Generating Data with Autoethnography

By Janet Salmons, Ph.D., Research Community Manager for Sage Methodspace

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What is autoethnography?

We use autoethnography when we conduct studies where we are an intimate part of the research, as the ultimate insider. In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods Givens (2008) describes this method:

The term autoethnography has become the broad rubric under which many other similarly situated expressions from multiple disciplines are included, such as personal narratives, first-person accounts, opportunistic research, experimental ethnography, lived experience, radical empiricism, autopathography, life writing, confessional tales, ethnographic memoir, narrative ethnography, and Indigenous ethnography. Likewise, a variety of methodological strategies have been developed in connection with autoethnographic projects, including systematic sociological introspection, biographical method, personal experience methods, feminist methods, narrative inquiry, co-constructed narrative, interactive interviewing, and autoethnographic performance.

Autoethnography refers to ethnographic research, writing, story, and method that connect the autobiographical and personal to the cultural, social, and political. In autoethnography, the life of the researcher becomes a conscious part of what is studied. During the past two decades, autoethnography has had an important influence on qualitative research. Many qualitative researchers—from realists to impressionist writers—now position themselves in their research and include themselves as participants in their interview and ethnographic studies of others. Likewise, there has been a burgeoning of autoethnographic projects that focus directly on the research and personal experiences of the researcher.

Autoethnographic studies now take place in many social science and humanities disciplines interested in ethnographic research; they are most prevalent in communication and performance studies, sociology, anthropology, education, social work, and nursing, among others. The turn to autoethnography in qualitative research is connected to a shift from viewing our observations of others as nonproblematic to a concern about power, praxis, and the writing process. This shift was inspired in part by the epistemological doubt associated with the crisis of representation and the changing composition of those who become ethnographers, with more women, lower-class, ethnic and racial groups, and scholars from the developing world now represented. (p. 49)

Given, L. M. (Ed.) (2008). . (Vols. 1-0). SAGE Publications, Inc., https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412963909

This selection of open-access articles from Sage journals includes an exploration of topics such as:

• Ethics

• Smartphone apps

• Social media

• External sources

• Vignettes

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Brown, N. M. (2019). Methodological Cyborg as Black Feminist Technology: Constructing the Social Self Using Computational Digital Autoethnography and Social Media. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 19(1), 55–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708617750178

Abstract. This article reimagines the quantified self within the context of Black feminist technologies. Bringing computation and autoethnographic methods together using a methodology I call computational digital autoethnography, I harvest my social media data to create a corpus for analysis. I apply topic modeling to these data to uncover themes that are connected with broader societal issues affecting African American women. Applying a computational autoethnographic approach to a researcher’s own digitized data allows for yet another dimension of mixed-methods research. This radical intervention has the potential to transform the social sciences by bringing together two seemingly divergent methodological approaches in service to Black feminist ways of knowing.

Edwards, J. (2021). Ethical Autoethnography: Is it Possible? International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406921995306

Abstract. Autoethnography is a widely applied qualitative research method to examine self-experience in relation to life events, and also situated experiences in cultural and institutional contexts. In this paper the ethical challenges arising in conducting and presenting autoethnographic research are presented and explored, first through reflection on personal experience of being described and identified in an autoethnographic presentation without my permission, then through the challenges of my own experiences undertaking autoethnographic work. Following Ellis’ relational ethic as a third dimension along with procedural and situation ethics, a fourth dimension of the ethic of the self is presented. Ways we can enhance the ethic of respect in autoethnography is further elaborated.

Huber, G. Exercising power in autoethnographic vignettes to constitute critical knowledge. Organization, 0(0), 13505084221079006. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505084221079006

Abstract. This article shows how autoethnographic vignettes can be used as a reflexive tool to problematize the power relations in which organizational ethnographers participate when doing and representing their fieldwork. Foucault’s analysis of the ethical self-formation process provides the impetus to explore the embodied experiences of my autoethnographic study of a cooperative retail outlet in New York. In questioning how power and knowledge reflexively generated my actions and interpretations, I frame this autoethnography as a means of critically reflecting on my own practice as a researcher. By writing about our own embodied interactions with others through discourses that constitute our experiences, we begin to understand how power is exercised in practice. I conclude by discussing the practical benefits for researchers of writing autoethnographic vignettes and, in particular, for doctoral students seeking to become qualitative researchers in the field.

