Editing Autoethnography (section)

=== 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}}