Democratising knowledge production: From experience to knowledge through (auto)ethnography and essay writing

Abstract (English)

This paper focus on thesis writing in social work education and how the experiential richness students bring to the classroom can inspire a democratisation of knowledge production. After briefly delineating topical similarities and epistemological and methodological differences between social work and social anthropology, I discuss how the methods of ethnography, autoethnography, critical reflection and the (scientific) essay can assist students in transforming their personal or practice experience into academically and professionally relevant knowledge.

The aim for the apprenticeship is to make academic thesis writing more relevant for practice by teaching a methodology that empowers future practitioners with reflexive and analytical writing tools that encourages a continuous production of knowledge from experience, throughout their career. In short, the aim is to foster a knowledge production that treats experience as a pedagogic and epistemological resource (not brushing it aside because it is too hard to handle academically), that assists the best practitioners in writing the best academic texts, and that animates academic texts with (lived) experience, professional skills and discretion, and personal competence.

The point of departure for the exploration is that social work students often choose subject for their thesis based on experiences in their own life or practice. Many literally embody, or have close contact with, experiences of pressing social problems, and their positionality often directs them towards crucial gaps in academic knowledge. Yet social work voices are disproportionately little heard in public debates.

In addition to fifteen years of teaching experience from social anthropology and social work, the paper is inspired by ethnographic research on the personal and societal effects of self-expression in spoken word poetry and library reading groups. In these two dissimilar formats, I have analysed how making sense of experience is linked to making it communicable, inscribing it into reality by sharing it, and receiving some kind of acknowledgement. When “muted groups” or the subaltern narrate their own stories, subject positions and oppressive discourses can change. Can the same processes of emancipation and social change occur through academic writing?