Autoethnography Overview
Perhaps I should have tackled this one first, or maybe this one make more sense now with the base-level comprehension of analytical Vs evocative autoethnography.
Notes from:
Ellis, C., Adams, T.E. & Bochner, A.P. (2011) Autoethnography: An Overview, Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, vol. 12, no. 1
Intro
Autoethnography (Ae) - describes and systematically analyses personal experience to understand cultural experience. Both process and product.
auto = personal exp.
ethno = cultural exp.
graphy = written
author / research / autoethnographer uses tenets of autobiography and ethnography to DO and WRITE Ae.
History
Lack of confidence in existing soc. science 80s, opportunities to reform methods. Absence of universal narratives. Opposition to enter/leaving culture for paid writing.
Scholars considered being self-consciously value-centred rather than value-free - sought a positive response to critiques of canonical ideas. To produce meaningful, accessible, evocative, personally experienced research.
Forms of representation that deepen our capacity to empathise to different cultures, peoples
Previous assumption of neutral, impersonal, objective research now untenable. Canonical do-write research conventionally white, masculine, hetero, mid/up class, Christian, able-bodied - disregards and invalidates other ways of knowing
Ae acknowledges and accommodates subjectivity, emotion. It doesn’t hide from or ignore it. Embraces difference.
Diff cultures have diff world assumptions through diff modes of speaking, writing, valuing, believing - - race, gender, sexuality, age, ability, class, education, religion - - conventional research methods too narrow.
Doing / Process
Ae combines autobiography and ethnography:
Autobio. retroactive/selective; hindsight; “epiphanies”, self-claimed phenomena; existential crisis, experience analysis
Ethnog. culture’s relational practices, common values/believes, shared experiences that help in/outsiders (members/strangers); participating observers, field notes; interview cult’l mem’s, examine speaking, uses of spc and pl., analyse artefacts
Ae. retroactive/selective epiphanies through cultural participation, possession of identity; analyse experiences using method/theory tools, research literature to validate story over pers. experience. Also important to consider how others experience sim. epiphanies.; cf. pers. experience with existing research, interview cult. mem’s, examine artefacts.
Writing / Product
Autobio. aesthetic, evocative, engaging, storytelling conventions (character, scene, plot), chronological/fragmented progression; illustr. new perspectives, pers. experience/epiphanies by find/fill gap in existing, related stories. “show”, bring readers to the scene; “tell” provides distance, readers abstractly think about told events; add “tell” to story that “shows” efficiently conveys scene. Make artful/evocative through diff. PoV: 1st pers. tells of pers’l experience, “eye-witness”; 2nd pers. to bring readers into scene.
Ethnog. “thick description” of culture; facilitate understanding for in/outsiders; feelings, stories, happenings through field-notes, interviews, artefacts.
Ae. aesthetic, evocative thick descriptions of pers’l / interpers’l experience. Discern patterns of cult’l experience described through storytelling (show/tell, altered PoV). Ae’er makes pers’l experience meaning / cult’l experience engaging - and - through accessible texts, reaches wider/diverse mass audience often overlooked by trad research. Makes pers’l / soc’l change possible for more people.
Forms of / Approached to Ae
Indigenous/native ethnog. colonised/econom’ly subordinated ppl - address/disrupt power; subjugation inexcusable
Narrative. stories of experiences in descriptions and analysis
Reflexive, dyadic interviews. interactive meanings, emotional dynamics of interview; pers’l motivation for researcher doing the project, how they were changed during interview process; pers’l reflection adds context to participants’ story, albeit not main focus
Reflexive ethnog. how research changes through field-work; ethnographic memoirs, “confessional tales”
Layered accounts. auth’s experience with data, abstract analysis and rel’nt literature; procedural nature of research; “data collection / analysis proceed simultaneously”;“invoke” readers to enter into the “emergent experience” or do-write & consider evocative, concrete texts as important as abstract analysis
Interactive interviews. collaborative endeavour between researcher/participant; usually multiple sessions; emerging/well established relationships; what can be learned from interaction?
Community Ae. Pets experiences of researchers in collab. how community manifests soc’l/cult’l issues; “comm-building” and “cult’l and soc’l intervention”
Co-constructed narr’tes. relational experiences, collab’ly cope with ambiguities, uncertainties, contractions of friendship, family, intimate partners.
Pers’l narr. authors self-view as phenomenon, evocative narr on academic, research and pers’l lives; most controversial for trad. soc’l scientists esp where no trad. analysis / scholarly lit. provided; invitation to author’s world
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Therapy
Knowing; method of inquiry; to make sense of us/our experiences, purge burdens.
understand/improve relationships
reduce prejudice
encourage pers’l responsibility
raise consciousness
promote cult’l change
Friedan ’64, white mid-class women unable to pers’ly develop nor intercommunicate, felt alone / had to contend struggles alone - writing introduced / shared women’s stories; therapeutic and motivated soc’l change.
“witnessing” an event, problem, experience to give meaning to participant’s pain and allow them and readers to feel able to cope better/want to change circumstances
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Relational Ethics
Researchers implicate others in their work / don’t exist in isolation. highlighted for Ae’ers.
Ae’ers value interpersonal ties with participants; participants often begin as or become friends
ethical issues re friendship become important to research process & product; kept in mind during research / writing;
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Reliability
memory is fallible
diff ppl tell the same story in diff ways
narrator’s credibility
Validity
lifelike, believable, possible experience evoked in readers
readers connected to writers
“how useful is the story?”, put to what uses?
Generalisability
Critique / Responses
Ae’ers crit’sed for seeking same goals of canonical/trad. ethnog./performing arts; to hold Ae accountable to criteria normally applied to trad. ethnog. / autobio. stds of writing - either too artful/not scientific or too scientific/not artful enough
As Ethnog. dismissed by soc. science as unrigorous and over aesthetic, emotional, therapuetic; crit’sed for too little fieldwork; observing too few cultural members; insufficient time with others; thought to use biased data; navel-gazing ( self-indulgent, excessive contemplation of self or single issue at the expense of a wider view ); self-absorbed narcissists unfulfilling scholarly obligations
As Autobio. dismissed for insufficient aesthetic, not artful enough; viewed as soc’l science, seeking scientific legitimacy; said to disregard literary, artistic imagination, desire to be artist
Error to place art / science at odds - Ae seeks to correct, disrupt science/art binary
Ae’ers believe Ae can be both:
-rigourous, theoretical, analytical - - and - - emotional, therapeutic, inclusive of pers’l and soc’l phenomenon
Ae’ers represent research in aesthetic, evocative ways.
Most important Qs to Ae’ers
Who reads our work?
How are they affected by it?
How does it perpetuate a conversation?
Produce analytical / accessible text to change us / the world for better.