autoethnographer: one who uses lived experience as evidence with which to explore cultural phenomena.
A Hard Look at Home: On the Paradoxes of Place Author’s Memo...
This piece, Hot Pink Truth Serum of My Trauma, is an autoethnography that speaks to the cultures and communities of survivors of childhood sexual abuse and violence.
This piece is a creative reflection which emerged out of the auto-ethnographic reflections from my PhD around research extraction.
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’ll take you back through my journey and then reveal how I overcame my mental health challenges and reconnected with my true self.
In my work , the issues of depression, anxiety, and bulimia nervosa are discussed heavily.
Madison, Wisconsin is full of surprises, sometimes entertaining, always enlightening. But I didn’t plan for an abortion protest during a family weekend.
I write out of the consciousness that I am both a product of the violence of war and a migratory being—not only in the strictest sense of physical displacement, but also in belonging.
You’re Still Here: Art and Grief in Autoethnographic Textiles Artist’s Memo You’re...
As I discuss my first queer event, a book discussion about a queer young adult book, Canto Contigo, I will explore my anxieties about my sexual identity, and the repercussions of this community warfare.
This article is a prequel to ongoing research into DIY Healing Within Ancestral Lands. A project born of growing up in a family system that was not kind, welcoming or loving.
This piece of original short fiction contains plot elements based on my recent adventures hiking remote trails in Ecuador and Colorado.
SPECIAL ISSUE 2024: PATRICIA LEAVY & SOCIAL FICTION
An Invitation to Story: "Everything in my life has shown me that stories matter. Sharing stories matters. Through stories we generate connection, resonance, empathy, reflection, discovery, learning, change, resistance, visibility. Storytelling is at the heart of my work. It’s also at the heart of autoethnography. I hope when you read my books and the contributions in this special issue that you’re inspired to think about how you might tell the stories of your research and your life." Dr. Patricia Leavy
LATEST POSTS
autoethnographer: one who uses lived experience as evidence with which to explore cultural phenomena.
“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
What is autoethnography? The AutoEthnographer's international team of editors offer definitions & suggested readings.
Readers can ask questions about autoethnography or invite an editor to speak to their group or classroom.
MISSION
THE AUTOETHNOGRAPHER is a digital magazine dedicated to creating a public, open-source space for creatives to share their personal stories of cultural experience. We aim to support emerging authors and artists, to promote cultural diversity and appreciation, and to celebrate creative expression as a vehicle for shared understanding and positive change.
MISSION
THE AUTOETHNOGRAPHER is a digital magazine dedicated to creating a public, open-source space for creatives to share their personal stories of cultural experience. We aim to support emerging authors and artists, to promote cultural diversity and appreciation, and to celebrate creative expression as a vehicle for shared understanding and positive change.
SPECIAL ISSUE 2024: PATRICIA LEAVY & SOCIAL FICTION
An Invitation to Story: "Everything in my life has shown me that stories matter. Sharing stories matters. Through stories we generate connection, resonance, empathy, reflection, discovery, learning, change, resistance, visibility. Storytelling is at the heart of my work. It’s also at the heart of autoethnography. I hope when you read my books and the contributions in this special issue that you’re inspired to think about how you might tell the stories of your research and your life." Dr. Patricia Leavy
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC LITERARY NONFICTION
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AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC LITERARY FICTION
Visitation, an Autoethnodrama in One Act
In this autoethnographic play, a woman terminates a pregnancy without telling her husband.
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AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC POETRY
FEATURED POET: MILTON KARP
"My poems are not entirely mine. They belong to the people and events of my passage through life. For once the dam is breached its contents flow unabridged. - Milton Carp, poet at 91"
This 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.
Christine Sleeter writes about Dr. Patricia Leavy's new genre, Sleeter's own books and her reflections on the social fiction series.
Writing 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.
A new call for submissions that celebrate, problematize, challenge, or illuminate the many meanings of "queer."
On Emerging Liberated of the Glass Box Author’s Memo Like many others in the American South, I began...
This is a love letter to my people, my family and a version of me trying to overcome the trauma of almost seeing their mother die.
"This is my childhood memory of realizing the power of laughter when everything interior and exterior makes me scared."
However, this autoethnographic piece helped me recognize the importance of levity even when the intellectual content is heavy.
