Assessing Autoethnography

Assessing Autoethnography provides readers with multiple ways to analyze autoethnographies and other forms of personal narrative writing. Given the proliferation of such forms across academic contexts, the book offers a guide of what autoethnography is, why it matters, and how to do it. Taking each of the three parts of auto-, ethno-, and -graphy in detail, Herrmann, and Adams, provide criteria and points of discussion to ensure robust assessment of an autoethnographic work as a whole. Every chapter is accompanied with exemplars and considers issues such as ethics, storytelling, and good writing. The book discerns the kinds of personal experiences that often work best for autoethnographic projects and provide ways to evaluate fieldwork, interviews, and representations. Written by two experts in the field, Assessing Autoethnography offers guidance to scholars and dissertation advisors, across diverse disciplines, in producing autoethnographic work and utilizing autoethnographic methods. The book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of Communication Studies, Education, Sociology, Women’s and Gender Studies, Critical Race Studies, Mass Communication, English, and other related disciplines.

Autoethnography is a method of research that involves describing and analyzing personal experiences in order to understand cultural experiences. The method challenges canonical ways of doing research and recognizes how personal experience influences the research process. Autoethnography acknowledges and accomodates subjectivity, emotionality, and the researcher's influence on research. In this book, the authors provide a historical and conceptual overview of autoethnography. They share their stories of coming to autoethnography and identify key concerns and considerations that led to the development of the method. Next, they outline the purposes and practices--the core ideals--of autoethnography, how autoethnographers can accomplish these ideals, and why researchers might choose to do autoethnography. They describe the processes of doing autoethnography, conducting fieldwork, discussing ethics in research, and interpreting and analyzing personal experience, and they explore the various modes and techniques used and involved in writing autoethnography. They conclude with goals for creating and assessing autoethnography and describe the future of autoethnographic inquiry. Throughout, the authors provide numerous examples of their work and share key resources. This book will serve as both a guide to the practices of doing autoethnography and an exemplar of autoethnographic research processes and representations.

In this definitive reference volume, almost fifty leading thinkers and practitioners of autoethnographic research—from four continents and a dozen disciplines—comprehensively cover its vision, opportunities and challenges. Chapters address the theory, history, and ethics of autoethnographic practice, representational and writing issues, the personal and relational concerns of the autoethnographer, and the link between researcher and social justice. A set of 13 exemplars show the use of these principles in action. Autoethnography is one of the most popularly practiced forms of qualitative research over the past 20 years, and this volume captures all its essential elements for graduate students and practicing researchers.

In this step-by-step guide to writing autoethnography, the author describes and illustrates the essential features and practices of this qualitative research method.

Brimming with examples, this book demonstrates how qualitative researchers can use autoethnography as a method for qualitative research. Topics include a brief history of autoethnography; the purposes and practices of doing autoethnography; interpreting, analyzing, and representing personal experience; and evaluating autoethnographic work.

International Perspectives on Autoethnographic Research and Practice is the first volume of international scholarship on autoethnography. This culturally and academically diverse collection combines perspectives on contemporary autoethnographic thinking from scholars working within a variety of disciplines, contexts, and formats. The first section provides an introduction and demonstration of the different types and uses of autoethnography, the second explores the potential issues and questions associated with its practice, and the third offers perspectives on evaluation and assessment. Concluding with a reflective discussion between the editors, this is the premier resource for researchers and students interested in autoethnography, life writing, and qualitative research.

The Routledge International Handbook of Autoethnography in Educational Research presents diverse and rigorous contemporary research at the intersection between autoethnography and educational research. The handbook investigates the bidirectional connection between autoethnography and educational research in relation to four themes: enhancing teaching and teacher education with autoethnography; enlarging doctoral study and supervision with autoethnography; conducting identity work and relationship-building via autoethnography; and promoting social justice through autoethnography. In addition to the synthesising introduction and conclusion chapters, the 27 main chapters in the handbook cover current research from Africa, Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States and Venezuela. The chapters present novel applications of several key concepts and research methods, including activism, arts-based research, critical reflection, decolonising feminism, doctoral study and supervision, hybrid identities, Indigenous research, migrant education, racism, researcher self-efficacy, teacher identity, visual autoethnography and writing as voice. This book will be of use to all researchers, and doctoral and Masters students, using qualitative and autoethnographic methods in Education and related fields.

Autoethnography: Process, Product, and Possibility for Critical Social Research by Sherick A. Hughes and Julie L. Pennington provides a short introduction to the methodological tools and concepts of autoethnography, combining theoretical approaches with practical “how to” information. Written for social science students, teachers, teacher educators, and educational researchers, the text shows readers how autoethnographers collect, analyze, and report data. With its grounding in critical social theory and inclusion of innovative methods, this practical resource will move the field of autoethnography forward.

The second edition of the award-winning Handbook of Autoethnography is a thematically organized volume that contextualizes contemporary practices of autoethnography and examines how the field has developed since the publication of the first edition in 2013. Throughout, contributors identify key autoethnographic themes and commitments and offer examples of diverse, thoughtful, effective, applied, and innovative autoethnography. The second edition is organized into five sections: In Section 1, Doing Autoethnography, contributors explore definitions of autoethnography, identify and demonstrate key features of autoethnography, and engage philosophical, relational, cultural, and ethical foundations of autoethnographic practice. In Section 2, Representing Autoethnography, contributors discuss forms and techniques for the process and craft of creating autoethnographic projects, using various media in/as autoethnography, and marking and making visible particular identities, knowledges, and voices. In Section 3, Teaching, Evaluating, and Publishing Autoethnography, contributors focus on supporting and supervising autoethnographic projects. They also offer perspectives on publishing and evaluating autoethnography. In Section 4, Challenges and Futures of Autoethnography, contributors consider contemporary challenges for autoethnography, including understanding autoethnography as a feminist, posthumanist, and decolonialist practice, as well as a method for studying texts, translations, and traumas. The volume concludes with Section 5, Autoethnographic Exemplars, a collection of sixteen classic and contemporary texts that can serve as models of autoethnographic scholarship. With contributions from more than 50 authors representing more than a dozen disciplines and writing from various locations around the world, the handbook develops, refines, and expands autoethnographic inquiry and qualitative research. This text will be a primary resource for novice and advanced researchers alike in a wide range of social science disciplines.

Unravelling Travelling: Uncovering Tourist Emotions through Autoethnography takes an intrinsically personal autoethnographic approach to delve into the deep and very subjective emotions experienced while travelling to foreign places.