race, gender, and physicality. The second task is to put that body on the page, assigning words for that body's sociocultural experiences. Finally, this merger of body and paper is lifted up to the stage, crafting a persona as a method of personal inquiry. These three stages are simultaneous and interdependent, and only in cultivating all three does performance autoethnography begin to take shape. Replete with examples and exercises, this is an important introductory work for autoethnographers and performance artists alike.

Author Biography

Tami Spry is a Professor of Performance Studies in the Communication Studies Department at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, USA. She employs autoethnographic writing and performance as a critical method of inquiry into culture and communication, teaching courses in beginning and advanced performative autoethnography, performance of literature, and collaborative writing in performance. Dr. Spry's performance work, publications, directing, and pedagogy focus on the development of cultural critique that engenders dialogue about difficult sociocultural issues; specifically, her work engages issues of race, sexual assault, grief, shamanism, and mental illness. Dr. Spry has presented performance research across the country and abroad, most recently in the UK at the University of Bristol, University of Cambridge, and University of Oxford. She also teaches abroad in Alnwick, England, and has conducted ethnographic work in Chile and Peru with Mapuche and Peruvian shaman on the performative dimensions of healing rituals. Dr. Spry's publications appear in Text and Performance Quarterly, Critical Studies Critical Methodologies, Qualitative Inquiry, International Review of Qualitative Research, Women and Language, the SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, and various anthologies. Her latest performance, Call It Swing, embodies jazz as a critical method of inquiry.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Performing Authoethnography: Making the Personal Political	p. 11
Preface: Autoethnography Lost and Found	p. 15
Acknowledgments	p. 17
Introduction: The Textualizing Body	p. 19
Body	p. 41
Conceptualizing Performative Autoethnography
Why Do Performative Autoethnography?	p. 41
Self-Other-Context	p. 51
Connection	p. 52
Performative Autoethnography and the Performative-I Disposition	p. 53
Agency and Representation	p. 57
Embodiment	p. 62
Rupture and Fragmentation	p. 65
In-and-Between Bodies	p. 66
The Performance Studies Classroom and Beyond	p. 70
Questions for Further Consideration	p. 75
Paper	p. 77
Writing the Body
Putting the Body On Paper, or, Writing the Performative Body	p. 100
Our Relationship with Language	p. 101
Autoethnography Descriptives	p. 103
An Ethic of Aesthetics in Performative Autoethnography	p. 105
Language of the Body	p. 107
Aesthetic Accountability	p. 109
The Answerable Body	p. 110
Questions for Further Consideration	p. 114
Paper	p. 115
Composing Performative Autoethnography
Writing Bodies into Being	p. 115
Methodology for Composing Performative Autoethnography	p. 126
Sociocultural Context	p. 128
Critical Self-Reflection	p. 129
Self-Other Interaction	p. 132
The Body	p. 133
Ethics	p. 134
Form	p. 140
Research	p. 145
Metaphor	p. 148
Time and Space	p. 148
Additional Persona	p. 150
Structuring Performative Autoethnography: From Fragments to Collage	p. 151
Warm-ups for Writing Performative Autoethnography	p. 153
Stage	p. 157
Performing the Autoethnographic Body
Why Perform Autoethnography?	p. 157
Conceptualizing Performance	p. 160
The Weight of Performative Embodiment: Putting Flesh on the Bones of Discourse	p. 162
Practiced Vulnerability as Agency	p. 167
Who and What Are We Performing in Performative Autoethnography?	p. 171
Questions for Further Consideration	p. 177
Stage	p. 179
Embodying Performative Autoethnography
Elements of an Embodied Performance	p. 182
Artistic Work Ethic	p. 183
Dialogical Performance	p. 185
Preparing for Rehearsal	p. 188
Internal/External Dichotomy	p. 189
Analyzing Internal Elements	p. 192
Connecting Internal and External Elements for Performance Choices	p. 194
Making Performance Choices of Voice, Body, Audience, and Space	p. 196
Warm-ups for Embodying Performative Autoethnography	p. 206
Body, Paper, Stage and Back Again	p. 209
References	p. 213
Index	p. 225
About the Author	p. 231
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