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autoethnographer: one who uses lived experience as evidence with which to explore cultural phenomena.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
"My poems for this special issue seek to document a history of my choice, not just personally but humanly, to use autoethnography to weave through the personal and the political."
I wrote a study of my own faith, bankrupt as it may be, using story of my father, through the lens of Jewishness as I define it for myself.
Ash Watson·
All ContentAutoethnographic EssaysCelebrating Dr. Patricia Leavy's Social Fiction 2024Special Issues
··13 min readLeavy’s 2019 novel about a week-long all-inclusive Icelandic research seminar wends its way through meetings, planning sessions, excursions, debates and dinners to the heart of the paradigms and epistemological questions that structure and drive scholarly research.
"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."
Ulla-Maija Matikainen·
All ContentAutoethnographic Literary FictionAutoethnographic PoetryAutoethnographic WritingVolume 2, Issue 1 (2022)
··12 min read"A woman alone doesn’t belong to any male power or protection sphere. She can be kidnapped into fears and dreams."
However, this autoethnographic piece helped me recognize the importance of levity even when the intellectual content is heavy.
Catherine Berresheim·
All ContentAutoethnographic Literary NonfictionAutoethnographic WritingBodily Autonomy Special Issue, 2022-23Special Issues
··14 min readLEARN MORE “Bodily Autonomy: A Fetus for a Fetus” explores the cultural...
This sestina poem reflects and validates my own personal experience as a 14-year-old who was dealing with something I couldn’t initially even name; anxiety.
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.
In this 2nd of my Processing Parental Grief series, Calliandra receives a letter from her mother weeks after her death.
"At what age does a Black woman learn that it is her job to be strong?"
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.
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
Visitation, an Autoethnodrama in One Act
In this autoethnographic play, a woman terminates a pregnancy without telling her husband.
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC POETRY
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC WRITING
This piece on hair describes how ideas of what is and is not fashionable, as depicted in popular media, can indelibly affect one’s self-perception and identity.
“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.
"A tree once taught me that those moments of ruin are only a pause, a passage really, on the way to something else."
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC MULTIMEDIA
"I danced each morning with Pina Bausch. I became her pupil lifting my leg up in the air like a flamingo except feeling more awake than I’ve ever been."
"'SEE ME, Windows to the Self of the Performer-Autoethnographer' explores the question, 'What can I learn about myself by making artwork as autoethnography'?
Jill Boyles·
All ContentAutoethnographic Art & MultimediaAutoethnographic Literary NonfictionVolume 4, Issue 2 (2024)
··4 min readA Private Life in Rural Idaho Challenges Living in Rural Areas Living a private life can be enticing....
Eternal Glow: Black Womanhood’s Story Of Love and Resilience Author’s Memo These three poems are autoethnographic as they...
From all there is something to be learned, as the river itself has been victimized, has not escaped its own environmental terrorism.
"This autoethnographic poem is a question about the power of autoethnography in the face of the climate crisis. It is an expression of my dark fears, my depression that keeps me away from writing."
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."
"One way to reach broader audiences is to embrace creative nonfiction and use storytelling as academic writing."
"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."
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.
This work is part of a larger ethnography of scars, one that addresses the intersection medicine, religion, and body politics in (among other places) Nebraska.
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.
NEWS, INTERVIEWS & REVIEWS
In the following interview with award-winning author, Patricia Leavy, we discuss writing fiction and her new novel Hollyland.
"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
