POPULAR ARTICLES
autoethnographer: one who uses lived experience as evidence with which to explore cultural phenomena.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
"Censorship via banned books is an attempt to censor the future but the youth of today will not allow their voices to be silenced."
"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."
“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.
David Heineman·
All ContentAutoethnographic Art & MultimediaClimate Change Special Issue, 2022Special IssuesVolume 2, Issue 3 (2022)
··2 min read"The Pandemic Nature Project is a 35-minute short autoethnographic film that traces a series of personal experiences, emotional reactions, and critical responses to COVID across a series of short vignettes."
"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."
Terry Graff·
All ContentAutoethnographic Art & MultimediaAutoethnographic EssaysAutoethnographic WritingClimate Change Special Issue, 2022Special Issues
··15 min read"As the world’s bird populations decline precipitously, will the many winged creatures we knew as children live only in the mists of memory?"
Richard Stimac·
All ContentAutoethnodramaAutoethnographic Literary FictionBodily Autonomy Special Issue, 2022-23Special Issues
··23 min read"In this autoethnodrama, a woman terminates a pregnancy without telling her husband."
"As a New Age Sage or “Saxion”, it’s important to understand that to move things forward I must accept a challenge - to reinvent myself."
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."
"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."
“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...
In this new issue, we introduce our podcasts, our first spoken word and sung performances, and continue our coverage of evocative creative expression.
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
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.
"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."
"This autoethnographic essay explores in a (hopefully) creative way ideas about social class in relation to my own negotiations of identity and upbringing in eastern Sydney, Australia."
AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC MULTIMEDIA
"Dr. Nadine Khair discusses why autoethnography is essential to successful businesses in this latest podcast."
The focus of this piece is to highlight and celebrate the asexual and aromantic community and what it means to exist outside of the expectation to be partnered.
In The AutoEthnographer’s latest podcast, Marlen Harrison talks with Sandra Faulkner about collage and visual poetry.
Military culture includes a rich collection of symbols, beliefs, values, language, dress, behaviors, relationships, and work.
"I tend to take every loss of rainforest personally. My autoethnographic poetry 'The Threat' and 'John Doe' are reflective of this."
"Once I have the first line or two, the rest of the poem seems to flow rather easily. I write whatever comes to mind. Somewhat like a story rather than a poem. I then start to take out the excess words and phrases and pare it down to the essence of what I wish to say. Other times I do not change a word. The muses come and go on their own. I also believe poetry has chosen me."
"It is my hope that these words will serve as the beginning of an ongoing dialogue about what it means to live autoethnography."
Laurel Richardson and U. Melissa Anyiwo·
All ContentAutoethnographic EssaysCelebrating Dr. Patricia Leavy's Social Fiction 2024MoreReflections on MethodSpecial Issues
··14 min readLaurel Richardson and U. Melissa Anyiwo writes the introduction to this special issue celebrating Dr. Patricia Leavy’s work.
Dilek Isler Hayirli·
All ContentAutoethnographic Art & MultimediaEducationFrom the EditorsMoreReflections on MethodVolume 2, Issue 3 (2022)
··13 min read"I had not been aware that this emotional research was also performing autoethnography, collecting memories from the field"
"Ongoing horrific events painstakingly filled my mind when I submerged into Dante’s Commedia Divina. Our tragedy with nature revealed itself to me in its deepest form."
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.
Patricia Leavy·
All ContentAutoethnographic EssaysCelebrating Dr. Patricia Leavy's Social Fiction 2024Special Issues
··30 min readIn Part One, I situated my work within the context of the work of writers. Now, I’m situating my work within the context of women writers.
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."
Marlen Harrison·
All ContentAutoethnographic Art & MultimediaClimate Change Special Issue, 2022InterviewsMorePodcastsSpecial Issues
··15 min read"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."
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.
SPECIAL ISSUES
EDUCATION, INTERVIEWS, PODCASTS, & REVIEWS
REFLECTIONS ON METHOD
