POPULAR ARTICLES
autoethnographer: one who uses lived experience as evidence with which to explore cultural phenomena.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
”I still aim to engage in the process of life, commit to a meaningful purpose, and structure my life around an intrinsically satisfying activity. For me, I will continue writing as a way to make sense of what it means to be alive.”
"For the first time since my adolescence, I am recognizing that I don’t have to believe what everyone believes, nor do I have to base my morals on faceless strangers who don’t know who I am, or what my experiences are."
The poems in this collection are a reflection on my zero waste aspirations (and the values behind the movement at large).
My weird depression showed up this summer like “hey sis!” And I was like “fuck my life”! I wasn’t ready. This time, it caught me off guard.
This piece works to contextualize aging in the queer community, the complexities of developing trends in spectacle versus intimacy, the depth and shallow natures that are found in performance, as well as the fear and hope that can be found as a queer person.
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.
In this essay, the current reality of queerness is juxtaposed against milestones in my own life as a queer man in America.
Poems As a Form of Powerful Activism and Barrier-breakers is a compilation of three poems which mean a lot for me.
“Tired,” the titular poem and the collection at large, is an autoethnography looking at the cause of so much pain, so much fatigue. Anthropomorphizing the feeling of being tired gave me creative license to dramatize and explore the real experiences of needing a break...
“blackwomanatwork” came out of my experiences working in academia as a first-generation immigrant black woman from the Caribbean.
"She needs to be an artist to be an artist-teacher in adult community learning. She needs to do both to become the best she can be."
The Karen Disorder: Breaking Free from the Chains of Institutional Labels emerges from my research in the field of illness and identity.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
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
Madison, Wisconsin is full of surprises, sometimes entertaining, always enlightening. But I didn’t plan for an abortion protest during a family weekend.
Catholic Boy Fights the Devil in the Mohawk River Valley is a short story that’s set in upstate New York during World War II. At a time when America was fighting fascist devils abroad, many were struggling with the devil’s influence at home.
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.
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC MULTIMEDIA
"At what age does a Black woman learn that it is her job to be strong?"
This film explores foreign EFL teacher identity construct dialectics in contemporary China, qualified by China/West geo-political tensions.
In today's new podcast & video Marlen Harrison talks with current marketing interns about the role of culture in using Google Ads.
We invite you to participate in National Poetry month with us by reading and writing over at The AutoEthnographer's new Facebook group.
The Ultimate Wave: Prose Poetry of the Pandemic and Parents Author’s Memo “The Wave” examines the problem of...
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.
Dilek Isler Hayirli·
All ContentAutoethnographic Art & MultimediaEducationFrom the EditorsMoreReflections on MethodVolume 2, Issue 3 (2022)
··13 min read"I had not been aware that this emotional research was also performing autoethnography, collecting memories from the field"
"One way to reach broader audiences is to embrace creative nonfiction and use storytelling as academic writing."
"It is my hope that these words will serve as the beginning of an ongoing dialogue about what it means to live autoethnography."
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.
Richard Stimac·
All ContentAutoethnodramaAutoethnographic Literary FictionBodily Autonomy Special Issue, 2022-23Special Issues
··23 min read"In this autoethnodrama, a woman terminates a pregnancy without telling her husband."
"I tend to take every loss of rainforest personally. My autoethnographic poetry 'The Threat' and 'John Doe' are reflective of this."
NEWS, INTERVIEWS & REVIEWS
"Although I never planned it, I wrote a series of novels, Celestial Bodies, that have pierced my heart in a way nothing else ever has, changing me as a writer and as a person."
"Congratulations to Shanita Mitchell, Editorial Board member of The AutoEthnographer and multimedia artist, for her recognition by the International Association of Autoethnography and Narrative Inquiry (IAANI)."
Poet Anne McCrary Sullivan discusses her latest book Learning Calabar, Notes from a Poet’s Year in Nigeria with editor Michelle Reale.
SPECIAL ISSUES
EDUCATION, INTERVIEWS, PODCASTS, & REVIEWS
REFLECTIONS ON METHOD
