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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
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
"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."
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.
Vivian Wagner·
All ContentAutoethnographic Art & MultimediaAutoethnographic PoetryClimate Change Special Issue, 2022Special Issues
··8 min read“We noticed signs of climate change and felt a sense of impending doom, even as we witnessed how human beings across the continent are trying to keep alive a sense of culture, art, and kindness.”
"Everybody is a poet in the sense that everyone was/is making do—and making magic—with what they had/have."
In this work, I unpack how realizing my queerness has influenced how I write my poetry.
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.
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."
"'SEE ME, Windows to the Self of the Performer-Autoethnographer' explores the question, 'What can I learn about myself by making artwork as autoethnography'?
"It is my hope that these words will serve as the beginning of an ongoing dialogue about what it means to live autoethnography."
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.
"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.
NEWS, INTERVIEWS & REVIEWS
The Autoethnographer, an award-winning, non-profit, peer-reviewed, digital literary & arts magazine, invites you to submit your work.
"The AutoEthnographer is proud to announce that it has been selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in their collections!"
"Editor Guillermo Gil reviews Renata Harden Ferdinand's An Autoethnography of African American Motherhood: Things I Tell my Daughter."
SPECIAL ISSUES
EDUCATION, INTERVIEWS, PODCASTS, & REVIEWS
REFLECTIONS ON METHOD
