Healing at the clooty well: an autoethnological view of personal experiences

ABSTRACT This paper provides a survey of healing wells as a background to help understand a personal narrative using autoethnology, self-reflection in personal experience to relate my own personal experiences of a number of visits to the clooty well at Munlochy, Ross-shire, in 2016 to deal with illness. Autoethnology connects an autobiographical story to a wider ethnological context. It assesses a researcher’s values and motivations in pursuing rigour in judgement and decisions. It has not previously been applied as a methodology used to study the Munlochy clooty well in any detail. By including a personal narrative as an element of the study, the paper offers an unusal perspective on the use and role of that well. The autoethnological approach attempts to retain a distance in the examination of personal healing experiences at the well.