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autoethnographer: one who uses lived experience as evidence with which to explore cultural phenomena.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
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.
"When a favorite perfume ceases to exist, it is another kind of death. Having been created, it leaves a special sort of emptiness," from Eulogy for a Perfume.
Confessions of an ESL Student explores the significant role that English study played in my development as a student and adult.
However, this autoethnographic piece helped me recognize the importance of levity even when the intellectual content is heavy.
Christine Sleeter·
All ContentAutoethnographic EssaysCelebrating Dr. Patricia Leavy's Social Fiction 2024MoreReflections on MethodSpecial Issues
··23 min readChristine Sleeter writes about Dr. Patricia Leavy's new genre, Sleeter's own books and her reflections on the social fiction series.
"Marlen Harrison and Edward Perrin enjoyed an opportunity to volunteer with Miami-based Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) to create family necessity kits for those affected by Hurricane Ian."
"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."
"Dr. Nadine Khair discusses why autoethnography is essential to successful businesses in this latest podcast."
In this story I shifted my attention to the young woman –a nurse or a volunteer– who sat beside me and held my hand throughout abortion.
"Have you ever crossed the desert in a circus train? I took such a detour—by choice— in 1978 when I hung up my pointe shoes to ride an elephant named Peggy."
"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."
"First and foremost, one has to have the belief that if he builds the field, the major players are going to show up for the game. What has most surprised and moved me, however, has been the showing up. Indeed, folks have been showing up each week since the project's inception in late May."
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 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 autoethnographic account explores the complex relationship between language and identity.
"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."
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.”
Daze Jefferies·
All ContentAutoethnographic Art & MultimediaAutoethnographic PoetryClimate Change Special Issue, 2022Special Issues
··3 min read"This autoethnographic poem resembles a wave: coming, going, history, hereafter...an endless exchange."
Lina Fe Simoy·
All ContentAutoethnographic EssaysAutoethnographic PoetryFrom the EditorsMoreVolume 3, Issue 2 (2023)
··5 min readThere are multiple approaches to find one's poetic voice depending on the lens one chooses as a part of the author’s creative process.
“My ability to be creatively vulnerable with my mental illness as well as the experiences which contributed to it will serve as a method of self-healing.”
I introduce artistic autoethnography and how the term a/r/tifact opens up the imagination to the possibilities of autoethnographic artmaking.
Diane Riggins·
All ContentAutoethnographic EssaysAutoethnographic WritingReflections on MethodVolume 1, Issue 2 (2021)
··5 min read"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."
Shanita Mitchell and Marlen Harrison·
All ContentAutoethnographic Art & MultimediaMorePodcastsReflections on MethodVolume 3, Issue 2 (2023)
··18 min readToday we're talking with the award-winning author, researcher, and performer, Shanita Mitchell about performance and autoethnography.
J.E. Sumerau·
All ContentAutoethnographic EssaysCelebrating Dr. Patricia Leavy's Social Fiction 2024Special Issues
··16 min readGratitude is a recurring theme I hear from readers of Patricia Leavy’s social fiction. This is an essay about Patricia Leavy novels.
“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.
"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."
NEWS, INTERVIEWS & REVIEWS
"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)."
In The AutoEthnographer’s latest podcast, Marlen Harrison talks with Sandra Faulkner about collage and visual poetry.
How do creatives find joy in artistic performance as a form of black feminist autoethnography? Podcast & video.
SPECIAL ISSUES
EDUCATION, INTERVIEWS, PODCASTS, & REVIEWS
REFLECTIONS ON METHOD



















































































































