About autoethnography & duoethnography Prof. Lily Díaz-Kommonen Department of Media, Aalto University 02.02.2017

AUTOETHNOGRAPHY Is an approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyze personal experience in order to understand cultural experience. Challenges canonical ways of doing research and representing others and treats research as a political, socially-just and socially-conscious act. A researcher uses tenets of autobiography and ethnography to do and write autoethnography. Ellis, C. Adams, T.E., Bochner, A.P. 2011. “Autoethnography: An Overview”, Qualitative Social Research, Vol. 12, No. 1

AUTOETHNOGRAPHY The process involves a retroactive selection and writing of past experiences. These experiences are assembled using hindsight. Autoethnographer can use make use of interviews with others. Or consult texts, photographs, journals (e.g. artifacts). Experience is something that is constituted socially through discourse and performance. Person is a cultural creation. “[Lived experience] …does not have an ontological reality independent of language and interaction… Individuals do not have experiences, rather subjects are constituted through experience.” (Scott in Denzin, page 41.) Also, “language and speech do not mirror experience; rather they create representations of experience.” (Denzin 37. Ellis, C. Adams, T.E., Bochner, A.P. 2011. “Autoethnography: An Overview”, Qualitative Social Research, Vol. 12, No. 1. Denzin, N.K. 2014. Interpretive Autoethnography, Qualitative Research Methods, Vol. 17, Los Angeles: Sage Publications Inc.

AUTOETHNOGRAPHY – Epiphanies Interactional moments perceived to have significance and impact in a person’s life. Alter the fundamental structures in a persons life Occur at the liminal or threshold moment of experience. Stem from, or are made possible by being part of a culture or possessing a cultural identity Denzin, N.K. 2014. Interpretive Autoethnography, Qualitative Research Methods, Vol. 17, Los Angeles: Sage Publications Inc.

AUTOETHNOGRAPHY – Epiphanies Denzine described four types: Major event Cumulative or representative event Minor or illuminative epiphany Relived epiphany. Major event: Touches every fabric of a person’s life Cumulative or representative: Eruptions or reactions to experiences that have been going on for a long time. Minor illuminative experience: Represents a major problematic moment in a relationship or a person’s life. Relived epiphany: Repetition of a previous moment. Denzin, N.K. 2014. Interpretive Autoethnography, Qualitative Research Methods, Vol. 17, Los Angeles: Sage Publications Inc.

AUTOETHNOGRAPHY – DUOETHNOGRAPHY Consideration should be taken to investigate how others might experience similar epiphanies. In doing so we open up new performance space (Third space) where self is not a topic but a research site. Framework of investigation where life’s history is seen as a curriculum. Involves the tracking of construction of one’s beliefs. Enables exposure and analysis of personal and societal epistemologies and how they come to be. 2. An active subject of study not simply someone who is studied. 3. Identity and self as nonlinear, contradictory, emergent, and open to uncertainty and change. 4. Views presented are encouraged to be contrasting, not similar. Place-based meanings including geographical narratives and stories about evolving culture are considered part of the inquiry. 5. Difference as heurism, juxtaposition of narratives of difference. Ellis, C. Adams, T.E., Bochner, A.P. 2011. “Autoethnography: An Overview”, Qualitative Social Research, Vol. 12, No. 1

DUOETHNOGRAPHY Dialogues that create multi-voiced texts. Can be enacted in 1st or 3rd person point of view. Enable recursive critique and examination of the same data from different perspective. Afford critical collaboration through the research process Synergy of data collection (storytelling) and analysis (recursive critique) can be intertwined and be mutually supportive. Sawyer, Richard D., Norris, J. 2013. Duoethnography, Understanding Qualitative Research, Oxford University Press.

DUOETHNOGRAPHY – Family tragedy The image has acquired the yellow patina of time. Media archeology: They come from a time when the analog polaroid photograph popular. There is a date of October 1968. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EzY09FLBsc The well-dressed and seemingly happy couple pose in front of the now iconic build of the library of anthropology of the UNAM. The lower right hand corner image is taking from the perspective of the stadium floor. The moment of the lightning of the torch at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. On the lower left-hand corner the image shows the Puerto Rican delegation to the games. The man on the upper right hand corner photograph can now be seen standing on the third row, to the left. Upper left hand corner, at the Olympic Village. The couple stands closer to each other. A young woman on the right is standing slightly away from the couple. Who took the picture? The woman’s husband had been incarcerated during the recent incidents at Tlatelolco.