Blurring genres: a personal narrative about university management
Blurring genres: a personal narrative about university management
Blurring genres involves a shift from naturalist social science to the analogies of game, drama and text. This article combines ethnography, autobiography, literature, and political science to roam the realms of personal narratives or autoethnography. It explores genres of thought and of presentation not commonly found in political science in a story about university management. A personal narrative involves using self-reflection to explore anecdotal and
personal experience, and connecting this story to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings. Commonly, autoethnographies are evocative; that is, they seek to persuade readers that they know these people and have been to these places. Here, I offer an analytic personal narrative; it is storytelling that seeks to marry idiographic particularity with an analysis that speaks to large issues. I present autobiographical material about my academic career as an ‘artificial person’. I use this story to invite the reader to engage with
the big issue of the role of the university in Britain today. Finally, I offer some topics for the readers’ ‘consideration’, identifying several personal considerations as well as considerations
for political science, and for universities. Although writing personal narratives challenges the
conventional canons of social science research about transparency and reliability of data, it
also offers an innovative way of understanding the self in the world.
Rhodes, R. A. W.
cdbfb699-ba1a-4ff0-ba2c-060626f72948
Rhodes, R. A. W.
cdbfb699-ba1a-4ff0-ba2c-060626f72948
Rhodes, R. A. W.
(2021)
Blurring genres: a personal narrative about university management.
New Area Studies, 2 (1).
(In Press)
Abstract
Blurring genres involves a shift from naturalist social science to the analogies of game, drama and text. This article combines ethnography, autobiography, literature, and political science to roam the realms of personal narratives or autoethnography. It explores genres of thought and of presentation not commonly found in political science in a story about university management. A personal narrative involves using self-reflection to explore anecdotal and
personal experience, and connecting this story to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings. Commonly, autoethnographies are evocative; that is, they seek to persuade readers that they know these people and have been to these places. Here, I offer an analytic personal narrative; it is storytelling that seeks to marry idiographic particularity with an analysis that speaks to large issues. I present autobiographical material about my academic career as an ‘artificial person’. I use this story to invite the reader to engage with
the big issue of the role of the university in Britain today. Finally, I offer some topics for the readers’ ‘consideration’, identifying several personal considerations as well as considerations
for political science, and for universities. Although writing personal narratives challenges the
conventional canons of social science research about transparency and reliability of data, it
also offers an innovative way of understanding the self in the world.
Text
Rhodes - New Area Studies Proofs
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 26 October 2021
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 452190
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/452190
ISSN: 2633-3716
PURE UUID: ffb82c24-5c11-4e28-8273-81357735b53b
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Date deposited: 29 Nov 2021 17:32
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:27
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