The Auto-
“The “auto-” of autoethnography relates to one-self, an author’s subjectivity, their lived experience. For manuscripts to do/use autoethnography, we expect the author to share and be self-reflexive about their decisions and experiences. We expect the author’s experience to be prioritized—used, reflected on, and theorized throughout a manuscript.” 1
The “auto-” must show the writers self-awareness of their own position and this must be made a priority within the writing. Self-reflexivity is an important tool in distinguishing something as an autoethnographic text. This is something which I am really interested in within my teaching practice, as self-reflexivity, self-criticality and self-awareness are key things to try and cultivate in students as they are very important skills for an artist. I think they are also key for being a compassionate and connected person and teacher.
“One aspect of the auto- that is missing from life chronology writing is the expression and the experience of emotion. As writers and researchers, we just don’t know things; we feel them. Good autoethnography does not downplay the fact that people are emotional beings.” 2
The key here is the writers focus on their experience of something specific, not a life chronology but a reflection from the author on an experience of an event or a research topic. This is something I always ask my students to do when writing about the work of another artist, please do not give me a biography or a Wikipedia entry but tell me your experience of what you are looking at. For me, accessing and showing this personal engagement with something sows much deeper learning for students.
The writer’s reflection upon their own experiences being one not as a bystander, but as an activated, engaged, ‘real-life’, three-dimensional person. The inclusion of the writer’s emotional response speaks to me of engaging with the subject matter in what I have been/am currently describing as an embodied way (more on this later in another blog post). This aspect of the auto is what first attracted me to auto-ethnography as it offers me the potential to align my pedagogical ideology (working and looking in an activated, embodied way) with my research and writing.
The Ethno-
“The primary goal of ethnographic research is to identify, and sometimes challenge, cultural expectations, beliefs, and practices, and then, via “thick description,”9 facilitate a nuanced understanding of these cultural phenomena.”3
The ethno- part is focused on an active engagement with the real world outside of the self. This can be an engagement with other people via interviews, it can be an engagement with other research texts or writing, film etc. Essentially an engagement with the field of research or topic of interest. Essentially it is what brings the inner back to the outer and is the connective tissues between our internal and external experiences.
The Graphy
“Auto-ethno-graphy is comprised of not one but two kinds of -graphy: the -graphy of autobio-graphy, the art of writing about one’s life; and the -graphy of ethno-graphy, the art and science of representing—producing a vivid and concrete, thick description—of cultural expectations, beliefs, and practices. Together, we have autoethnography, the art and science of representing one’s life in relation to cultural expectations, beliefs, and practices.” 4
The thick description is a term which interests me. I quite like it. It brings about my awareness of the weight of and layers of different experiences and information that we process in each engaged experience and action that we have with the world around us. For example, in teaching, in a tutorial, I would think of the thick description of that experience containing:
My own self and all the multitudes which that contains. I will be wearing my teaching self, but within that, contained could be my own experiences of teaching, my childhood, my experiences that day, my previous or perceived levels of connection and engagement with and of the student that I am working with. Meeting that is the experience of the student, containing all their own multitudes and levels of engagement with the me, with the subject matter and the work that they are making that day. And, perhaps in between that, is the institution or place that the lesson is being held in, and each of our feelings about that place, the stresses or joys that it makes us each feel. These are just a few of the things I think go into the action of a tutorial and when held up and looked at in this way, it does thicken and fill out the layers that go into each action and experience that we take.
“For this journal, an outlet that takes writing as a primary medium for representation, good ethnography requires good writing. Good autobiography requires good writing too. Autoethnography thus requires really good writing. Really good writing requires having a command of a specified language.” 5
This is probably a questionable point for me. The quote essentially argues that if you are careless or have a poor grasp of your medium then this makes for bad autoethnography. I find this difficult, as it feels elitist and limits those that can engage and participate with it. Perhaps this also chimes with one of the things I am concerned about when asking students to work in an embodied way – does this require or ask of them to have enough tacit knowledge and openness to work by looking rather than learning by reciting techniques.
“Finally, although the introduction-literature review-methods-findings-discussion-conclusion formula may be expected of many research reports, this sterile formula for writing up research isn’t conducive for doing good autoethnography.” 6
This is also an interesting and challenging position for autoethnography to take up but is one that seems in keeping with its general disposition of challenging norms. I think that the potential for dropping the above formula is a positive and perhaps mirrors my experience of life more. I do not believe that every experience I have had held a conclusion or finding hidden within it, so why must the writing we do contain this too…?
References
All quotes taken from and accessed on 15 October: Journal of Autoethnography, https://online.ucpress.edu/joae/article/4/1/1/195146/Good-Autoethnography