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What Makes the Autoethnographic Analysis Authentic?

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Abstract

This paper engages with current issues raised, among others, by Delamont (Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Institute of Education, University of London, 5–8 September 2007), relating to the merits of autoethnographic accounts. Delamont criticizes much current work in autoethnographic styles on a number of grounds as, for example, “intellectually lazy” and unrooted in general theoretical and structural frames. This paper uses an analysis and comparison of two separate productions using autoethnographic methods to develop, support, and to nuance these critiques and draws attention to relevant uses of the autoethnographic mode in both scholarly research and pedagogy.

David—My mother died when I was six and my father while in my second term at University. My autoethnography is helping me to realize the lasting significance of these events. Academia aside, I am a practising performance poet. My poem “Journeyman” won none less than the Shetland Islands Libraries’ “Bards in the Bog” competition (2008).

Daniel—My main research interests revolve around understanding the ways people experience and attribute meanings to places and organized spaces over time. Exploring how different people connect with place has brought me to the realization that identity plays a significant role in how people act, make sense of and feel in places; so too does the non-human aspects of the environments through which people move. Having developed a subsequent interest in the dynamics of human and non-human relations, sensory experience and affect , I have observed a growing trend in the use of digital devices and relational concepts by researchers interested in studying organizational space and place. It seems that the desire to develop evocative forms of understanding through the use of imaginative, creative, and expressive representations including videography, autoethnography, and poetry has particularly captured the imagination of spatial researchers; I am no different. I am, however, possibly the only Scouser living in Scotland trying to make sense of the interconnections between body/heat/balance/speed/proprioception/place/machine/people/mud on the grass track cycling circuit in the Scottish Highland Games.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. York St John University, York, UK

    David Weir

  2. University of Dundee, Dundee, UK

    Daniel Clarke

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  1. David Weir
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  1. University of Suffolk, Ipswich, United Kingdom

    Tom Vine

  2. University of Suffolk, Ipswich, United Kingdom

    Jessica Clark

  3. University of Suffolk, Ipswich, United Kingdom

    Sarah Richards

  4. York St John University, York, United Kingdom

    David Weir

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Weir, D., Clarke, D. (2018). What Makes the Autoethnographic Analysis Authentic?. In: Vine, T., Clark, J., Richards, S., Weir, D. (eds) Ethnographic Research and Analysis. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58555-4_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58555-4_8

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