Autoethnography March 19, 2008

             I have never heard the term “autoethnography” before I entered into Marlen’s class, so when I was told to write a blog about it, I had no clue whatsoever as to what I was going to write about.  I began my search where many college students would: google.com. J I was looking for what the definition of an autoethnography really was.  Holt described in his article that an autoethnography is “a genre of writing and research that connects the personal to the cultural” (Holt).  As I read on in the article, it came to me that autoethnographies are storties which contain a lot of emotion and passion that is instilled in the writer’s soul.

            In “The Ethnographic I” the writer explains that an autoethnography is a form of ethnography that overlaps art and science.  It is part auto (self-as in autobiography) and part ethno (culture-as in ethnography) (Ellis).  Bennet described an autoethnography as many different things, including: the description of a conflict and cultures, an attempt to see self as others might, and an opportunity to explain differences from the inside.  From the research I have done on autoethnographies It seems to me that they cover a wide range of writing, but all have to do with ones personal self and the way that they are part of the world, both physically and mentally.

 I think that writing my paper is not only going to help me learn more about myself and my writing, but also teach me about my culture and the world that I live in today.  I am kind of anxious to create a piece of writing which incorporates both my feelings and personal being, along with the way that I fit into today’s society and the culture that I belong to. I sometimes feel as though I don’t even know much about the culture that I am a part of, so if I incorporate the culture part of an autoethnography I will be able to learn more about myself through learning about the culture of which I am grouped into.

Works Cited

 

Bennett, Susan. “The Way of the Program.” Susan Bennett on Autoethnography. 01 July 2004. Humbolt State University. 18 Mar 2008 <http://www.humboldt.edu/~cpf/autoethnography.html>.

Ellis, Carolyn. The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography . AltaMira Press, 2004.

Holt, Nicholas. “Representation, legitimation, and autoethnography: An autoethnographic writing story.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 2.1 2003 17 MAR 2008 <http://www.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/backissues/>.