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.
"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."
"This essay on bodily autonomy specifically discusses abortion access and rights in the United States and Canada, and the politics that often follow."
Our future depends on readers like you.
$1 a month can help us reach our goals and continue to provide a platform for important voices and stories.
"This autoethnographic poem resembles a wave: coming, going, history, hereafter...an endless exchange."
"Throughout 2022, The AutoEthnographer invites rolling submissions in any of our categories (writing, poetry, multimedia, video, performance, etc.) around the theme of "Climate Change"."
"I have continued to explore the usefulness of various poetic forms as a mechanism for providing access to suppressed internal voices."
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC WRITING
"I write at length about my experiences surviving rape and abuse as a Western woman in Japan. I was lucky to get out alive."
"My stories are meant to give women from Bangladesh a chance to show their strength and resilience. It is a way for me to try to connect with the rest of the world despite the differences in language and culture."
Odesa addresses the traumas of struggling immigrants, who face rejection and shunning rather than acceptance and understanding.
HAVE YOU HEARD?
We're podcasting!
Listen to The AutoEthnographer in the car or on the go and enjoy discussions with artists, authors, performers, and researchers from around the world. In our 20-minute episodes we examine how autoethnography can be utilized in diverse contexts, from marketing and coaching to painting and songwriting.
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC MULTIMEDIA
"Award-winning artist, Suzanne Hughes, talks about autoethnography and painting. Suzanne is responsible for the cover art for our special issue based on climate change."
Today we're talking with the award-winning author, researcher, and performer, Shanita Mitchell about performance and autoethnography.
"Dr. Nadine Khair discusses why autoethnography is essential to successful businesses in this latest podcast."
You’re Still Here: Art and Grief in Autoethnographic Textiles Artist’s Memo You’re Still Here: Art and Grief in...
The lyrics of "World's Greatest Man" grapple with the paradoxes of participant-observation as well as the ambiguity of development work in Thailand.
"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."
IAANI AWARD WINNER
“A Seat at the Table” is the autoethnographic manifestation of my vulnerability, anger, and anguish, of my black feminist grit."
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Get updates about The AutoEthnographer direct to your inbox!
Sign up for our seasonal newsletter, only four times a year.
"A woman alone doesn’t belong to any male power or protection sphere. She can be kidnapped into fears and dreams."
"Bringing up Baby” is a collection of collage and erasure poems that function as praise for and critique of (white) mothering.
I write out of the consciousness that I am both a product of the violence of war and a migratory being—not only in the strictest sense of physical displacement, but also in belonging.
FEATURED POET: MILTON KARP
"My poems are not entirely mine. They belong to the people and events of my passage through life. For once the dam is breached its contents flow unabridged. - Milton Carp, poet at 91"
"'SEE ME, Windows to the Self of the Performer-Autoethnographer' explores the question, 'What can I learn about myself by making artwork as autoethnography'?
"My thesis began to unfold after doing some research on my final topic idea about Tolkien’s world, female characters, female gamers, and the stereotype that females are the love interests or damsels in distress. I chose autoethnography because it allowed me to add that personal angle to the paper because I am a female writer, reader, and gamer."
"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."
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Sign up for our seasonal newsletter, only four times a year.
NEWS, INTERVIEWS & REVIEWS
The Autoethnographer, an award-winning, non-profit, peer-reviewed, digital literary & arts magazine, invites you to submit your work.
This is a conversation with Patricia Leavy about writing fiction during the pandemic and her new novel, The Location Shoot.
"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."
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC ESSAYS
NEWS, INTERVIEWS & REVIEWS
HAVE YOU HEARD?
We're podcasting!
Listen to The AutoEthnographer in the car or on the go and enjoy discussions with artists, authors, performers, and researchers from around the world. In our 20-minute episodes we examine how autoethnography can be utilized in diverse contexts, from marketing and coaching to painting and songwriting.
REFLECTIONS ON METHOD
SPECIAL ISSUE 2024: PATRICIA LEAVY & SOCIAL FICTION
SPECIAL ISSUE 2023-24: QUEER
SPECIAL ISSUE 2023: LAUGHTER
SPECIAL ISSUE 2022-23: BODILY AUTONOMY
