Autoethnography

Social Justice Usage

Source: Wikipedia, “Autoethnography” entry.

Autoethnography is a form of qualitative research in which an author uses self-reflection and writing to explore anecdotal and personal experience and connect this autobiographical story to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings. Autoethnography is a self-reflective form of writing used across various disciplines such as communication studies, performance studies, education, English literature, anthropology, social work, sociology, history, psychology, theology and religious studies, marketing, business and educational administration, arts education, nursing and physiotherapy.

According to Maréchal (2010), “autoethnography is a form or method of research that involves self-observation and reflexive investigation in the context of ethnographic field work and writing” (p. 43). A well-known autoethnographer, Carolyn Ellis (2004) defines it as “research, writing, story, and method that connect the autobiographical and personal to the cultural, social, and political” (p. xix). However, it is not easy to reach a consensus on the term’s definition. For instance, in the 1970s, autoethnography was more narrowly defined as “insider ethnography”, referring to studies of the (culture of) a group of which the researcher is a member (Hayano, 1979). Nowadays, however, as Ellingson and Ellis (2008) point out, “the meanings and applications of autoethnography have evolved in a manner that makes precise definition difficult” (p. 449).

According to Adams, Jones, and Ellis in Autoethnography: Understanding Qualitative Research, “Autoethnography is a research method that: Uses a researcher’s personal experience to describe and critique cultural beliefs, practices, and experiences. Acknowledges and values a researcher’s relationships with others…. Shows ‘people in the process of figuring out what to do, how to live, and the meaning of their struggles'” (Adams, 2015). “Social life is messy, uncertain, and emotional. If our desire to research social life, then we must embrace a research method that, to the best of its/our ability, acknowledges and accommodates mess and chaos, uncertainty and emotion” (Adams, 2015).

New Discourses Commentary

“Autoethnography” refers to a form of research (if we must) in which one’s own reflections upon life, often written in autobiographical form, are treated as authoritative analyses of broader society. More specifically, these self-reflective observations are utilized to do an ethnographic study of the culture in which one finds oneself. The approach has therefore been, for rather good reasons, referred to by its critics as “me-search.” Autoethnography is now a fairly well-established form of qualitative methods research throughout the theoretical humanities, and it is, perhaps, most commonly utilized in the various fields of studies that can be categorized as the Theory of Critical Social Justice. The approach is often rooted in narrative and storytelling (see also, counterstory).

Because autoethnography combines autobiography and ethnography, the process of compiling and composing an autoethnography tends to involve reflecting upon one’s own experiences within a particular cultural context and extrapolating from this lived experience to attempt to make more general statements about the culture and its features in which the exploration took place. These would then be considered “knowledges” derived from that lived experience. This kind of thing is treated as research because lived experience is considered the most authoritative form of insight about the “true” nature (or “realities”) of systemic oppression.

For example, a woman might write an autoethnography (utilizing a lot of personal storytelling) about her trip around town with something like a love interest to visit various stores in the attempt to find a Wonder Woman action figure and finding it difficult, despite the high availability of male superhero action figures. From this, she might conclude that the cultural milieu in which she is embedded has certain biases toward men and against women, particularly in the context of being viewed as a superhero/heroine. This would then be used, in turn, to make commentary about what it means to be and to grow up as a woman in such a culture, including various symbolic meanings of the phrase “wonder woman” that become more relevant because of the existence of the symbol juxtaposed with the difficulty in finding tangible representations of that symbolism. This example of an autoethnography is not, in fact, hypothetical. This paper exists in a feminist social work journal.

There are, of course, rather serious issues to be had, in general, with the notion that an autoethnography is likely to (or even can) constitute a serious and rigorous form of ethnographic (or sociological, or anthropological) research. It obviously suffers an overwhelming limitation in that the relevant sample is the researcher herself (and, perhaps, her friends), and it seems reasonable to observe that it would be hopelessly fraught with bias and interpretation (in place of rigor). This serious problem with the capacity for autoethnographic research is the reason that the method appears almost exclusively in fields classifiable as Critical Social Justice (including gender studies, masculinity studies, women’s studies, fat studies, disability studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies, media studies, and so on).

This point about autoethnography’s utilization in “Grievance Studies” fields and almost nowhere else is no accident, and the reasons for its acceptance in those fields is rather deep and indicative of their relationship with intellectualism, objectivity, and scholarly rigor (they reject these things as racist, sexist, misogynistic, patriarchal, and all the rest). Those “Critical” disciplines tend to favor “counterstories” that challenge the dominant narratives to rigorous research (especially avant garde stories). Usually, the point of a counterstory is to deconstruct dominant narratives by revealing their absurdity, often by revealing hidden assumptions (see also, Critical Theory) or by highlighting exceptions that prove the rule by presenting them as though they do not prove the rule.

To draw out an important point, the Theory of Critical Social Justice, perhaps almost alone among scholarly endeavors, forwards lived experience as a particularly valid and insightful way of knowing. More than that, it seeks to challenge “dominant” ways of knowing with alternatives, which it deems as having been unjustly marginalized and excluded. Because lived experience (of systemic oppression) forms the backbone of the positive side of the Critical Social Justice epistemology (forwarding new ideas or hypotheses about the world), autoethnographical investigation would be seen from the Critical Social Justice perspective as wholly positive in all regards. It forwards new knowledges in a way that accords with the Critical Social Justice epistemology; it proceeds in a way that blends narrative-making and counterstory-telling alongside making sociocultural claims (which is consonant with critical race Theory, in particular); and it challenges, disrupts, and even dismantles the dominant view of epistemology that would regard it as hopelessly biased and limited in its abilities to draw any meaningful conclusions without significant further research (see also, hegemony; epistemic justice, research justice, epistemic oppression, and epistemic violence).

Related Terms

Bias; Counterstory; Critical; Critical race Theory; Critical Theory; Cultural studies; Deconstruction; Disability studies; Dismantle; Disrupt; Dominance; Epistemic justice; Epistemic oppression; Epistemic violence; Ethnic studies; Exclusion; Fat studies; Feminism; Gender studies; Hegemony; Injustice; Knowledge(s); Lived experience; Man; Marginalization; Masculinity studies; Media studies; Misogyny; Narrative; Objectivity; Oppression; Patriarchy; Power (systemic); Racism (systemic); Realities; Sexism (systemic); Social Justice; Theory; Truth; Valid; Ways of knowing; Woman; Women’s studies

Revision date: 11/2/20

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James Lindsay