Becoming Method(ologist): A feminist posthuman autoethnography of the becoming of a posthuman methodology

Abstract

This paper contributes to the intersections of post qualitative methods, digital methods, and internet studies, by describing the becoming of a digital posthuman visual method.  I use posthuman autoethnography to argue that in the production of this method, the “auto” or my academic selfhood is decentered and entangled amidst an assemblage of material, discursive, and affective forces such as neoliberalism, Trump era terror, and dataism.  I introduce a multitude of data points typically not made to matter but through which these material, discursive and affective forces importantly flowed in this production of this method: emails, personal correspondences, restaurant conversations, self-reflection, conferences talks and responses to conference talks.  I focus specifically on the moments where the values and principles of feminist posthumanism were jarred and destabilized or where I was made to choose between foregoing my values or redesign my method and myself as methodologist. I argue academics have a response-ability to show both the forces at play behind the becoming of qualitative methods and knowledge in academia.