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Using autoethnography as a lightweight research method

Speakers:

Bio: "Sarah Turner is a PhD Researcher in the School of Computing at the University of Kent, and a member of the Institute of Cyber Security for Society (iCCS). Her research focuses on how families address the cyber security issues arising from using Internet of Things devices in the home. Prior to this, Sarah received an MPA in Digital Technology and Public Policy from UCL’s Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy, and spent some time working as a Research Associate at PETRAS, the National Centre of Excellence for IoT Systems Cybersecurity. A lifelong collector of degrees of all shapes and sizes, Sarah has an MA in Literae Humaniores from the University of Oxford, an LLB from BPP Law School, and an MBA from the Open University. The last two of those were undertaken whilst she worked full-time in the financial services industry, creating and managing teams and technologies to meet regulatory obligations. As a result of her interdisciplinary background and work experience, Sarah is particularly interested in how systems get to a point of needing to be regulated, and what that regulation should look like, why people use technology they don’t always fully understand, how they can hope to use them safely and how such technologies should be designed and created."

Using reflections from a period of autoethnography that I undertook last year; this session will look at some of the pros and cons of this extremely intimate research method. This method is a risky one to use in many ways; as it may be considered too specific; not generalizable enough to produce valuable insight. However; carefully done; for the right subject matter; this should not be the case. This webinar will look at previous examples of autoethnography; with a large (but not exclusive) focus on the human-computer interaction space; as a means of understanding why recording aspects of your own lived experience might be beneficial for your understanding of your research subject and your future work.