Autoethnography John A. Tetnowski, Blanco

Autoethnography John A. Tetnowski, Blanco Endowed Professor in Communicative Disorders, University of Louisiana-Lafayette & Jack S. Damico, Hawthorne Eminent Scholar in Communicative Disorders, University of Louisiana-Lafayette

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 of 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 the 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 impact communication, such as presuppositions and personal meanings based on past experiences of the participants. In this sense, authoethnographies follow a constructivist view and a relativist ontology. 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 school-children 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 upon the views of the participants. In a later account, Hayano (1979) described studies by anthropologists where they studied their own people. Thus, autoethnographies have been described in two various fashions: an intensive participant observation study taking place in the field and when a member of a group or interaction studies their own group or an activity they are 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, every day settings. Thus, autoethnographies have the advantage of being written by a person that is familiar with the inner features of one’s 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 that 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 themselves. 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 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 “insiders” account of what is being studied. Autoethnography has its roots in anthropological studies and has been used by field workers to gain personal reflections of the phenomenon that they were studying. Thus,

autoethnographies have the distinct advantage of the benefitting from the personal histories of those being studied. The researcher knows more about the rules, reactions and interpretations of the observations than one who is not familiar with those items. For example, a recent autoethnography examined the view of hunting (Presser & Taylor, 2011). In this autoethnography, the view of the “hunter” is developed and provides insights into issues related to personal views on “power” and “killing”. These views were expressed openly and interpreted by the hunter himself. Only a hunter would know this insider information. In the same autoethnography, the co-author and other participant, expressed her view on the subject of hunting from the perspective of a “non-hunter”. As the narrative is developed the authors were free to express their own feelings and interpretations. In this case the non-hunter expressed her negative view of hunting and the negative bias that she has for hunting. Only she could form this interpretation accurately. Within this narrative she was free to express her views and brought in her thoughts on hunting that relate to “power” and “killing”. The hunter also had the opportunity to express his view on hunting that included ideas like “getting away”, and “comradarie”, whereas the non-hunter was much more focused on the “killing” and “power” issues. The hunter’s “insider” meaning creates a more honest and authentic product and the give-and-take between participants allows for a more complete understanding of the phenomenon in question. In this case, the non-hunter is finally able to admit, that her role as a meat-eater is actually subsidizing the role of hunters and others that are involved in the killing of non-human animals. As noted earlier, autoethnographies are relatively new within the realm of ethnogphhic tools and approaches. One of the advantages of autoethnographies is that they can open the door for reflection on the emotional experiences of the participants because they are part of the interaction itself. In this way readers can reflect upon the emotional reactions of the participants

and this can lead to further investigation that can take place through either experimental paradigms or other qualitative methodologies. The key point is that autoethnographic research allows for the personal and authentic views of the participant that could not occur through other methodologies. The autoethnographic method allows for reflection of the researcher upon themselves and upon their own views. For this reason, autoethnographies have also been used to study some forms of clinical phenomenon. For example, Hinckley (2005) uses an autoethnographic methodology to study clinical interactions between herself (a speech-language pathologist that provides language rehabilitation for individuals that suffer from aphasia and other neurological disorders) and an actual aphasic client. In this autoethnographic study, the author is able to document her own frustrations with more traditional intervention strategies for aphasia that center on a medical model of treatment (such as naming objects or reading uninteresting sentences in a clinical setting). Furthermore, it allows for her (and her partner in therapy) to express the joy and success in implementing a more social model of intervention that allows for treatment in a more authentic setting and with a more authentic task (i.e., the person with aphasia teaching the therapist how to play the piano, the occupation of the person with aphasia). The insights and the documentation of success through the observations and interviews allow for outcome findings and success markers not available through more objective, medically-based models of intervention and research. In many ways, autoethnographies allow us to reveal more about ourselves than is typical. We often act “without thinking”. The autoethnographic view allows the researcher and other partcipants to reflect on what has occurred during the phenomenon in question. It allows for a view from an “insiders” perspective. This is somewhat of a meta-analysis of self; allowing for the researcher to examine their own views that can impact the findings and interpretations of

their research. As stated earlier, autoethnographies can be ethnographies that are completed by a member of the specific group under investigation. Examples of this have been used when studying migration patterns in ethnic minorities. In many of these cases, the migrating individual that was previously studied, becomes a key player and often an author themselves in autoethnographic studies. Specifically, the personal narratives of the immigrant, that express their past history, insider-knowledge and meaning allow for the most valid understanding of their own experience. A subset within this paradigm is what Anderson (2006) has referred to this as “analytic autoethnography”. In analytic autoethnography, theory is meshed with the ethnographic understanding of a social phenomenon with personal patterns of social interaction. Thus, autoethnographies can be used to build theory. In addition it allows researchers to get closer to the participants than any other method – that is because the participants are the researchers themselves. In summary, autoethnographies allow for an insider’s view of an event or phenomenon of which they were a part of. This can include a discussion, an interview, an event, a culture, or even a clinical interaction. The key ingredient is that the researcher is a part of that activity or culture that is under investigation. The distinct advantages of this method allows for documentation and interpretation of authentic feelings and emotions of the participants, as well as cultural views and morays of the culture being studied. This allows for a more personal view of the phenomenon under study. In this way, a clear purpose of an autoethnography can be clearly stated as “to share what is important to oneself”. The purpose of an autoethnography is to share what is or has become important to oneself, upon reflection.

References/Suggested Readings Anderson, L. (2006). Analytic autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35 (4), 373– 395. Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. (1994). Part II: Major paradigms and perspectives (pp. 99 - 104). In N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Kempny, M. (2012). Rethinking native anthropology: Migration and auto-ethnogrpahy in the post-accession Europe. International Review of Social Research, 2 (2), 39-52. Hayano, D.M. (1979). Autoethnography: Paradigms, problems and prospects. Human Organization, 38 (1), 99-104. Heider, K.G. (1975). “What do people do? Dani Auto-ethnography”. Journal of Anthropological Research, 31, 3 – 17. Hinckley, J.J. (2005). The piano lesson: An autoethnography about changing clinical paradigms in aphasia practice. Aphasiology, 19, (8), 765-770. Presser, L. & Taylor, W.V. (2011). An autoethnogrpahy of hunting. Crime, Law and Social Change, 55, 483 – 494. Reed-Danahay, D.E. (1997). Auto/ethnography: Rewriting the self and the social. Oxford: Berg. Richardson, L. (2001). Getting personal: Writing stories. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 14, 33 - 38.