Ron Chenail, Sally St. George, Maureen Duffy, Robin Cooper, marcela polanco, Kenneth Carano, and TBD The Qualitative Report Fifth Annual Conference Qualitative Research Artistry and Craft Nova Southeastern University Fort Lauderdale, Florida USA January 18, 2014

Auto – personal experience Ethno – cultural experience Graphy – analyzing and writing experience (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011, ¶ 1)

…a form of self-narrative that places the self within a social context (Reed-Danahay, 1997, p. 9) …retrospectively and selectively write about epiphanies that stem from, or are made possible by, being part of a culture and/or possessing a particular cultural identity (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011, ¶ 8)

…a research method that utilizes the researchers autobiographical data to analyze and interpret their cultural assumptions (Chang, 2008, p. 9) …seeks to address that muddled idiosyncratic, florid eccentricities that make us unique as opposed to part of a population (Muncey, 2010, p. xi)

Methodology Product / Performance Intervention

Ethnography Culture Other Objectivity Autobiography Narrative Self Subjective

Native ethnography: Studying ones own group Ethnographic autobiography or Native autobiography: Ones life story has ethnographic interest Ethnography becoming more biographical Autobiography becoming more reflective of societal and cultural frames of reference (Reed-Danahay, 1997, pp. 8-9)

Biographical – Ethnographic Self-Narrative – Culture Insider – Outsider Objective – Subjective Personal memory data – Field data (observations, interviews, and artifacts) Artistic – Scientific

Individual / Collaborative Evocative / Interpretive / Performance / Critical Analytic

Back and forth autoethnographers gaze, first through an ethnographic wide-angle lens, focusing outward on social and cultural aspects of their personal experience; then they look inward, exposing a vulnerable self that is moved by and may move through, refract, and resist cultural interpretations. (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 739)

As they zoom backward and forward, inward and outward, distinctions between the personal and cultural become blurred, sometimes beyond recognition. (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 739) The goal is to enter and document the moment-to- moment, concrete details of a life. Thats an important way of knowing as well. (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 737)

Start with your personal life Pay attention to your physical feelings, thoughts, and emotions Employ systematic sociological introspection and emotional recall to understand your experience Explore your particular life to understand a way of life (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 737)

Alternative to Evocative or Emotional Autoethnography Realist and Analytic Ethnographic Paradigm Traditional Symbolic Interactionism Self-related Ethnographic Study (Anderson, 2005, p. 375)

Complete Member Researcher (CMR) Status in the Research Group or Setting Analytic Reflexivity Narrative Visibility of the Researchers Self Dialogue with Informants Beyond the Self Commitment to Theoretical Analysis Focused on Improving Theoretical Understandings of Broader Social Phenomenon (Anderson, 2005, pp. 375, 378)

Personal memory data Epiphanies Self-observations Self-reflections External data Interviews Artifacts Literature

Prose Poetry Visual Music Plays Dance Stand-up

Reliability – Credibility Validity – Verisimilitude Generalizability – Reader Response (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011, ¶ 32-35)

Memory Privacy, Confidentiality, and IRBs (Chang, 2008, pp ) Relational ethics (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011, ¶ 28-31) Narrative responsibilities Privilege Media Violence (Muncey, 2010, p. 105)

Authors Reviewers Editors Students Faculty

Person: Who is writing the autoethnography? Populace: What is the social group to which the person is identifying? Position: What is the persons relationship to the populace?

Problem: What is the challenge experienced by the person/populace? Purpose: Why is the person writing the autoethnography? Perspective: What is the persons lens?

Plan: How was the autoethnography created? Product: What is the autoethnography? Praxis: What are the implications of the inquiry?

I've never seen a diamond in the flesh I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies And I'm not proud of my address In the torn up town, no post code envy But every song's like: Gold teeth Grey Goose Tripping in the bathroom Bloodstains Ball gowns Trashing the hotel room We don't care, we're driving Cadillacs in our dreams

But everybody's like: Crystal Maybach Diamonds on your timepiece Jet planes Islands Tigers on a gold leash We don't care, we aren't caught up in your love affair And we'll never be royals (royals) It don't run in our blood That kind of lux just ain't for us, we crave a different kind of buzz Let me be your ruler (ruler) You can call me queen bee And baby I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule Let me live that fantasy

My friends and I we've cracked the code We count our dollars on the train to the party And everyone who knows us knows That we're fine with this, we didn't come from money But every song's like: Gold teeth Grey Goose Tripping in the bathroom Bloodstains Ball gowns Trashing the hotel room We don't care, we're driving Cadillacs in our dreams

But everybody's like: Crystal Maybach Diamonds on your timepiece Jet planes Islands Tigers on a gold leash We don't care, we aren't caught up in your love affair And we'll never be royals (royals) It don't run in our blood That kind of lux just ain't for us, we crave a different kind of buzz Let me be your ruler (ruler) You can call me queen bee And baby I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule Let me live that fantasy

ooh ooh oh ooh We're better than we've every dreamed And I'm in love with being queen ooh ooh oh ooh Life is great without a care We aren't caught up in your love affair And we'll never be royals (royals) It don't run in our blood That kind of lux just ain't for us, we crave a different kind of buzz Let me be your ruler (ruler) You can call me queen bee And baby I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule Let me live that fantasy Songwriters: Little, Joel / Yelich-O'Connor, Ella Published by © EMI Music Publishing

Person Populace Position Problem Purpose Perspective Plan Product Praxis

Anderson, L. (2006). Analytic autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4), Chang, H. (2008). Autoethnography as method. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast. Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2010). Autoethnography: An overview. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1), Art. 10, resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs http://nbn- resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs

Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. P. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp ). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Muncey, T. (2012). Creating autoethnographies. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Reed-Danahay, D. (1997). Introduction. In D. Reed- Danahay (Ed.), Auto/ethnography: Rewriting the self and the social (pp. 1-17). Oxford, UK: Berg.

Ron Chenail, PhD The Qualitative Report Nova Southeastern University Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences 3301 College Avenue Fort Lauderdale, Florida USA Phone: