autoethnographer: one who uses lived experience as evidence with which to explore cultural phenomena.
Eternal Glow: Black Womanhood’s Story Of Love And Resilience Author’s Memo These...
Book Review: Revealing the Mantra of Trauma Author’s Memo This review of...
An empowered inner authenticity that supersedes the pressures faced by twenty-first century generations - striving for an unattainable false perfect ‘self’.
My Body Is a Suitcase: An Autoethnographic Exploration of Links between Childhood...
Hard Water: An Autoethnography of American Rust is concerned with the spatial formations of capitalism and the psychology of class hegemony.
“blackwomanatwork” came out of my experiences working in academia as a first-generation immigrant black woman from the Caribbean.
It is a reckoning on sisters and queers after themes of family violence, sibling disconnection and queer isolation emerge.
In this four-part series, I’ll take you back through my journey from the beginning. To explore how the conditioning of the Western environment I was born into served in disconnecting me from my own inner authenticity.
We address how to fragment and unite in this autoethnographic study, which we developed over the Messenger App. It utilises poetry and collage around death, loneliness, postmodern culture, and the latter’s related oppressive discourses and language, and alienation.
"Armored Corps: The spirit of combativeness and human resilience" is the theme of a graphic narrative project.
Syrian Identity and Academic Self: Emerging Research or Ruthless Methodology seeks to illuminate a personal reflection that sparked a unique line of inquiry, ultimately leading to an innovative exploration within my research project.
I channel Kincaid’s ironic and critical tone, while atoning for my failures to recognize dominant racist and classist discourses.
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
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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"
Leavy is more than the mother of the social fiction movement in the social sciences; she’s its fairy godmother.
As a feminist poet and (auto)ethnographer, I found Leavy's themes of Film Blue speak to what I want my work to do and be.
There’s also a larger goal underscoring my work. I aim to create a philosophy of the arts and a philosophy of love.
In this essay, the current reality of queerness is juxtaposed against milestones in my own life as a queer man in America.
This is a humorous narrative nonfiction account of the strangest job I ever had working for a kooky fitness guru in Manhattan for six years.
I explore the intersection of queer identity and popular culture through the lens of my adolescent crush on rock legend Tina Turner.
"Give Me a Strawberry Cockroach" is the first article in our 2023 special issue on laughter and tells a story of Japanese language learning and performance.
is an essay about the way technology can intrude and obscure what may be our most important human experiences
What this essay tries to capture is both the wonder and the inherent horror in potty training.
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.
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.
My essay tells my life story in relation to a specific moment in the history of American women’s access to abortion and reproductive justice.
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.
"I tend to take every loss of rainforest personally. My autoethnographic poetry 'The Threat' and 'John Doe' are reflective of this."
“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.
"This autoethnographic poem resembles a wave: coming, going, history, hereafter...an endless exchange."
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC WRITING
This piece is a creative reflection which emerged out of the auto-ethnographic reflections from my PhD around research extraction.
"The words we use and how we say them are much more than sounds, they tell a story that gives us away, revealing a history about and behind us, a place and a people that we have come from."
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
In The AutoEthnographer’s latest podcast, Marlen Harrison talks with Sandra Faulkner about collage and visual poetry.
"Dr. Nadine Khair discusses why autoethnography is essential to successful businesses in this latest podcast."
"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."
We address how to fragment and unite in this autoethnographic study, which we developed over the Messenger App. It utilises poetry and collage around death, loneliness, postmodern culture, and the latter’s related oppressive discourses and language, and alienation.
This is a song for the Passover prophet as a critique on his inability during the Covid-19 pandemic to appear and provide solace and safety.
"Combining autoethnography and artwork, Supreme Justice aims to reveal the persistence of institutionalized oppression of women through history."
IAANI AWARD WINNER
“A Seat at the Table” is the autoethnographic manifestation of my vulnerability, anger, and anguish, of my black feminist grit."
Get updates about The AutoEthnographer direct to your inbox!
Sign up for our seasonal newsletter, only four times a year.
Get updates about The AutoEthnographer direct to your inbox!
Sign up for our seasonal newsletter, only four times a year.
Hard Water: An Autoethnography of American Rust is concerned with the spatial formations of capitalism and the psychology of class hegemony.
"This poem is rumination on how the personal experience of volunteering in never-before-seen flood relief efforts in the remote north reinforces the research that 'many of the changes observed in the climate are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years.'"
As two authors/playwrights exploring this small island on the East Coast of Canada, we write to share our own experiences and perspectives.
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"
"One way to reach broader audiences is to embrace creative nonfiction and use storytelling as academic writing."
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.
In The AutoEthnographer’s latest podcast, Marlen Harrison talks with Sandra Faulkner about collage and visual poetry.
Get updates about The AutoEthnographer direct to your inbox!
Sign up for our seasonal newsletter, only four times a year.
NEWS, INTERVIEWS & REVIEWS
"Autoethnography and culture: Embodied inquiry is not a formula, or methodology, but a way of being, being open to the body as a source of knowledge, wonder, difficulty, fragility and utter joy."
Leavy’s Writing and Publishing Qualitative Research is a comprehensive guide that navigates the intricate landscape of qualitative research from the writing phase to publishing.
"Editor Guillermo Gil reviews Renata Harden Ferdinand's An Autoethnography of African American Motherhood: Things I Tell my Daughter."
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
Visitation, an Autoethnodrama in One Act
In this autoethnographic play, a woman terminates a pregnancy without telling her husband.