Autoethnography as Method

Abstract

Series-Developing Qualitative Inquiry Related Interest-Qualitative Research & Methods This methods book will guide the reader through the process of conducting and producing an autoethnographic study through the understanding of self, other, and culture. Readers will be encouraged to follow hands-on, though not prescriptive, steps in data collection, analysis, and interpretation with self-reflective prewriting exercises and self-narrative writing exercises to produce their own autoethnographic work. Chang offers a variety of techniques for gathering data on the self-from diaries to culture grams to interviews with others-and shows how to transform this information into a study that looks for the connection with others present in a diverse world. She shows how the autoethnographic process promotes self-reflection, understanding of multicultural others, qualitative inquiry, and narrative writing.

The Researcher as Experimental Subject: Using Self-Experimentation to Access Experiences, Understand Social Phenomena, and Stimulate Reflexivity

“…Autoethnography is a self-referential form of qualitative analysis wherein a researcher becomes embedded in a particular social context and reports on the scope of his or her subjective experiences and self-transformations (Anderson, 2006). Thus, the primary data of autoethnographers are autobiographical first-person self-reflections (Chang, 2008). Participant observation, meanwhile, is a field methodology general to ethnography wherein the researcher actively assumes a participatory role with others in a given social frame, either overtly as a known-researcher or covertly in a "disguised role" (Becker & Geer, 1957).…”

“Us and Them” – Approaching the Refugee Other? Cultural Anthropological Rethinking of the Fieldwork Experience in Slavonia

“…Harrell-Bond and Voutira 1992; Kość-Ryźko 2012-2013Smith 2009) and the already mentioned texts of authors who rethink autoethno raphy as a method (cf. Škrbić Alempijević et al 2016;Chan 2008). …”

The Compatibility of Administrative and Educative Supervison

“…I leaned on was able to explore and understand the embedded social processes that impact me as a supervisor in a child welfare setting. Autoethnography is so much more then interviews or crunching numbers -it allows the reader to engage with the study in vivid ways, that other types of research do not allow for (Chang, 2008;Witkin, 2014 That those with power are frequently least aware of or at least willing to acknowledge its existence as well as their role in maintaining inequitable social and cultural capital that leads to student marginalization (Delpit, 1995;Stanton-Slazar, 1997, 2001). In fact, Paulo Freire (1985) would say that, because of privilege, dominant cultural members actually resist change toward equity.…”

“…I follow that "autoethnography is a genre of writing and research that connects the personal to the cultural, placing the self within the social context" (Chang, 2008, p. 181). Autoethnography is a relatively new approach to research in the world of academia (Chang, 2008& Witkin, 2014. Though I place the explanation of autoethnography under the heading of methodology it does not quite fit.…”

“…Throughout the thesis the reader will hear the subjective voice reflecting on past practice and mixing the personal with previous studies into supervision (Mullaly, 2007). Chang (2008) gives this definition: "Autoethnography as autobiographies that self-consciously explore the interplay of the introspective, personally engaged self with cultural descriptions mediated through language, history, and ethnographic explanation" (p. 46). Ellis, Adams and Bochner (2011) My focus with the internal clients is to be a good administrator, educator and supporter.…”