Autoethnography: Process, Product, and Possibility for Critical Social Research by Sherick A. Hughes and Julie L. Pennington provides a short introduction to the methodological tools and concepts of autoethnography, combining theoretical approaches with practical “how to” information. Written for social science students, teachers, teacher educators, and educational researchers, the text shows readers how autoethnographers collect, analyze, and report data. With its grounding in critical social theory and inclusion of innovative methods, this practical resource will move the field of autoethnography forward.

Autoethnography is a method of research that involves describing and analyzing personal experiences in order to understand cultural experiences. The method challenges canonical ways of doing research and recognizes how personal experience influences the research process. Autoethnography acknowledges and accomodates subjectivity, emotionality, and the researcher's influence on research. In this book, the authors provide a historical and conceptual overview of autoethnography. They share their stories of coming to autoethnography and identify key concerns and considerations that led to the development of the method. Next, they outline the purposes and practices--the core ideals--of autoethnography, how autoethnographers can accomplish these ideals, and why researchers might choose to do autoethnography. They describe the processes of doing autoethnography, conducting fieldwork, discussing ethics in research, and interpreting and analyzing personal experience, and they explore the various modes and techniques used and involved in writing autoethnography. They conclude with goals for creating and assessing autoethnography and describe the future of autoethnographic inquiry. Throughout, the authors provide numerous examples of their work and share key resources. This book will serve as both a guide to the practices of doing autoethnography and an exemplar of autoethnographic research processes and representations.

Reading Autoethnography situates autoethnographic insights within the context of two fundamental concerns of critical qualitative inquiry: justice and love. Through philosophical engagement, it gives close readings of written passages taken from leading autoethnographers and frames the philosophical project of autoethnography as one that is both political and interpersonal. It does this to highlight how autoethnographic lessons can allow us to think through how we may achieve a flourishing for all — something that is both related to justice as it pertains to the political, and when situations are in excess of justice, related to love as it pertains to feeling at home in the world with others. As such, this book will be of interest to those who have a burgeoning interest in autoethnography and seasoned autoethnographers alike; anyone interested in critical qualitative inquiry as a discourse promoting justice and love; and any scholar who has encountered the ethical question of: "What ought we do?"

Critical Autoethnography: Intersecting Cultural Identities in Everyday Life, Second Edition, examines the development of the field of critical autoethnography through the lens of social identity. Contributors situate interpersonal and intercultural experiences of gender, race, ethnicity, ability, citizenship, sexuality, and spirituality within larger systems of power, oppression, and privilege. Approachable and accessible narratives highlight intersectional experiences of marginalization and interrogate social injustices. The book is divided into three sections: Complexities of Identity Performance, Relationships in Diverse Contexts, and Pathways to Culturally Authentic Selves. Each thematic section includes provocative stories that critically engage personal and cultural narratives through a lens of difference. The chapters in the book highlight both unique and ubiquitous, extraordinary and common experiences in the interior lives of people who are Othered because of at least two overlapping identities. The contributors offer first person accounts to suggest critical responses and alternatives to injustice. The book also includes sectional summaries and discussion questions to facilitate dialogue and self-reflection. It is an excellent resource for undergraduate students, graduate students, educators, and scholars who are interested in autoethnography, interpersonal and intercultural communication, qualitative studies, personal narrative, cultural studies, and performance studies.

The second edition of the award-winning Handbook of Autoethnography is a thematically organized volume that contextualizes contemporary practices of autoethnography and examines how the field has developed since the publication of the first edition in 2013. Throughout, contributors identify key autoethnographic themes and commitments and offer examples of diverse, thoughtful, effective, applied, and innovative autoethnography. The second edition is organized into five sections: In Section 1, Doing Autoethnography, contributors explore definitions of autoethnography, identify and demonstrate key features of autoethnography, and engage philosophical, relational, cultural, and ethical foundations of autoethnographic practice. In Section 2, Representing Autoethnography, contributors discuss forms and techniques for the process and craft of creating autoethnographic projects, using various media in/as autoethnography, and marking and making visible particular identities, knowledges, and voices. In Section 3, Teaching, Evaluating, and Publishing Autoethnography, contributors focus on supporting and supervising autoethnographic projects. They also offer perspectives on publishing and evaluating autoethnography. In Section 4, Challenges and Futures of Autoethnography, contributors consider contemporary challenges for autoethnography, including understanding autoethnography as a feminist, posthumanist, and decolonialist practice, as well as a method for studying texts, translations, and traumas. The volume concludes with Section 5, Autoethnographic Exemplars, a collection of sixteen classic and contemporary texts that can serve as models of autoethnographic scholarship. With contributions from more than 50 authors representing more than a dozen disciplines and writing from various locations around the world, the handbook develops, refines, and expands autoethnographic inquiry and qualitative research. This text will be a primary resource for novice and advanced researchers alike in a wide range of social science disciplines.

