Autoethnography is a narrative method in qualitative research that combines tenets of autobiographical writing with ethnographic sense-making. Ellis, Adams and Bocher (2011) point out that this combination makes autoethnography “both process and product” (p.1). Authors of autoethnography usually write in the first-person making themselves and their experiences the focus of the research, divorcing the traditional separation between researcher and subject. Autoethnographic research is often characterized by evocative and emotional experience while disclosing details of private life.
I remember the first time I learned about autoethnographic writing during a graduate seminar on qualitative research methods. I was struck by the honesty and vulnerability of the authors and their ability to harness subjective experience rather than attempt to establish and maintain objectivity in a research project. I found myself returning over and over to the topic of intimate partner violence in my developing work but made a point to keep myself (and my lived experience) out of the conversation. After that class, inspired by the bravery of the authors I had read, I decided to make a change. I wrote “We to Me: An Autoethnographic Discovery of Self – In and Out of Domestic Abuse” for my Master’s Thesis project, which later developed into my first publication (Fletcher, 2018). This manuscript went on to receive the Stephen E. Lucas Debut Publication Award from the National Communication Association.
There are great resources for exploring autoethnographic research or submitting your own work. These include the Journal of Autoethnography, the International Association of Autoethnography and Narrative Inquiry, as well as our own Claire T. Carney Library which offers many autoethnographic articles and resources available to students and staff.
Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Historical Social
Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 36(1), 273–290.
Fletcher, M. A. (2018). We to me: An autoethnographic discovery of self, in and out of domestic abuse. Women’s Studies in Communication, 41(1), 42-59.
