Auto-Ethnography of Your Own Involution
Document and analyse one real instance of your own effort rising while your progress didn't, using the semester's own vocabulary to name why
Due: 12 April 2027 · Weight: 40%
The brief#
Find one real place where you personally kept trying harder for a return that stopped growing, and explain why, using this course’s tools.
Weeks 1-5 gave you a vocabulary for this: Geertz’s rice paddies, Chayanov’s peasant economics, credential inflation, 996 presenteeism. Pick one instance from your own life — study habits, a job, a hobby, a social feed — where that vocabulary actually applies, not just resembles. The strongest submissions resist the temptation to reach for the most dramatic example and instead pick the one they can document precisely.
What you submit#
A short auto-ethnography (1500-2500 words): the instance, the evidence that it happened as described, and an analysis naming the specific mechanism at work and why it kept running past the point of diminishing return. Cite the week whose framework you’re using.
The spec
The brief poses the problem and leaves room for a response. The spec is the fixed part: what a marker checks. Some lines can be checked mechanically; the rest call for judgement.
- submitted by the deadline, in the format named below
- the instance is something you actually did, with dates or evidence a reader could check
- the analysis names which weeks 1-5 mechanism is operating, not just that "it felt like a lot of effort for nothing"
- the work is yours, with any assistance declared
How it is marked
| Criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| The instance is real and specific, not hypothetical | 60% |
| The analysis names the mechanism, not just the feeling | 40% |