Editing Autoethnography (section)

==History==

=== Mid-1800s ===
Anthropologists began conducting [[Ethnography|ethnographic research]] in the mid-1800s to study the cultures people they deemed "exotic" and/or "primitive."<ref name=":24" />{{Rp|page=6}} Typically, these early ethnographers aimed to merely observe and write "objective" accounts of these groups to provide others a better understanding of various cultures.<ref name=":24" /><ref name=":28">{{Cite book |last=Denzin |first=Norman K. |url=https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412963909.n160 |title=The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods |publisher=SAGE |year=2008 |editor-last=Given |editor-first=Lisa M. |pages=311–318 |language=English |chapter=Evolution of Qualitative Research|doi=10.4135/9781412963909.n160 |isbn=9781412941631 }}</ref> They also "recognized and wrestled with questions of how to render textual accounts that would provide clear, accurate, rich descriptions of cultural practices of others"<ref name=":24" />{{Rp|page=7}} and "were concerned with offering valid, reliable, and objective interpretations in their writings."<ref name=":28" />{{Rp|page=312}}

=== Early- to mid-1900s ===
In the early to mid 1900s, it became clear that observation and fieldwork interfered with the cultural groups' natural and typical behaviors. Additionally, researchers realized the role they play in analyzing others' behaviors. As such, "serious questions arose about the possibility and legitimacy of offering purely objective accounts of cultural practices, traditions, symbols, meanings, premises, rituals, rules, and other social engagements."<ref name=":24" />{{Rp|page=7}}

To help combat potential issues of validity, ethnographers began using what [[Gilbert Ryle]] refers to as ''[[thick description]]'': a description of human social behavior in which the writer-researcher describes the behavior and provides "commentary on, context for, and interpretation of these behaviors into the text."<ref name=":24" />{{Rp|page=7}} By doing so, the researcher aims to "evoke a cultural scene vividly, in detail, and with care,"<ref name=":24" />{{Rp|page=7}} so readers can understand and attempt to interpret the scene for themselves, much like in more traditional research methods.<ref name=":24" />

A few ethnographers, especially those related to the [[Chicago school (sociology)|Chicago school]], began incorporating aspects of autoethnography into their work, such as narrated life histories.<ref name=":28" /><ref name=":7" /> While they created more lifelike representations of their subject than their predecessors, these researchers often "romanticized the subject" by creating narratives with "the three stages of the classic morality tale: being in a state of grace, being seduced by evil and falling from grace, and finally achieving redemption through suffering."<ref name=":28" />{{Rp|page=313}} Such researchers include Robert Parks, [[Nels Anderson]], [[Everett Hughes (sociologist)|Everett Hughes]], and Fred Davis.<ref name=":7" />

During this time period, new theoretical constructs, such as [[feminism]], began to emerge and with it, grew [[qualitative research]].<ref name=":28" /> However, researchers were trying to "fit the classical traditional model of [[Internal validity|internal]] and [[external validity]] to constructionist and interactionist conceptions of the research act."<ref name=":28" />{{Rp|page=314}}

=== 1970s ===
With the growth of [[qualitative research]] from the mid-1900s, "a few scholars were urging thicker descriptions, giving more attention to concrete details of everyday life, renouncing the ethics and artificiality of experimental studies, and complaining about the obscurity of jargon and technical language, ... but social scientists, for the most part, weren't all that concerned about the researcher's location in the text, the capacity of language to accurately represent reality, or the need for researcher reflexivity."<ref name=":7" />{{Rp|pages=47–48}}

The term ''autoethnography'' was first used in 1975, when Heider connected individuals' personal experiences to larger, cultural beliefs and traditions.<ref name=":29" /><ref name=":7" /> In Heider's case, the individual self referred to the people he was studying rather than himself. Because the people he studied were providing their personal accounts and experiences, Heider considered the work autoethnographic.<ref name=":29" /><ref name=":7" />

Later in the 1970s, researchers began more clearly stating their [[Perspectivism|positionality]] and indicating how their mere presence altered the behaviors of the groups they studied.<ref name=":24" /> Further, researchers distinguished between people who researched groups of which they were a part (i.e., cultural insiders) and those who researched groups of which they were not a part (i.e., cultural outsiders).<ref name=":25">{{Cite book |last1=Adams |first1=Tony E. |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781118901731 |title=The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods |last2=Ellis |first2=Carolyn |last3=Jones |first3=Stacy Holman |date=2017-04-24 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-90176-2 |editor-last=Matthes |editor-first=Jörg |edition=1 |language=en |chapter=Autoethnography |doi=10.1002/9781118901731.iecrm0011 |s2cid=240810131 |editor-last2=Davis |editor-first2=Christine S. |editor-last3=Potter |editor-first3=Robert F.}}</ref> At this point, the term ''autoethnography'' began to refer to forms of ethnography in which the researcher is a cultural insider.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":29">{{Cite journal |last=Heider |first=Karl G. |date=April 1975 |title=What Do People Do? Dani Auto-Ethnography |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/jar.31.1.3629504 |journal=Journal of Anthropological Research |language=en |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=3–17 |doi=10.1086/jar.31.1.3629504 |s2cid=163386726 |issn=0091-7710|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=":7" /><ref name=":25" />

