Doing Autoethnography

Abstract

The author has argued elsewhere that individual identity is sufficiently worthy of research and more than just a deviant case. The representation of an individual's story that contains one of society's taboos appears to require legitimation of not only the text but also the method by which it is conveyed. This is particularly important if memory and its distortions appear to be critical features of the process. Using the four approaches described in this article, namely the snapshot, metaphor, the journey and artifacts, in combination, the author seeks to demonstrate the disjunctions that characterize people's lives. In seeking to portray a new narrative to add to the received wisdom on teenage pregnancy, it is hoped that this multifaceted approach will demonstrate that although memories are fragmentary, elusive, and sometimes “altered” by experience, the timing and sequencing of them is more powerfully presented in this juxtaposition of themes than if they were presented sequentially.

Toward a Moderate Autoethnography

“…According to Muncey (2010) (Muncey, 2010). Autoethnographies cover a range of purposes such as seeking meaning in difficult situations (Ellis & Bochner, 2006), exploring issues of personal importance within an explicitly acknowledged social context (e.g., Holt, 2001;Sparkes, 1996), or critiquing extant literature on a topic of personal significance (e.g., Muncey, 2005;Wall, 2012aWall, , 2012b. Substantively, they deal with an incredible diversity of topics such as work activities and experiences (Duncan, 2004;Mischenko, 2005), illness and injury (Ettorre, 2005;Sparkes, 1996), academic life (Pelias, 2003), family life (Muncey, 2005;Wall, 2012aWall, , 2012b, and membership in alternative cultural communities (Calley Jones, 2010).…”

Somewhere In-Between

“…We employ personal narratives to de/construct identities (Wright, Nyberg & Grant, 2012;ReedDannahay, 1997;Reed-Dannahay, 2001;Spry, 2001;Muncey, 2005;Learmonth, 2007;Cohen, Duberley & Musson, 2009;McKenna, 2010) in an in-between space-time. In our approach, we challenge 'the distanced and detached observer and [look] towards the embrace of intimate involvement, engagement, and embodied participation' (Ellis & Bochner, 2006, p. 433-434).…”

Negotiating and Navigating my Fat body - feminist autoethnographic encounters

“…It is not smooth or straightforward; knowledges keep on emerging and being reconfigured, blurring the lines between myself and the other. Thus, feminist autoethnographic research is about attempting to recognise when we give voice to how it ought to be, limitis meanings through limited constructs (Muncey, 2005). This is certainly what happened when I engaged with my autoethnography -revealing the iterative nature of research and life.…”

“…Like Carol Ronai (1995, p. 395) I worked with a "layered account" where "the boundaries of these identities converge, blur, and separate as I write". It is the looking back and forth, responding and being in dialogue with the literature which has also formed a very rich seam of insight (Muncey, 2005). Wolff-Michael Roth (2009, p. 4) considers that at the centre of autoethnography is how "authors take the special insights that they gain from their particular position in the life world of people and use it as a vantage point to write, and write about, the people".…”

“…With the increasing focus within health and neoliberal citizenship discourses around obesity, healthy eating and exercise alongside the continued objectification of women's bodies (Gleeson & Frith, 2006), I wanted to give a voice to the everyday (Muncey, 2005) colonised spaces of the fat woman (Murray, 2008). Over the last two and a half years I have been (self) consciously engaged in an autoethnographic encounter with my body.…”