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autoethnographer: one who uses lived experience as evidence with which to explore cultural phenomena.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
“Cold Snap” is about two disparate adults, caught in the tumult of abrupt weather change, caused by the accidental detonation of an experimental meteorological weapon.
Jessica Smartt Gullion·
All ContentAutoethnographic EssaysCelebrating Dr. Patricia Leavy's Social Fiction 2024Special Issues
··12 min readLeavy is more than the mother of the social fiction movement in the social sciences; she’s its fairy godmother.
This piece explores the ways in which identity and esteem are interwoven into the topic of Black hair.
"If abortion can be banned, largely due to Christian beliefs, what is to stop an overturning of the legalization of gay marriage or the disestablishment of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?” If The Handmaid’s Tale taught me anything, it is to never believe that I am truly safe, untouchable."
This is from the experience of losing someone who you thought would be a part of your family, only to realize their journey was different.
This story explores childbirth-related trauma and postpartum mental health through the lens of a ‘good birth.’
“What if I were Offred? What if I was a handmaid or a gender traitor living in Gilead?”
"I have personally been that teenager, marking down “white” on a school application, hesitating to answer when an Anglo-American asked me “what are you?”, and leaving those experiences with a deeper sense of displacement."
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.
Can a colorless person have any sense of what it feels like to be prejudged against, before “the you - inside yourself” opens your eyes in the morning?
"I'm proud to announce that this week, on July 13, Rowman & Littlefield will traditionally publish my second book, Coping with Parental Death: Insights and Tips for Teenagers."
"For me, being a feminist simply means I am a strong, independent woman who has ideas and thoughts of her own; but it also means something else, which is an idea that confuses even me. I mean, how could I be a feminist when I am also a conservative woman?"
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
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.
"A tree once taught me that those moments of ruin are only a pause, a passage really, on the way to something else."
As two authors/playwrights exploring this small island on the East Coast of Canada, we write to share our own experiences and perspectives.
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC MULTIMEDIA
"In the newest video from The Twerking Academic, I explore how the summer of 2020 slammed me back into an awareness of my own double consciousness as a Black American."
"I'm not exactly sure when I decided to make a performance piece about my sister's traumatic brain injury and death. In fact, I'm not sure there ever was a single moment of decision. Her story had become public in many ways, from online care sites to prayer chains to social media posts from family and friends. Her story was being performed out in the world before I started telling it."
”I share this artistic piece as an invitation to problematise and think further about not only the Autoethnographic “I/We” in what I/we can know about ourselves and our bodies but also to make space for the incoherence that becomes a part of “being” and “knowing” in explorations of fragmentation and loss.”
This work of experimental poetry examines the interaction between the happy user of the open source format and the automated surface.
Through these reflections on heritage, I delve into being a child of parents who immigrated from the Bronx to a suburban lifestyle.
This work, a narrative and poetic account of a school shooting, provides an experiential entry into the experience from the point of view of a faculty member.
Marlen Harrison·
All ContentAutoethnographic Art & MultimediaEducationFrom the EditorsMoreReflections on MethodVolume 2, Issue 1 (2022)
··5 min read"In this brief, animated autoethnography, I utilize the concept of a sociocultural third space to consider why evocative autoethnography can benefit from its own literary and arts journal."
U. Melissa Anyiwo·
All ContentAutoethnographic EssaysCelebrating Dr. Patricia Leavy's Social Fiction 2024MoreReflections on MethodSpecial Issues
··31 min readThis piece is intended to give you a sense of the ways in which I use Low-Fat Love in the classroom and why just using it makes the world a better place.
"Once I have the first line or two, the rest of the poem seems to flow rather easily. I write whatever comes to mind. Somewhat like a story rather than a poem. I then start to take out the excess words and phrases and pare it down to the essence of what I wish to say. Other times I do not change a word. The muses come and go on their own. I also believe poetry has chosen me."
However, this autoethnographic piece helped me recognize the importance of levity even when the intellectual content is heavy.
Patricia Leavy·
All ContentAutoethnographic EssaysCelebrating Dr. Patricia Leavy's Social Fiction 2024Special Issues
··26 min readThere’s also a larger goal underscoring my work. I aim to create a philosophy of the arts and a philosophy of love.
This collection of poems is a glimpse into the lives lived on the margins, where the laws put in place to protect basic rights and bodily autonomy cease to apply.
NEWS, INTERVIEWS & REVIEWS
"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."
In today's new podcast & video Marlen Harrison talks with current marketing interns about the role of culture in using Google Ads.
Editor Guillermo Gil's latest book review examines Chin who highlights her relationship to things, and/or her obsessing over wanting and buying things, and many more.
SPECIAL ISSUES
EDUCATION, INTERVIEWS, PODCASTS, & REVIEWS
REFLECTIONS ON METHOD























































































































