This “playful,” layered performance autoethnography is a strange account of spoiled identity, gatekeeping, and the fear surrounding qualitative research and autoethnography. Based on the theoretical sensibilities of Georg Simmel and Jacques Derrida, the strange account is advanced here as a technique for writing about secrets or threatening situations. Strange accounts place readers in safe proximity to the secret while keeping the secret “in play.” Strange accounts serve practical, relational, and analytical purposes by disguising or omitting information about the situation, the identities of those involved (including the authors), when and where the events took place, and its meaning, while also following a guideline of compassion and an ethic of care.
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