ABSTRACT

Awards

2023 H.L. “Bud” Goodall, Jr. and Nick Trujillo “It’s a Way of Life” Award in Narrative Ethnography from the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry.

“Meditations on the Story I Cannot Write: Reflexivity, Autoethnography, and the Possibilities of Maybe,” received the 2023 National Communication Association's Ethnography Division Best Book Chapter Award.

The second edition of the award-winning Handbook of Autoethnography is a thematically organized volume that contextualizes contemporary practices of autoethnography and examines how the field has developed since the publication of the first edition in 2013. Throughout, contributors identify key autoethnographic themes and commitments and offer examples of diverse, thoughtful, effective, applied, and innovative autoethnography.

The second edition is organized into five sections:

  • In Section 1, Doing Autoethnography, contributors explore definitions of autoethnography, identify and demonstrate key features of autoethnography, and engage philosophical, relational, cultural, and ethical foundations of autoethnographic practice.

  • In Section 2, Representing Autoethnography, contributors discuss forms and techniques for the process and craft of creating autoethnographic projects, using various media in/as autoethnography, and marking and making visible particular identities, knowledges, and voices.

  • In Section 3, Teaching, Evaluating, and Publishing Autoethnography, contributors focus on supporting and supervising autoethnographic projects. They also offer perspectives on publishing and evaluating autoethnography.

  • In Section 4, Challenges and Futures of Autoethnography, contributors consider contemporary challenges for autoethnography, including understanding autoethnography as a feminist, posthumanist, and decolonialist practice, as well as a method for studying texts, translations, and traumas.

  • The volume concludes with Section 5, Autoethnographic Exemplars, a collection of sixteen classic and contemporary texts that can serve as models of autoethnographic scholarship.

With contributions from more than 50 authors representing more than a dozen disciplines and writing from various locations around the world, the handbook develops, refines, and expands autoethnographic inquiry and qualitative research. This text will be a primary resource for novice and advanced researchers alike in a wide range of social science disciplines.

chapter |19 pages

Introduction

Making Sense and Taking Action: Creating a Caring Community of Autoethnographers

part Section 1|93 pages

Doing Autoethnography

chapter |5 pages

Section Introduction

Doing Autoethnography

chapter Chapter one|12 pages

Meditations on the Story I Cannot Write

Reflexivity, Autoethnography, and the Possibilities of Maybe

chapter Chapter two|11 pages

Sketching Subjectivities

chapter Chapter four|12 pages

Autoethnography as Acts of Love

chapter Chapter five|10 pages

Frank and the Gift, or the Untold Told

Provocations for Autoethnography and Therapy*

chapter Chapter six|11 pages

Border Smugglers

Betweener Bodies Making Knowledge and Expanding the Circle of Us

chapter Chapter seven|13 pages

Self and Others

Ethics in Autoethnographic Research

part Section 2|93 pages

Representing Autoethnography

chapter |4 pages

Section Introduction

Nepantleric Traveling: Writing and Reading Autoethnographies as a Mode of Inquiry

chapter Chapter eight|12 pages

Writing Autoethnography

The Personal, Poetic, and Performative as Compositional Strategies

chapter Chapter nine|13 pages

Artistic Autoethnography

Exploring the Interface Between Autoethnography and Artistic Research

chapter Chapter ten|7 pages

How Intersectional Autoethnography Saved My Life

A Plea for Intersectional Inquiry

chapter Chapter eleven|11 pages

Collaborative Autoethnography

From Rhythm and Harmony to Shared Stories and Truths

chapter Chapter twelve|12 pages

The Matter of Performative Autoethnography

chapter Chapter fourteen|19 pages

Doing Digital and Visual Autoethnography

part Section 3|79 pages

Teaching, Evaluating, and Publishing Autoethnography

chapter |3 pages

Section Introduction

Purposes, Perspectives, and Possibilities: Enlivening Debates about Autoethnography

chapter Chapter sixteen|11 pages

Embracing Autoethnographic Anxiety

The Joyous Potential of Teaching and Advising Relationships

chapter Chapter seventeen|8 pages

Thinking Through Rejection

Reflections on Writing and Publishing Autoethnography

chapter Chapter eighteen|13 pages

Publishing Autoethnography

A Thrice-Told Tale

chapter Chapter nineteen|14 pages

When Judgment Calls

Making Sense of Criteria for Evaluating Different Forms of Autoethnography

chapter Chapter twenty|11 pages

Failing Autoethnography

part Section 4|78 pages

Challenges and Futures of Autoethnography

chapter |3 pages

Section Introduction

Challenges and Futures of Autoethnography

chapter Chapter twenty one|8 pages

Translation and Tango

Decolonizing Autoethnography

chapter Chapter twenty three|10 pages

Autoethnography Crosses Cultural Borders

chapter Chapter twenty four|8 pages

Textual Experience

A Relational Reading of Culture

chapter Chapter twenty five|13 pages

Writing Feminist Autoethnography

A Memo/ry to the Personal-Is-Political

chapter Chapter twenty six|12 pages

Girl, Disrupted

Trauma, Narrative Disruptions, and Autoethnography

chapter Chapter twenty seven|12 pages

Posthumanist Autoethnography

part Section 5|160 pages

Autoethnographic Exemplars

chapter |5 pages

Section Introduction

Poking Around the Neighborhood: Autoethnography and the Search for …

chapter Chapter twenty nine|8 pages

Risk and Reward in Autoethnography

Revisiting “Chronicling an Academic Depression”

chapter Chapter thirty|10 pages

On Evocative Autoethnography

Talking Over Bird on the Wire

chapter Chapter thirty two|9 pages

I AM (Still) an Angry Black Woman

Black Feminist Autoethnography, Voice, and Resistance

chapter Chapter thirty three|10 pages

Staying I(ra)n

Negotiating Queer Identity Through Narrative Trespass From Within the Iranian American Closet

chapter Chapter thirty four|12 pages

Revisiting “Body and Bulimia Revisited“

chapter Chapter thirty five|8 pages

That Baby Will Cost You (REDUX)

The Story of an Intended Ambivalent Pregnancy (and Motherhood)

chapter Chapter thirty eight|10 pages

The American Dental Dream

Sinking My Teeth Back In 1

chapter Chapter forty|12 pages

Researching the Taboo

Reflections on an Ethno-Autography

chapter Chapter forty one|8 pages

Using “Auto-Ethnography” to Write About Racism

chapter Chapter forty two|8 pages

Walk, Walking, Talking Home

chapter Chapter forty three|6 pages

An Autoethnography of What Happens