Autoethnography: An Overview – Annotation & Notes

Reference:

Ellis, Carolyn, Tony E. Adams, and Arthur P. Bochner. 2011. “Autoethnography: An Overview.” Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung 36 (4 (138)): 273–90. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23032294.

It seems appropriate to use my first-person voice in this annotation. But let’s begin with the authors’ voice for context:

“Autoethnography is an approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyze (graphy) personal experience (auto) in order to understand cultural experience (ethno)” (p.273).

The researcher is reflexively part of the research. Their life experiences are present in their writing. They will probably even use the “I” personal pronoun. 

Many researchers believe this approach is not objective or scientific. Autoethnographies often make use of artful narratives and storytelling, which critics say “position(s) art and science at odds with each other” (283). I think this attitude reflects a schism between positivistic and interpretive epistemologies, and between deductive vs inductive or abductive reasoning. We see this among sociologists, where arguments break out over quantitative vs quantitative research.

But numbers are only one measure of our experiences and relationships, and their value depends on decisions about what is measured. Whatever is valued is always shaped by the researcher’s values. 

Ellis et al. make their own values clear: The autoethnographic approach “challenges canonical ways of doing research and representing others and treats research as a political, socially-just and socially-conscious act” (p.273). In this sense, autoethnography can be considered a type of critical theory, which is concerned with power relationships, oppression, and liberation. 

The authors hold that the research process is always affected by personal experience and the context and circumstances of the research. As a consequence, “autoethnography is one of the approaches that acknowledges and accommodates subjectivity, emotionality, and the researcher’s influence on research, rather than hiding from these matters or assuming they don’t exist” (p.274). 

The authors outline several forms of autoethnography that are worth considering depending on the contact and purpose of the research:

• Indigenous/native ethnographies consider and disrupt the power of the researcher over colonized or economically subjugated people. 
• Narrative autoethnographies present ethnographic analysis and descriptions from the author’s perspective in the form of stories. 
• Reflexive, dyadic interviews develop “interactively produced meanings and emotional dynamics of the interview itself” (p.278). While the researcher’s thoughts and feelings may be present to add context and layered meaning, the story is about the participants.
• Reflective autoethnographies may be an account of the researcher’s experience doing the research, and how they were changed in the process of fieldwork – a kind of “backstage” view as the focus of the investigation.
• Layered accounts may include the author’s experience alongside more “traditional” forms of data, analysis, and references to existing literature. The writing reflect the “procedural nature of research” (278), and like grounded theory, illustrate the simultaneity of data collection and analysis. Layered accounts differ from founded theory by the use of the techniques described above to bring readers into the “emergent experience” (279) of the research and writing.

Other forms of autoethnography include interactive interviews, community autoethnographies, and personal stories about the author. Multiple forms may be used in a given research project, along with non-autoethnography forms. In all cases, the researcher is cognizant of their connections and “relational ethics” (p.281), and the responsibilities to protect the participants while implicating them in the research and writing. 

The autoethnographer examines their experiences analytically and critically, often contrasting their experience against existing research. They may use a range of other research tools, including quantitative methods. The research questions may be framed by existing theory, or developed during research using grounded theory methods. The suggestion is that there is no one way to do autoethnography, but the autoethnographer understands herself as inherently interpretive based on her own experiences and positionality. To an autoethnographer the  most important questions are “who reads our work, how are they affected by it, and how does it keep a conversa tion going? (284). 

After discussing the history and characteristics of autoethnography, the authors outline approaches to writing up the product of research, and argue that autoethnography can be more impactful on audience than other methodologies. I appreciate the authors’ use of the “epiphanies” which “stem from, or are made possible by, being part of a culture and/or by possessing a particular cultural identity” (276). The author’s personal experience can be used to illustrate what’s going on in the social situation under study to give both insiders and outsiders a sense of familiarity, and perhaps a new perspective that fills a gap in existing narratives. To me, “epiphany” implies a transformation of thought and understanding, which when broadly shared may result in social transformation. This is the point of critical theory: transformation of social systems from dominance by hegemonic entities and forces, to liberation and social justice for those they oppress. 

As for the writing strategies,, the authors suggest “showing” as an evocative technique to bring readers into the scene, or as they put it to “experience an experience” (277). “Telling” can be complementary to “showing” in describing the situation in a more abstract way, giving readers some distance from the scenes and events. The combination of first-, second-, and third-person accounts can provide an eyewitness perspective, to bring the reader into the scene, and to establish the research context and report findings. The result is a “thick description” that more deeply facilitates readers’ understanding of the social situation or culture. 

Importantly, the authors emphasize the role of aesthetics in writing autoethnographies. The writing may be a report of research, but it is also an act of storytelling. And storytelling is a form of art. Unlike this annotation, which is mainly just a bunch of notes.