Assessing Autoethnography provides readers with multiple ways to analyze autoethnographies and other forms of personal narrative writing. Given the proliferation of such forms across academic contexts, the book offers a guide of what autoethnography is, why it matters, and how to do it. Taking each of the three parts of auto-, ethno-, and -graphy in detail, Herrmann, and Adams, provide criteria and points of discussion to ensure robust assessment of an autoethnographic work as a whole. Every chapter is accompanied with exemplars and considers issues such as ethics, storytelling, and good writing. The book discerns the kinds of personal experiences that often work best for autoethnographic projects and provide ways to evaluate fieldwork, interviews, and representations. Written by two experts in the field, Assessing Autoethnography offers guidance to scholars and dissertation advisors, across diverse disciplines, in producing autoethnographic work and utilizing autoethnographic methods. The book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of Communication Studies, Education, Sociology, Women’s and Gender Studies, Critical Race Studies, Mass Communication, English, and other related disciplines.

This book shows that using only conventional methods, such as questionnaires and focus groups, is insufficient. Arguing that autoethnography can provide unique insights into users’ cultural experiences and needs, contributors to this volume introduce the reader to different types of autoethnography. It will empower librarians and information scientists to conceptualise topics for autoethnographic research, whilst also ensuring that they adhere to strict ethical guidelines. It demonstrates how to produce autoethnographic writing and stress the need to analyse autoethnographies produced by others.

This comprehensive text is the first to introduce evocative autoethnography as a methodology and a way of life in the human sciences. Using numerous examples from their work and others, world-renowned scholars Arthur Bochner and Carolyn Ellis, originators of the method, emphasize how to connect intellectually and emotionally to the lives of readers throughout the challenging process of representing lived experiences. Written as the story of a fictional workshop, based on many similar sessions led by the authors, it incorporates group discussions, common questions, and workshop handouts. The book: describes the history, development, and purposes of evocative storytelling; provides detailed instruction on becoming a story-writer and living a writing life; examines fundamental ethical issues, dilemmas, and responsibilities; illustrates ways ethnography intersects with autoethnography; calls attention to how truth and memory figure into the works and lives of evocative autoethnographers.

Autoethnography is generating increasing levels of interest in research circles, gaining popularity as an innovative and inciting qualitative approach. Drawing on the vast diversity of researchers' opinions on autoethnographic praxes, this book presents a cogent analysis of the ongoing debates in the field before moving on to the discussion of a new approach to both theorizing about and 'doing' autoethnography: a 'symbiotic autoethnography'. This approach synthesizes central aspects from the diversity of existing arguments into one adaptable 'framework' that combines key characteristic features of autoethnographic research. The author uses the concept of 'symbiosis' in its broader sense to denote close interdependence and interrelation between its suggested seven attributes, including temporality, researcher's omnipresence, evocative storytelling, interpretative analysis, political (transformative) focus, reflexivity and polyvocality. The book offers both experienced and novice researchers a theoretically informed multi-functional and multi-disciplinary methodological tool that can accommodate the dynamics of diverse personal experiences within a topography of specific professional, cultural and socio-political contexts.

Challenging the critique of autoethnography as overly focused on the self, Tami Spry calls for a performative autoethnography that both unsettles the "I" and represents the Other with equal commitment. Expanding on her popular book Body, Paper, Stage, Spry uses a variety of examples, literary forms, and theoretical traditions to reframe this research method as transgressive, liberatory, and decolonizing for both self and Other. Her book draws on her own autoethnographic work with jazz musicians, shamans, and other groups; outlines a utopian performative methodology to spur hope and transformation; provides concrete guidance on how to implement this innovative methodological approach.