The Wife of Bath, authority and the autoethnographer

Prologue

I did S level English. Yep, it really did exist once upon a time but was already dying out by the time I sat it in 1983. I think the S stood for 'Special', but it might have been 'Scholarship' or 'Supplementary' or - who knows? It was an extra and different type of paper you could sit if you were doing the A level. It was a chance to do something more like the old-style university-style intellectualising. 

And the fact I did S level, learned Latin and went to an independent school probably explains why studying Canterbury Tales for A-level led to my taking part in a philosophical debate about the authority of experience versus the authority of books. To my intense frustration, I can't remember the Latin terms used for the two ways of arguing - the argument from real life, and the argument settled by quoting 'an authority'. 

The Wife of Bath and authority

Canterbury Tales is a mischievous book, with the fictitious accounts of a number of pilgrims heading together to Canterbury. To keep themselves amused along the way, each tells a story. And before the story, each pilgrim got to say something about themselves and the reason for their choice of tale. I think it's only know that I'm realising quite how subversive Chaucer was. His subversion and mischief is no-where more evident than in the Wife of Bath's prologue. 

She begins:

"Experience, though noon auctoritee

were in this world, is right ynogh for me"

or - "experience, though there were no authorities in this world, is quite enough for me"

or- "What I know from what I've lived through is enough (evidence) for me. I don't need established authorities or texts." - but she does then proceed to use authorities to back up her lived experience of sex and marriage. A lived experience that runs counter to anything sanctioned by the accepted authorities on sex and marriage. 

I have sympathy with the Wife of Bath, particularly given the authorities that were currently in vogue. I think I too reject authorities written by and for a repressive patriarchal system having any authority over my experience. But experience without authorities is not quite enough for me. I may not need established authorities as a starting point, but I do need them as mirrors to show my experience in different lights.  

Autoethnography and authority

I think of ethnography as the study of people's social interactions in their natural habitat.  Auto is about the self. So, to me, autoethnography is studying your own social interactions in your natural habitat. 

There is a tendancy in social science to begin with the authorities, and use them to examine experience. The authorities frame what can be seen and what can be asked of experience. Even ethnography, which looks as if it should start with people and their lives can become less a study of people's social interactions and more a study of what the ethnographer notices. What the ethnographer notices is a product of what they expect to see, and what they expect depends on which authorities they favour. 

Autoethnography makes it easier to begin with experience. Experience is allowed to frame what authorities you see as relevant and how you interact with those authorities. 

How one then uses those authorities is central. As a baby autoethnographer, it would be very easy for me to do a 'Wife of Bath' and simply look for authorities that I can argue agree with how I interpret my own experiences. As she continues her prologue, she draws on authorities to bolster her argument from experience. She is highly selective, and doesn't always use an authority in a way that it is intended to be used. I could use authorities with the intention of bolstering an argument that I would argue even if "noon authorities were in this world". But I believe that does my experience and autoethnography a dis-service. 

So. I don't want to begin with book-authority or theory. I want to begin with experience. But I do then want to use book-authorities as mirrors on my experience. And I want to use what I see to help me reflect on what I experience. I think this gives appropriate respect to both ways of knowing - knowing from living through something, and knowing from theorising.

I have noticed that autoethnography tends to go hand-in-hand with inability to sit within an academic discipline or school of thought. I guess that is an unsurprising consequence of starting with experience and moving out to see what light academic authorities can shed on that experience. 

And I guess that my starting with experience and wanting support to reflect on and find ways of framing my experience in a way that would make me more effective at changing the world is what led me both to autoethnography and inability to sit within an academic discipline.

Who'd have thought Middle Ages poetry is still be relevant?