The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography

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Rowman Altamira, 2004 - Education - 427 pages
A methodological textbook on autoethnography should be easily distinguishable from the standard methods text. Carolyn Ellis, the leading proponent of these methods, does not disappoint. She weaves both methodological advice and her own personal stories into an intriguing narrative about a fictional graduate course she instructs. In it, you learn about her students and their projects and understand the wide array of topics and strategies that fall under the label autoethnography. Through Ellis's interactions with her students, you are given useful strategies for conducting a study, including the need for introspection, the struggles of the budding ethnographic writer, the practical problems in explaining results of this method to outsiders, and the moral and ethical issues that get raised in this intimate form of research. Anyone who has taken or taught a course on ethnography will recognize these issues and appreciate Ellis's humanistic, personal, and literary approach toward incorporating them into her work. A methods text or a novel? The Ethnographic 'I' answers yes to both.--Publisher's description.
 

Contents

Introductions and Interruptions
1
The Call of Autoethnographic Stories
24
Autoethnography In Interview Research
58
Autoethnographic Projects Putting the Self into Research
86
Writing Field Notes Interviews and Stories Issues of Memory and Truth
112
Writing Therapeutically Vulnerably Evocatively and Ethically
130
Living Autoethnography Life Informs Work Informs Life
156
Writing as Inquiry
169
Autoethnographic Conversations about Autoethograpby
284
Writing a Methodological Novel Thinking Like an Ethnographer Writing Like a Novelist
330
Suggested Readings and Assignments tor an Autoethnography Class
351
Chart of Impressionist and Realist Ethnography
359
Guidelines lor Personal Writing Papers
365
Editing Personal Narratives
369
Notes
371
References
389

Arlful Auloelhnography
184
Autoethnographlc Forms of Writing
193
Final Projects
219
Evaluating and Publishing Autoethnography
249
Taking Autoethnographlc Research to a Domestic Abuse Shelter
269
Name Index
413
Subject Index
419
About the Author
427
Copyright

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About the author (2004)

Carolyn Ellis is professor of communication and sociology in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida. She is the author of Final Negotiations: A Story of Love, Loss, and Chronic Illness (1995) and coeditor (with Arthur Bochner) of Composing Ethnography: Alternative Forms of Qualitative Writing (1996), Ethnographically Speaking: Autoethnography, Literature, and Aesthetics (2002), and the AltaMira book series Ethnographic Alternatives.