ABSTRACT
In order to engage more directly with the experience of chaplaincy, this chapter explores auto-ethnographic texts to reflect on the particular activity of a chaplain. It focuses on a general discussion about the nature and suitability of ethnography as a tool for gaining greater understanding of the contemporary chaplain and explains some examples of auto-ethnography. This background discussion is linked with a consideration of the methodological approaches used by Michel Foucault. Ethnography arose within anthropology as a way to write so that the experience of indigenous communities could be successfully evoked within texts. One area that is worth considering in more detail is the application of ethnographic methods for research into religious practice. The chaplain also has to mediate the language of the hospital with the vocabulary of his faith community. The creation of a 'rolling-day' auto-ethnography and its postmodern analysis brings to the surface three basic issues about the role and operation of hospital chaplains.
