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On Autoethnography

  • Jackie GoodeEmail author
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Abstract

In this chapter autoethnography is conceived of as a research practice located within the ethnographic tradition. ‘Analytic’ and ‘evocative’ variations are seen as being on a continuum, the crucial component with both being the links that are made, explicitly or implicitly, between the personal and wider social and cultural issues, particularly those pertaining to a social justice agenda. Using ethnographic fieldwork as a ‘model’, the chapter identifies and discusses three components of autoethnographic inquiry: the status of the ‘data’ that autoethnography ‘collects’ in the ‘field’—that is the ‘personal experience’ collected from the ‘self’; the ‘method’ of data collection upon which the researcher-self/self-researcher is reliant—that is, the operation of memory; and the production of a ‘report’ about what was ‘found’ (uncovered or revealed) in the field—where the report (autoethnographic text, performance etc.) eventuates from what is conceived of here as a process of ‘cultural production’ or ‘making practice’ referred to as ‘poiesis’.

Keywords

Autoethnography Self Personal experience Memory Poiesis 
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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Loughborough UniversityLoughboroughUK

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