Autotheory posits lived experience as theory’s proper basis.

Evidence

The personal is theoretical. Theory itself is often assumed to be abstract: something is more theoretical the more abstract it is. To abstract is to drag away, detach, pull away, or divert. We might then have to drag theory back, to bring theory back to life. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 288

Categorization

• XREF: Sarah Ahmed quoted here — needed to name and define the autotheory position before Kornbluh attacks it. — connects to: Theorizing offers a provisional home to those without one in their lived family — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 131; Personal healing drives transformative theory when experience grounds it — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 133
• DEFINE: Etymology of ‘abstract’ as drag-away anchors what autotheory claims to reverse.