Autoethnography

Within the realm of qualitative research designs, ethnographies are a group of strategies that are used to study a cultural group or event in a natural setting. The typical and primary means of data collection are observation and interview. The methodology is typically flexible with the goal of understanding a complex social phenomenon in an authentic setting. In this way, the observation typically takes place in the field under the most natural conditions. Interviews are conducted and observations made that revolve around the lived experiences of the participants.

The flexibility of this framework allows for many variations. One of these variations is autoethnography. It should be noted, however, that this flexibility is not license to abandon strict research rigor. Autoethnography, like many other qualitative research methods, follows a hermeneutic methodology, relying on all forms of communication, including verbal and nonverbal forms, and can include other components that affect communication, such as presuppositions and personal meanings based on past experiences of the participants. In this sense, autoethnographies follow a constructivist view and a relativist ontology.

[Page 49]The first references to autoethnography come from at least two sources. Karl Heider used the term in 1975 to describe an interaction that he had with schoolchildren of the Dani Valley, Indonesia. He simply asked these children the question, “What do people do?” In this sense, he was able to create an ethnographic narrative based on the views of the participants. In a later account, David Hayano described research by anthropologists where they studied their own people. Thus, autoethnographies have been described in two different ways: (1) as an intensive participant observation study taking place in the field and (2) when a member of a group or interaction studies his or her own group or an activity he or she is participating in. Hayano further described autoethnography as not being a specific technique, model, or method but rather a group of methods and techniques used for field research in familiar, everyday settings. Thus, autoethnographies have the advantage of being written by a person who is familiar with the customs and habits of his or her own people.

Since the 1990s, autoethnographies have been documented in at least two different tracks: (1) an autobiography that has ethnographic interest or intent—that is, an ethnography that is produced by someone who was in the social context that produced it, or (2) ethnographies that are completed by a member of the specific group under investigation.

In this way, the purpose of an autoethnography is to consider what is important to the researcher himself or herself. It offers a methodology that gets at the inner feelings and interpretations of someone involved in the phenomenon being studied. In this way, the researcher becomes a part of the study itself, which can open itself to interpretations and findings that cannot be considered by those who are “outsiders” to the group or phenomenon being studied. This cannot be accomplished through other methodologies within a qualitative paradigm. Thus, the researcher is providing an “insider's” account of what is being studied.

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