ABSTRACT

This chapter traces the influence of ethnography across the genre of American literary journalism. In particular, it provides a comparison of American literary journalism and autoethnography as two relatively young fields that emerged predominantly in the United States and whose works feature a number of similarities with respect to goals, form, and style. This chapter examines the shared journalistic roots of both fields, providing a brief history of the work of Robert E. Park and the Chicago School of ethnography before comparing common critiques levelled against practitioners in both fields: that their work is too subjective to be considered meaningful research, that they are not adequately transparent about their methodological and narrative choices, and that they fail to obtain informed consent from all of their subjects. The chapter concludes by arguing that it is because autoethnography scholars have made serious attempts to engage with and respond to these critiques that their field has grown and become so popular, and that literary journalism scholars should do the same to expand and further establish their own field of study.