Gaining deeper insight into audiences and artists: The use of autoethnography in arts research

Autoethnography, a research methodology that brings together insights from the more established discipline of ethnography and the genre of autobiography, represents an attempt to address such an innate need to know our true self, and the world surrounding us at the same time. As the etymology of the word reveals, autoethnography has an ambiguous nature that is characterized by a bidirectional movement, one inward (autos), which is aimed at knowledge of the individual true self, and one outward (ethnos), which is oriented towards the cultural and social contexts in which the individual finds him or herself. In this sense, autoethnography functions as connective tissue between the self (autos) and the other (ethnos). Like a “synecdoche” (Chiu 2004: 44), autoethnography allows for the study of the whole, i.e. an entire culture or society, while focusing on the particular, i.e. the individual.