TY - JOUR AU - Roth, Wolff-Michael PY - 2008/10/30 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Auto/Ethnography and the Question of Ethics JF - Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research JA - FQS VL - 10 IS - 1 SE - FQS Debate: Qualitative Research and Ethics DO - 10.17169/fqs-10.1.1213 UR - https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1213 SP - AB - Auto/ethnography has emerged as an important method in the social sciences for contributing to the project of understanding human actions and concerns. Although the name of the method includes "ethnography," auto/ethnography often is concerned exclusively with an abstract (i.e., undeveloped) and abstracting understanding, and therefore the writing, of the Self rather than the writing of the "ethno." Auto/ethnography, such conceived, is a form of therapy, in the best case, and a form of narcissism and autoerotic relation, in the worst case. But because the Self exists in relation to the world, becomes in and through participation in everyday events, and because the human relation is inherently ethical, there are inherent ethical questions where the Other may come to be harmed as much as the Self. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0901381 ER -