Lee, C. (2019). Capturing the personal through the lens of the professional: The use of external data sources in autoethnography. Methodological Innovations, 12(1), 2059799119825576. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059799119825576

Abstract. This article shows how external data sources can be utilised in autoethnographic research. Beginning with an account of a critical incident that examines the incompatibility of private and professional identities, I show how, through the collection of data sources, I capture the impact of homophobic and heteronormative discursive practices on health, wellbeing and identity. In the critical incident, I explore how I prospered as a teacher at a British village school for almost 10 years by censoring my sexuality and carefully managing the intersection between my private and professional identities. However, when a malicious and homophobic neighbour and parent of children at the school exposed my sexuality to the Headteacher, I learned the extent to which the rural school community privileged and protected the heteronormative discourse. A poststructuralist theoretical framework underpins this article. My experience of being a subject is understood as the outcome of discursive practices. Sexual identity, teacher identity and autoethnographer identity are understood to be fluid, and constantly produced and reproduced in response to social, cultural and political influences. The article describes how email correspondence, medical records and notes from a course of cognitive behaviour therapy were deployed to augment my personal recollection and give a depth and richness to the narrative. As the critical incident became a police matter, examination takes place of how I sought to obtain and utilise data from the police national computer in the research. Attempts to collect data from the police and Crown Prosecution Service were problematic and provided an unexpected development in the research and offered additional insight into the nature of the British rural community and its police force.

Muncey, T. (2005). Doing Autoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 4(1), 69–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690500400105

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.

Senabre Hidalgo, E., & Greshake Tzovaras, B. “One button in my pocket instead of the smartphone”: A methodological assemblage connecting self-research and autoethnography in a digital disengagement study. Methodological Innovations, 0(0), 20597991231161093. https://doi.org/10.1177/20597991231161093

Abstract. In this article we present a “methodological assemblage” and technological prototype connecting autoethnography to the practices of self-research in personal science. As an experimental process of personal data gathering, one of the authors used a low-tech device for the active registration of events and their perception, in a case study on disengaging from his smartphone. For the visualization of this data the other author developed a novel treatment of fieldnotes in analytic autoethnography through an open source, interactive notebook. As a proof of concept, we provide a detailed description of the corresponding protocol and prototype, also making available the notebook source code and the quantitative-qualitative open dataset behind its visualization. This highly personalized methodological assemblage represents a technological appropriation that combines self-research and autoethnography—two disciplinary perspectives that share a type of inquiry based on situated knowledge, departing from personal data as empirical basis. Despite recent autoethnographic literature on the phenomenon of self-tracking and the Qualified Self, our contribution addresses a lack of studies in the opposite direction: how the practice of self-research mediated by technology can lead to bridges with digital autoethnography, validating their hybrid combination. After addressing diverse conceptual, ontological and methodological similarities and differences between personal science and autoethnography, we contextualize the case study of digital disengagement and provide a detailed description of the developed self-protocol and the tools used for data gathering.

Spieldenner, A. R., & Eguchi, S. (2020). Different Sameness: Queer Autoethnography and Coalition Politics. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 20(2), 134–143. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708619884962

Abstract. As a method, we use autoethnography to explore coalition politics from our positions in academia. We use autoethnography to examine how similar identity categories presume sameness and can lead to conflict within institutions. This autoethnography looks at how coalitional politics were learned, as well as how coalitional politics are practiced within the institutional spaces of the university and academic discipline. In particular, we examine how we have experienced conflict and competition, as well as ways that we continue to build coalitional spaces. Through this, we place autoethnography as an explicitly political methodology.

Wall, S. (2006). An Autoethnography on Learning About Autoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 5(2), 146-160. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690600500205

Abstract. Autoethnography is an emerging qualitative research method that allows the author to write in a highly personalized style, drawing on his or her experience to extend understanding about a societal phenomenon. Autoethnography is grounded in postmodern philosophy and is linked to growing debate about reflexivity and voice in social research. The intent of autoethnography is to acknowledge the inextricable link between the personal and the cultural and to make room for nontraditional forms of inquiry and expression. In this autoethnography, the author explores the state of understanding regarding autoethnography as a research method and describes the experience of an emerging qualitative researcher in learning about this new and ideologically challenging genre of inquiry.

Wall, S. (2008). Easier Said than Done: Writing an Autoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 7(1), 38-53. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690800700103

Abstract. Autoethnography is an intriguing and promising qualitative method that offers a way of giving voice to personal experience for the purpose of extending sociological understanding. The author's experience of writing an autoethnography about international adoption has shown her, however, that autoethnography can be a very difficult undertaking. In writing her autoethnography, she confronted anxiety-producing questions pertaining to representation, balance, and ethics. As well, she dealt with the acceptability of her autoethnography by informal and formal reviewers. In this article she discusses the challenges she faced in her autoethnographic project to inform future autoethnographers and to inspire them to share their experiences and reflections. For the author questions linger, but she hopes that sharing issues that arise in autoethnographic work will strengthen our understandings of this challenging yet highly promising form of inquiry.

Wheeler, S. L. (2018). Autoethnographic onomastics: Transdisciplinary scholarship of personal names and ‘our-stories’. Methodological Innovations, 11(1), 2059799118769818. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059799118769818  

Abstract. Names are entwined with the languages and cultures from which they emanate, providing useful starting points for ethnographic exploration. The study of names can broadly be referred to as onomastics. However, the field is fractured by disciplinary and methodological divisions. Consequently, the study of names has not developed to the extent which might be expected for a phenomenon of such social significance. Furthermore, the emotional aspects of names and naming are largely absent from the literature. Autoethnography may be a useful methodology for bridging disciplinary and methodological divisions, bringing interesting and insightful data to the study of names and naming.

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