Self and Assemblage in Autoethnography: Memory, Place, and Solo Walking in Scotland and Australia

Self and Assemblage in Autoethnography offers a bold methodological provocation within qualitative research methods, advancing current debates in autoethnography by troubling the ‘auto’ and arguing that the field must confront the sovereign, Enlightenment-derived self that it has inherited. Drawing on assemblage theory, feminist new materialism, and critical tourism geographies, the book proposes deeper entanglements with place, memory, and materiality.

Set across the landscapes of Australia and Scotland, and grounded in solo hiking and wild camping, the book also contributes to cultural and tourism geographies by examining how settler narratives, land politics, and the politics of memory shape who gets to go outside, and how. Blending narrative, theory, and critique, it explores what it means to walk, remember, and write from within complex social and ecological assemblages, and what this means for the practice and politics of autoethnographic research and writing.