Paper short abstract:

This paper deals with how to tackle an 18th century autoethnographic text: as a field report from social life by one of its members, or as a deeply personal statement by an author reaching out across time with a scientific mission.

Paper long abstract:

This paper deals with the recently published Pehr Stenberg’s Life Description, written over the period 1780-1824. Presenting an author who has produced a 4000 page manuscript, an autobiography in diary format with strong attention to personal emotions, can have several ethical complications. As an unsecure class climber, his thoughts and actions reveal much about the emotional pressure of handling social expectations, bordering on embarrassment. With how much respect is he to be treated, even if he is quite outspoken on contributing a source material for research? Furthermore, he had scientific ambitions and the manuscript is just one of his works being posthumously noticed and evaluated in an extremely slow publishing career. What responsibilities do we take on when recontextualizing and publishing manuscripts by other writers?