I’m so glad you’ve written this. I saw George’s question and Audrey’s answer and then all the other answers, and spent a day puzzling over the many interactions between autoethnography, narrative, reflection and just plain confessional. That is, I think Audrey’s right that there’s a tendency at the moment for confessional accounts of experience to function as a kind of authenticity smackdown. This is a very complicated mask of privilege with privilege, and it’s exactly how privilege has always hidden itself in plain sight.

So what you’ve drawn out here is very important: that situated and reflective narrative doesn’t overturn the tables of structural insight (or methodological rigour), but without it something really is missing.

I didn’t grasp the significance of George’s question at first because I don’t tend to use autoethnography as the term. Your post has built the bridge to narrative for me. Thank you!