autoethnographer: one who uses lived experience as evidence with which to explore cultural phenomena.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
I use poetry to describe living with ME/CFS, an illness that is chronic and invisible, thus bringing awareness to this little known diagnosis.
Through our collaborative autoethnography, we learned that intentionally spending time with grief is well worth the effort.
This essay is about my experience teaching yoga in a California prison.
This multimedia essay explores the notion of an “inner landscape,” as well as the creative practice and self-study from which this idea emerged
This autoethnography about same-sex love poses spiritual debate on the processes of grieving and interment.
In this work, I unpack how realizing my queerness has influenced how I write my poetry.
In Breaking Free: Reclaiming Authenticity in a Capitalist World, I reveal how I overcame my mental health challenges and reconnected with my true self discovering the benefits of holistic therapies and shamanic healing.
The Karen Disorder: Breaking Free from the Chains of Institutional Labels emerges from my research in the field of illness and identity.
Military culture includes a rich collection of symbols, beliefs, values, language, dress, behaviors, relationships, and work.
This work illustrates the very personal process of a Chinese-born immigrant to the U.S. and a U.S. born citizen learning about each other's cultures over the course of a 27 year marriage.
“What is it like to live and work in a regional comprehensive university during a time of major organizational change and intense conflict?”
This essay describes my experiences of the arts during the Covid-19 when arts and culture organizations had to pivot to virtual offerings.
LATEST POSTS
autoethnographer: one who uses lived experience as evidence with which to explore cultural phenomena.
What is autoethnography? The AutoEthnographer's international team of editors offer definitions & suggested readings.
“The AutoEthnographer is an award-winning, non-profit, open-access, peer-reviewed literary and arts magazine dedicated to presenting the creative side of autoethnography, a qualitative research method uniting ethnography and autobiography that utilizes lived experience as evidence with which to explore cultural phenomena." ISSN: 2833-1400
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC WRITING
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC POETRY
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC WRITING
This autoethnographic essay offers a musing on the intricate relationship between language, writing and identity through an autoethnographic account of my reading and writing experience from childhood to present, and from China to the UK via Germany.
"As fragrance, and perfume in particular, has played a major role in the shaping of my writer’s voice, and participation in cultures of fragrance has had a major impact upon my identity, it is impossible to situate myself outside of these cultures. It is because of this privilege of “insider identity” within the global fragrance community and my natural inclination towards narrative research that I turned to autoethnography."
After 34 years of monogamy I entered the dating app world and began writing the first weekend I was single. This is story of my experience.
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC MULTIMEDIA
You’re Still Here: Art and Grief in Autoethnographic Textiles Artist’s Memo You’re Still Here: Art and Grief in...
This artwork is based on a startling and memorable encounter at the local vet while attempting to get Anaïs spayed.
What happens when a witch is black? This piece is a salute to the transformational beauty of cosplay & all the laughter it inspires.
I worry about survival. Bluntly put, according to the Academy of Sciences almost every person on earth will be affected by climate change.
Ulla-Maija Matikainen·
All ContentAutoethnographic EssaysAutoethnographic PoetryEducationFrom the EditorsMoreVolume 3, Issue 2 (2023)
··4 min read A tsunami of words, images, learned and pushed feelings and thoughts go through us every day. Poetry is a way to find our own voice.
"Damned," the first publication in The AutoEthnographer's Bodily Autonomy issue, is the product of my confused reflection and internal conversations with the culture that raised me."
Patricia Leavy·
All ContentAutoethnographic EssaysCelebrating Dr. Patricia Leavy's Social Fiction 2024MoreReflections on MethodSpecial Issues
··11 min readWriting fiction allows me to document reality and to reimagine it, just as we can always reimagine ourselves. And that is why we need stories.
"It is in finding these solutions, the tape and the glue that holds us all together, that we find the beauty of who we are as people."
"In Turkey, we must consider opening folklore & the social sciences, but this time more powerfully, staggeringly, and creatively."
The process of seeking pregnancy alone (by necessity, not choice) showed me how limited reproductive rights in the U.S. truly are—even before the recent loss of Roe vs. Wade, that policy that had so shaped my generation’s belief in our bodily autonomy.
Alexandra Lasczik·
All ContentAutoethnographic EssaysCelebrating Dr. Patricia Leavy's Social Fiction 2024Special Issues
··20 min readPatricia Leavy is a genuine trailblazer, the real deal, an inspiration.
Tabitha Chilton and Gioia Chilton·
All ContentAutoethnographic EssaysCelebrating Dr. Patricia Leavy's Social Fiction 2024Special Issues
··23 min readLow-Fat Love Stories is the result of arts-based research on romantic, familial, and intrapsychic dissatisfying relationships, written by Patricia Leavy.
NEWS, INTERVIEWS & REVIEWS
"The AutoEthnographer announces a new call for submissions for a late 2022 special issue, 'Bodily Autonomy Rights (Abortion, Circumcision, Contraception).'"
"In my interview with award-winning author Patricia Leavy on literary research, we also discuss her evolution from academic to novelist, her genre of "social fiction," and her latest novels series, Celestial Bodies."
"The AutoEthnographer is committed to diversity, equity, & inclusion in its administration; support of emerging authors and artists; & celebration of creative expression as a vehicle for shared understanding & positive change."
SPECIAL ISSUES
EDUCATION, INTERVIEWS, PODCASTS, & REVIEWS
REFLECTIONS ON METHOD
