Editing Autoethnography (section)

===Benefits and concerns===

Denzin's criterion is whether the work has the possibility to change the world and make it a better place (Denzin, 2000, p.&nbsp;256). This position fits with Clough, who argues that good autoethnographic writing should motivate cultural criticism. Autoethnographic writing should be closely aligned with theoretical reflection, says Clough, so that it can serve as a vehicle for thinking "new sociological subjects" and forming "new parameters of the social" (Clough, 2000, p.&nbsp;290). Though Richardson and Bochner are less overtly political than Denzin and Clough, they indicate that good personal narratives should contribute to positive social change and move us to action (Bochner, 2000, p.&nbsp;271).

In addition to helping the researcher make sense of his or her individual experience, autoethnographies are political in nature as they engage their readers in political issues and often ask us to consider things, or do things differently. Chang argues that autoethnography offers a research method friendly to researchers and readers because autoethnographic texts are engaging and enable researchers to gain a cultural understanding of self in relation to others, on which cross-cultural coalition can be built between self and others.<ref name=":16">{{Cite book |last=Chang |first=Heewon |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/180190835 |title=Autoethnography as method |date=2008 |publisher=Left Coast Press |isbn=978-1-59874-123-0 |location=Walnut Creek, Calif. |oclc=180190835}}</ref>

Also, autoethnography as a genre frees us to move beyond traditional methods of writing, promoting narrative and poetic forms, displays of artifacts, photographs, drawings, and live performances (Cons, p.&nbsp;449). Denzin says autoethnography must be literary, present cultural and political issues, and articulate a politics of hope. The literary criteria he mentions are covered in what Richardson advocates: aesthetic value.<ref name=":15"/>{{Rp|page=15}} [[Carolyn Ellis|Ellis]] elaborates her idea in autoethnography as good writing that through the plot, dramatic tension, coherence, and verisimilitude, the author shows rather than tells, develops characters and scenes fully, and paints vivid sensory experiences.<ref name=":5" />

While advocating autoethnography for its value, some researchers argue that there are also several concerns about autoethnography. Chang warns autoethnographers of pitfalls that they should avoid in doing autoethnography: <blockquote>(1) excessive focus on self in isolation from others; (2) overemphasis on narration rather than analysis and cultural interpretation; (3) exclusive reliance on personal memory and recalling as a data source; (4) negligence of ethical standards regarding others in self-narratives; and (5) inappropriate application of the label autoethnography.<ref name=":16" />{{Rp|page= 54}}</blockquote>Also some qualitative researchers have expressed their concerns about the worth and validity of autoethnography. Robert Krizek (2003) contributed a chapter titled "Ethnography as the Excavation of Personal Narrative" (pp.&nbsp;141–152) to the book of ''Expressions of Ethnography'' in which he expresses concern about the possibility for autoethnography to devolve into narcissism. Krizek goes on to suggest that autoethnography, no matter how personal, should always connect to some larger element of life.

One of the main advantages of personal narratives is that they give us access into learners' private worlds and provide rich data (Pavlenko, 2002, 2007). Another advantage is the ease of access to data since the researcher calls on his or her own experiences as the source from which to investigate a particular phenomenon. It is this advantage that also entails a limitation as, by subscribing analysis to a personal narrative, the research is also limited in its conclusions. However, Bochner and Ellis (1996) consider that this limitation on the self is not valid, since, "If culture circulates through all of us, how can autoethnography be free of connection to a world beyond the self?."