ABSTRACT
This chapter is an exploration of autoethnography as research methodology, practice and representational form, and explores the questions around the politics of writing self in contemporary research. Autoethnography has served as an interdisciplinary form that has been widely used in the humanities and health sciences, from creative writing to nursing, from songwriting to archaeology, from social work to data management and accounting. Why has autoethnography become such a popular form of research methodology in the past two decades? This chapter attempts to unpack the place of autoethnography in contemporary research practice in a world that still grapples with the notion of difference, representations, and relations of power. The question isn’t about who can use autoethnography as a research tool, but the question of why and how. This chapter provides an opportunity to share what I have learnt and some of my own experiences in using autoethnography as a craft and as a research methodology, where lived experience is centred as expertise, and is given the primacy of voice.
