Using the once familiar to make the familiar strange once again
Engaging With Historical Inquiry and Autobiography in Contemporary Ethnographic Research
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2403928 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alexandra Allan (0000-0002-5089-2743, University of Exeter, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 538-553 |
| Publication date | 2018-10-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Qualitative Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1468-7941 • E-ISSN: 1741-3109 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1468794118778604 |
| OpenAlex | W2789501958 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 36 |
This article builds on Delamont's strategies for fighting familiarity, particularly her argument that ethnographers need to revisit educational ethnographies of the past. (Delamont, Atkinson and Pugsley 2010) The article argues that wider historical accounts, from both inside and outside of education, can also cultivate the sociological imagination in this way. Inspired by feminist historical inquiry the author will demonstrate how she has used history (historical research and feminist autobiography) to make the 'familiarity' of contemporary girlhood 'strange'. The article will draw on examples from the author's own experience of interpreting and representing the lives and experiences of girls in elite educational settings, to show how this subject, which was once considered strange, can become all too familiar and thus prey to historical amnesia. An argument is made here for the need for strategies which help us fight familiarity in our interpretations and theorisations of the lives of those we study. The article suggests that historical accounts represent one way in which we can bring an openness and playfulness to this process, in order to question the self-evidence of what we see
Aesthetics · Biography · Epistemology · Ethnography · Literature · Narrative · Openness to experience · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Critical Race Theory in Education · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Global Education and Multiculturalism · History · Psychology · Social Psychology
Stigma
Representation in ethnography
Ethnography
Nobody's Angels
Discussions that ‘tickle our brains’
The Australian Country Girl
Picturing success
Is the eighteenth century a foreign country too far
The importance of being a ‘lady’
The past in the present
Dinosaur discourses
Inside the secondary classroom
Preparing for life in the global village
Cosmo girls
Sociological silhouettes of elite schooling
The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer, Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen
The Nineteenth Century Woman
The concept smacks of magic
What is Wrong with Social Theory
The History of Gendered Social Science
Reading history through autobiography
History' Is Now
Theorising Feminist History
Only Be Ye Strong and Very Courageous
Advice and ambition in a girls' public day school
Feminist biography and feminist history
Asylums
Making the familiar strange
Travel Broadens the Mind or Making the Strange Familiar
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |