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Abstract

A portion of this piece was presented at the 2025 International Conference of Autoethnography (ICAE) in Bristol, England. The theme of the conference was “Breathing Spaces.” This piece was specifically on the invited spotlight panel, “Letters from our own Correspondents.” A format based on the long-running British Broadcasting System tradition (with podcasts) of field correspondents reporting from international locations on breaking news of public interest. The panel was “designed to focus on the experiences of key autoethnography correspondents who write from the USA to bring insight … of the effect of the Trump administration….” Each of the four correspondents presented on Zoom. The author extends the report to introduce the notion of “autoethnographic fieldwork” linked with the need for “co-performative witnessing” and the Ignatian principle of “accompaniment.”

Keywords

autoethnographic fieldwork deportation immigration raids Los Angeles riots co-performative witnessing

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