Autoethnography Research Methodology Group Webinar August 23 2018

Autoethnography Research Methodology Group Webinar August 23, 2018 Jim Lane, Ed. D. Senior Research Fellow Center for Educational and Instructional Technology

First Thoughts My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm — all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask. Joseph Conrad

First Thoughts Do I dare disturb the universe? … Do I dare to eat a peach? T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J, Alfred Prufrock

My Background Ø Former high school English teacher, magazine writer, and school principal Ø Dissertation applied autoethnography and narrative inquiry to analyze professional ethical dilemmas Ø Several conference presentations and two book chapters using autoethnography Ø Attended several autoethnography conferences and presentations led by Ellis & Bochner, Denzin, Adams, and others

Overview Through autoethnography ØWe offer reflexive stories of our own lived experiences. ØWe use autobiographical data to analyze and interpret cultural implications

Early Definitions of Autoethnography Ø In 1975, Karl Heider asked 50 Grand Valley Dani school children, “What do (your) people do’ and referred to their collective responses as auto ethnography, meaning ‘the Dani’s own understanding of their world” (in Bochner & Ellis, 2016, p. 47). Ø In 1979, David Hayano followed Heider’s lead, equating “auto-ethnography with insider studies in which the researcher was a native, or became a full insider, within the community of culture being studied – a genre of ethnography now classified as indigenous or aboriginal “(in Bochner & Ellis, 2016, p. 47).

Some Current Definitions of Autoethnography An approach to research and writing that seeks to Ødescribe and systematically analyze (graphy) Ø personal experience (auto) in order to Ø understand cultural experience (ethno) (Ellis, et al, 2011).

Some Current Definitions of Autoethnography Ø Autoethnography requires that we observe ourselves observing, that we interrogate what we think and believe, and that we challenge our own assumptions, asking over and over if we have penetrated as many layers of our own defenses, fears, and insecurities as our project requires. Ø It asks that we rethink and revise our lives, making conscious decisions about who and how we want to be. Ø And in the process, it seeks a story that is hopeful, where authors ultimately write themselves as survivors of the story they are living (Ellis, 2013, p. 10).

A Conceptual Framework for Autoethnography 1. Culture is a group-oriented concept by which self is always connected with others; 2. The reading and writing of self-narratives provides a window through which self and others can be examined and understood; 3. Telling one’s story does not automatically result in the cultural understanding of self and others; 4. Autoethnography is an excellent instructional tool to help not only social scientists but also practitioners – teachers, medical personnel, counselors, and human services workers – gain profound understanding of self and others and function more effectively with others from diverse cultural backgrounds (Chang, 2008, p. 13).

Conventions of Autoethnography 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. The existence of others; The influence and importance of race, gender, and class; Family beginnings; Turning points; Known and knowing authors and observers; Objective life markers; Real persons with real lives; Turning-point experiences; and Truthful statements distinguished from fictions (Denzin, 2014, p. 7).

Types of Autoethnography Ø Individual / Collaborative Ø Evocative / Interpretive / Performance / Critical Ø Analytic (Chenail, et al, 2014)

Critical Autoethnography Ø Requires researchers to acknowledge the inevitable privileges we experience alongside marginalization and to take responsibility for our subjective lenses through reflexivity. Ø Cultural experiences are oftentimes taken for granted because of the seemingly interconnected and multicultural society we live in. Ø Identities are best understood through explorations of intersectionality – the cultural synergy that is created through interactions of race/ethnicity, gender/sex, socioeconomic status, sexuality, nationality, age, spirituality, and/or abilities. (Boylorn & Orbe, 2014).

Evocative Autoethnography Ø Acknowledges and accommodates subjectivity, emotionality, and the researcher’s influence on research, rather than hiding from these matters or assuming they don’t exist (Ellis, et al, 2011). Ø Writing and performing vulnerably from the heart wth passion and analytic accuracy allows one to merge from a flat soulless representation of social worlds into sensuous, evocative research that encourages and supports both personal development and social justice within the world (Tedlock, 2013).

Interpretive Autoethnography Ø A critical, performative practice … that begins with the biography of the writer and moves outward to culture, discourse, history, and ideology. Ø Allows the researcher to take up each person’s life in its immediate particularity and to ground the life in its historical moment. … Interpretation … (interrogates) the historical, cultural and biographical conditions that moved the person to experience the events being studied … where structure, history, and autobiography intersect (Denzin, 2014, p. x).

Interpretive Autoethnography Performance and interpretation work outward from turning-point events in a person’s life. The sting of memory defines those events. They become part of the person’s mystory, part of his or her interpretive autoethnography (Denzin, 2014, p. x).

Performance Autoethnography Ø Creates a mimetic parallel or alternate instance through which subjectivity is made available to witness. Such work uses dialogue, narrative, performative writing, kinesis, and staging, which directly invoke the arrangement of internal and external embodied landscapes, performers, and audience members (Tedlock, 2013, p. 359. ” Ø Products can include prose, poetry, visual, music, plays, dance, stand-up (Chenail, et al, 2014).

Analytic Autoethnography Ø Anderson is concerned that autoethnography has become too closely identified with the purgative and laments the “emotionally wrenching experiences, such as illness, death, victimization, and divorce. ” He argues for a more analytic approach to personal reflection (2006). Ø The autoethnographer is a more analytic and self-conscious participant in the conversation than is the typical group member. . . The autoethnographer’s understandings, both as a member and as a researcher, emerge not from detached discovery but from engaged dialogue (Anderson, 2006).

