What is Autoethnography?

Critical autoethnography briefly

Researchers are usually familiar with the term “ethnography”, which is a research approach that examines culture through being there. Ethnographers typically embed themselves in settings and observe what is going on. They get to know participants over extended periods of time, use interviews to understand participants’ perspectives about their lives and cultures, and perhaps collect and analyze archival data and artifacts. Some researches make use of video and still images as well. Anthropologists (Geertz, 1973, 2000), sociologists (Desmond, 2016; Duneier, 1999; Goffman, 2014), and researchers across disciplines (Ho, 2009; Pollock, 2004; Whyte, 1993 [1943]) have used ethnography as an approach to examine numerous cultural contexts. So what then, is autoethnography?

Autoethnography is typically defined as an approach to research that puts the self at the center of cultural analysis. Chang (2008) asserts that autoethnography “transcends mere narration of self to engage in cultural analysis and interpretation” (p. 43). She…

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