[[Walter Goldschmidt]] proposed that all [[ethnography]] is, in some way, autobiographical, because "ethnographic representations privilege personal beliefs, perspectives, and observations."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Goldschmidt |first=Walter |date=June 1977 |title=Anthropology and the Coming Crisis: An Autoethnographic Appraisal |url=http://doi.wiley.com/10.1525/aa.1977.79.2.02a00060 |journal=American Anthropologist |language=en |volume=79 |issue=2 |pages=293–308 |doi=10.1525/aa.1977.79.2.02a00060 |issn=0002-7294|url-access=subscription }}</ref>{{Rp|page=294}} As an anthropologist, David Hayano was interested in the role that an individual's own identity had in their research.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":7" /> Unlike more traditional research methods, Hayano believed there was value in a researcher "conducting and writing ethnographies of their own people."<ref name=":6" />

While researchers recognized the part they played in understanding a group of people, none focused explicitly on the "inclusion and importance of personal experience in research."<ref name=":25" />

=== 1980s ===
More generally in the 1980s, researchers began questioning and critiquing the role of the researcher, especially in social sciences. Multiple researchers aimed to make "research and writing more reflexive and called into question the issues of gender, class, and race."<ref name=":28" />{{Rp|page=315}} As a result of these concerns, researchers purposefully inserted themselves as characters in the ethnographic narrative as a way of navigating the problem of researcher interference.<ref name=":24" /> Additionally, some of the predmoninant ways of understanding truth were eroded, and "[i]ssues such as validity, reliability, and objectivity ... were once again problematic. Pattern and interpretive theories, as opposed to causal linear theories, were now more common as writers continued to challenge older models of truth and meaning."<ref name=":28" />{{Rp|page=315}}

In addition to and perhaps because of the above, researchers became interested in the importance of culture and storytelling as they gradually became more engaged through the personal aspects in ethnographic practices.{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}}

In 1988, [[John Van Maanen]] noted three predominant ways ethnographers write about culture:

# ''Realist Tales'', in which the researcher uses a "dispassionate, third-person voice" and attempts to provide an "accurate" and "objective" account of the group studied without provider much researcher response<ref name=":26">{{Cite book |last=Van Maanen |first=John |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/676727572 |title=Tales of the field : on writing ethnography |date=2011 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-84964-5 |edition=2nd |location=Chicago |oclc=676727572}}</ref>{{Rp|page=45}}
# ''Confessional Tales'', which include the researchers' "highly personalized styles" and responses to the observed data<ref name=":26" />{{Rp|page=73}}
# ''Impressionist Tales'', in which the researcher uses first-person to craft a "tightly focused, vibrant, exact, but necessarily imaginative rendering of fieldwork"<ref name=":26" />{{Rp|page=102}}

At the end of the 1980s, scholars began to apply the term ''autoethnography'' to work that used confessional and impressionist forms as they recognized that "the richness of cultural lives and life practices of others cannot be fully captured or evoked in purely objective or descriptive language."<ref name=":24" />

=== 1990s to present ===
In the early- to mid-1990s, researchers aimed to address the concerns raised in the previous decades regarding questions of legitimacy and reliability of ethnographic approaches. One way to do that was to directly place oneself into the research narrative, noting the [[Perspectivism|positionality]] of the researcher. Here, the researcher could either insert themselves into the research narrative or increase participants' involvement in the research project, such as through [[participatory action research]].

Autoethnography became more popular in the 1990s for ethnographers who aimed to use "personal experience and reflexivity to examine cultural experiences."<ref name=":24" /> Series such as ''Ethnographic Alternatives'' and the first ''Handbook of Qualitative Research'' were published to better explain the importance of autoethnographic use, and key texts focused specifically on autoethnography were published, including [[Carolyn Ellis]]'s ''Investigating Subjectivity,'' ''Final Negotiations, The Ethnographic I,'' and ''Revision'', as well as [[Arthur P. Bochner|Art Bochner's]] ''Coming to Narrative''. In 2013, Tony Adams, Stacy Holman Jones, and [[Carolyn Ellis]] co-edited the first edition of the ''Handbook of Autoethnography.'' They published ''Autoethnography'' in 2015 and the second edition of the ''Handbook of Autoethnography'' in 2022. In 2020, Adams and Andrew Herrmann started the ''Journal of Autoethnography'' with the [[University of California Press]]. In 2021, Marlen Harrison started ''The Autoethnographer'', a Literary & Arts Magazine. In 2023, Tony Adams launched the Certificate in Autoethnography program at Bradley University. 

In the 2000s, major conferences began to regularly accept autoethnographic work, starting primarily with the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (2005).<ref name=":25" /> Other conferences that foreground autoethnographic research include the International Symposium on Autoethnography and Narrative (formerly Doing Autoethnography), the International Conference of Autoethnography (formerly British Autoethnography), and Critical Autoethnography.<ref name=":25" />

Today, ethnographers typically use a "kind of hybrid form of confessional-impressionist tale" that includes "performative, poetic, impressionistic, symbolic, and lyrical language" while also "focusing closely on the self-data inherent in confessional writing."<ref name=":24" />