Analytic Autoethnography Anderson argues for a more analytic approach to personal reflection and proposes five key features of analytic autoethnography. Ø Complete member researcher (CMR) status, Ø Analytic reflexivity, Ø Narrative visibility of the researcher’s self, Ø Dialogue with informants beyond the self, Ø Commitment to theoretical analysis (2006, p. 379)

Data Collection • • Notes Memos Agendas Emails Analytic memos Reflective journals Interviews Member checking

Vignettes – Writing Stories Ø Auto-ethnographies show people in the process of figuring out what to do, how to live, and what their struggles mean. . . Writing difficult stories is a gift to self, a reflexive attempt to construct meaning in our lives and heal or grow from our pain (Ellis, 2007). Ø Epiphanies are the turning points of your stories. Most stories have a point that brings new awareness to you as writer and researcher. What are the tuning pts. ? How did you/I become different person as a result of this experience? (Bochner, 2018).

Vignettes – Writing Stories Ø Stories apply craft, characters, conflict, emotion, time. They have a temporal quality, scenes, dialog, purpose, plot, details, morality , sensuality. They are tied to emotion. Ø We want people to enter scenes with us. How are we evoking through smell, sights, bringing the reader into looking in a particular way. Ø This is good autoethnography- trying to evoke the experience by portraying the experience in a literary way (Bochner, 2018).

Believability and Verisimilitude Ø For autoethnographers, validity means that a work seeks verisimilitude; it evokes in readers a feeling that the experience described is lifelike, believable, and possible, a feeling that what has been represented could be true (Ellis, 2011). Ø Clandinin and Connelly call for “wakefulness” on the part of the researcher, proceeding forward with a constant alert awareness of risks, of narcissism, of solipsism, and of simplistic plots, scenarios, and unidimensional characters” (2000).

Autoethnography and Ethics Ø Acknowledgement of narrative privilege motivates us to discern whom we might hurt or silence in telling stories (Adams, 2006). Ø We must always be conscious of the ethics of the situation – we are in a position of power. What do we reveal? What can we live with? Stay conscious. Always ask if what we are doing is appropriate. These are dilemmas. Ø Can you live with the world you have created? Is there a way to write without hurting other people? What are the reasons to write about this? (Ellis, 2018).

Ethical Questions to Consider Ø Do you have the right to write about others without their consent? Ø What effect do these stories have on individuals and your relationship with them? Ø How much detail and which difficulties, traumas, or challenges are necessary to include to successfully articulate the story’s moral or goal? Ø Are you making a case to write (or not to write) because it is more or less convenient for you? Ø Should you or will you allow participants to read and approve all of the stories about them? Or just those that are problematic or potentially hurtful? (Tullis, 2013).

Some Key Resources

Final Thoughts Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore, Now I will you to be a bold swimmer, To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout, and laughingly dash with your hair. Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

References Anderson, L. (2006, August). Analytic autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4), 373 -395. doi: 10. 1177/0891241605280449 Bochner, A. P. & Ellis, C. (2016). Evocative autoethnography: Writing lives and telling stories. New York, NY: Routledge. Boylorn, R. M. & Orbe, M. P. , eds. (2014). Critical autoethnography: Intersecting cultural identities in everyday life. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Chang, H. (2008). Autoethography as method. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, Inc. Ellis, C. (1993). "There are no survivors": Telling a story of sudden death. The Sociological Quarterly, 34(4), 711 -730. Ellis, C. (1999, September). Heartful autoethnography. Qualitative Health Research, 9(5), 669 -683. doi: 10. 1177/104973299129122153

References Ellis, C. (2000). Creating criteria: An ethnographic short story. Qualitative Inquiry, 6(2), 273 -277. doi: 10. 1177/107780040000600210 Ellis, C. (2002). Being real: Moving inward toward social change. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, J 5( 4), 399 -406. Ellis, C. (2004). The ethnographic I: A methodological novel about autoethnography. New York: Altamira Press. Ellis, C. (2007). Telling secrets, revealing lives: Relational ethics in research with intimate others. Qualitative Inquiry, 13(1), 3 -29. Ellis, C. (2009). Revision: Autoethnographic reflections on life and work. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, Inc.

References Ellis, C. , Adams, T. E. , & Bochner, A. P. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Historical Social Research. 36: 4, pp. 273 -290. Ellis, C. & Bochner, A. P. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (Eds. ), Handbook of qualitative research (2 nd ed. , pp. 733 -768). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ellis, C. , & Bochner, A. P. (2003). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In N. K. Denzin, & Y. Lincoln (Eds. ), Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials (pp. 199 -258). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ellis, C. S. , & Bochner, A. P. (2006). Analyzing analytic autoethnography: An autopsy Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4), 429 -449.

References Jones, S. H. (2005). Autoethnography: Making the personal political. In N. K. Denzinand Y. S. Lincoln (Eds. ), Handbook of qualitative research (3 rd ed. , pp. 763 -792)). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Jones, S. J. , Adams, T. E. , Ellis, C. , Eds. (2013). Handbook of autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Spry, T. (2018). Autoethnography and the other: Performative embodiment and a bid for utopia. In Handbook of qualitative research (5 th ed. , pp. 627649). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Research Methodology Group

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