ABSTRACT
For as long as autoethnography has existed, some scholars have promoted this method as profoundly ethical, instructive, and even transformational scholarship (e.g., Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Spry, 2001). Others have denied its power and potential, pointing to selected practices or exemplars as self-indulgent, overly subjective, or without scholarly merit (Atkinson, 2006; Walford, 2004). Published debates about autoethnography’s merits in journals and edited volumes are augmented with insightful and divergent conference presentations, lively discussions in graduate seminars, and, of course, passionate rants at the pub or coffee shop. The dissents about which autoethnographic works should be published and in which journals or other venues, win awards, and be taught as part of (inter)disciplinary canons remain contentious, and whether or not autoethnography is taught in methods courses of undergraduate and graduate programs generates ongoing disagreements as well.
