How Do I Begin To Tell a Story that Has Not Been Told? Anarchism, Autoethnography, and the Middle Ground

Abstract

As a testament to the growing literature on autoethnography and my own connections to systemic and direct racism, this article is a therapeutic way to explore my past through the ancient way of telling, testifying, and developing knowledge through narrative inquiry. Testimony opens new ways of looking at the world by participating in a subversive form of scholarship. Indigenous scholars have claimed that stories play a vital role in transmitting who we are. Through my experiences, I explore the concept of “the middle ground” and the spaces of identity created by complex relationships of power. Similar to the literature on borders, “go-betweens” dance across worlds and exist in spaces wrought with alienation, discovery, transmission, and cooperation. I also argue that anarchist theory and praxis can inform larger autoethnographic writing, pushing radicals to include narrative inquiry into their own communities and praxis through an exploration of self. In this way, we can begin the difficult process of theorizing from our own locations that includes moments of intense pain, shame, and triumph that life sometimes brings us.