**4. Results**

The richness of autoethnography allows me to speak from my own experience, under the understanding that Carolyn Ellis, Tony E. Adams and Arthur P. Bochner (cit. in Bénard 23) have of it. These authors claim that autoethnography produces texts that are artistic and evocative of personal experiences, which is why these texts are often criticized for being too artistic and not scientific, or vice versa. Autoethnography is sometimes still rejected for not being rigorous, theoretical and analytical enough or for being too emotional, esthetic or therapeutic (quoted in Bénard 23). Yet, in confinement environments, and in the specific case of my personal experience, it becomes a useful tool to better understand the processes of subjectifation and sorority relations that are being explored as social phenomena. In this context, and in an exercise of full awareness of the implications it would have on the process and results of the research (Alvarez-Gayou 23–28), I decided not only to incorporate autoethnography as a methodological tool, but also to give it a specific weight and recognize the richness of my own experience as part of the process and results of the research.

As was to be expected, the appearance of the pandemic and the resulting confinement and social distancing that we experienced had implications for my research work. These became relevant challenges in the research process. One of the challenges was facing the suspension of activities in my fieldwork. The governor's decree that prevented access to CERESO caused a considerable delay in my thesis, which forced me to focus on the search for alternative sources of information and to go deeper in reviewing the field journal entries. During this process, I discovered that fieldwork was also writing. Writing about my experience, writing about the lives of other inmates and writing about our processes is part of the fieldwork when it comes to working with autoethnography as a source of information. Although I was going through autoethnography, ethnography was also present, since the voice of other inmates telling their own stories often intervened in the narrative. In the midst of the health crisis that impacted my research, I was faced with another challenge: how to make autoethnography and ethnography coexist at the same time, without losing myself in their limits? In this back-and-forth of ideas, I elaborated what would be the first sketches of an autoethnographic account, and thus I understood that autoethnography is a process and a product.

Another challenge I faced was to find my own writing style, using autoethnography as a methodology was a real personal and academic challenge. From the moment I started the research I asked myself: How was it possible that talking about my personal life could contribute something to scientific knowledge? How would I talk about myself, about my own experience at CERESO San Miguel? Would an autoethnographic thesis have only an exploratory scope? I had been adamant about not wanting to talk about myself. I wanted to talk about the sorority relationships that take place in the female section of the CERESO of San Miguel. I wanted the inmates to talk. I wanted to have a conversation with them. At some point, even the name of the thesis was related to the topic of giving them a voice.

Faced with this situation and the question of how to make sense of my own experiences and at the same time include those of others? I had to do a lot of further reading and with that I got closer to several works about women in prisons. Of course, I read the life stories of the inmates that have been compiled in books and anthologies such as the book Bajo la sombra de un Hamuchil (2017) the result of a writing workshop at the CERESO of Morelos and the books formed by the compilation of texts that DEMAC and the Ministry of Public Security have published under the name of Bajo Condena (2003). But my purpose was not to tell one or more life stories. My purpose now was to tell my story, my experience, and in turn to dialog with other women about our experiences embodied in our bodies and reflected in sorority relationships.

Faced with this situation and the question of how to make sense of my own experiences and at the same time include those of others, I had to do further reading to know more about women in prisons. Of course, I read the life stories of the inmates that have been compiled in books and anthologies, such as the book Bajo la sombra de un Hamuchil (2017), the result of a writing workshop at the CERESO in the state of Morelos, and the compilations edited and published by Documentation and Women's Studies A.C. and the Ministry of Public Security of México under the title: Bajo Condena (2003). But my purpose was not to tell one or more life stories. My purpose now was to tell my story, my experience, and in turn to engage in dialogs with other women about our experiences embodied in our bodies and reflected in sorority relationships.

To employ a writing style that incorporated a genre of writing and an uncommon research method such as autoethnography, also met the expectations of an academic paper. I was still trapped in my own questions: what to tell, how to tell it? But above all, how to write it? The most difficult thing for me during my studies has been writing. I had to find my own style of writing that the academy would accept and understand; a writing that gave me access, as a kind of authorization, to write from my experiences and emotions. I had to write an autoethnographic account with academic validity.

By reviewing Elizabeth Aguirre-Armendáriz's [6] story about her thesis work I felt much more confident that I too "could transit through autoethnography and with autoethnography" (47). I found in her a true ally for my research work. Aguirre-Armendáriz's research approach began with the question: from where and how far should I go back, both in my exploration and in my narrative, to understand and show its scope, its possibilities and its limits? Through these readings I discovered that autoethnography can be used as a research method, as a method of analysis and as a genre of writing. This helped me to better structure my thesis work, but, above all, it made better sense of my ideas. Now, I have firmly decided to use autoethnography as a methodology, method and way of writing.

Autoethnography is used in the thesis to express the results in a more natural language, with a freer style of writing, to raise my voice, to make myself heard. Finally, I speak with my fellow interns and with you, the readers. After all this process, I feel satisfied and convinced of the methodological contribution of my research work. The road has been long, but discovering that through autoethnography it is possible to generate meaningful, accessible and evocative knowledge to transform and provoke social change has been a revelation [2]. Transforming my memories into notes and using writing as an experiential method of inquiry to analyze social components of my experience gives shape and congruence to my research work.

*Autoethnographical Contributions in the Construction of Feminist Knowledge since the Lockdown DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105162*
