02 Literature

An Introduction to the Autoethnography 

I was introduced to autoethnography by Greg Dimitriadis, who was my advisor for the master’s degree at the University at Buffalo. I was intrigued by the concept but I was not ready to dive into autoethnography at that time. Thirteen years later, in the spring of 2019, I embarked on a journey for a doctoral degree in leadership. One of the first assignments in the program was to write a personal narrative. As I wrote what ended up being a long-form poem  (Gayle, 2019) for the assignment, it occurred to me that such work was something akin to autoethnography. The more I reflected and attempted to tell stories of my life, the more curious I became to know what autoethnography was actually like. Questions emerged such as: Am I doing autoethnography? Could this be the basis for a dissertation? What exactly is autoethnography? How is it done? How could I do autoethnography for my dissertation?

This section explores the foregoing questions, particularly understanding what autoethnography is and how it is employed with topics that are relevant to this study. Autoethnographic literature in leadership and identity are examined with the aim of understanding whether autoethnography is a suitable method for the present study. The presentation of literature first locates autoethnography in the domain of qualitative research and continues with definitions of autoethnography. Detailed consideration is given to studies that provide insights on the use of autoethnography to study leadership and to study identity.  The section concludes with a statement of how this study contributes to the literature.

Locating and Defining Autoethnography

I understand that qualitative research involves the study of human problems in naturalistic settings and emergent research designs  (McMillan & Schumacher, 2010). Creswell and Poth  (2016) suggest that there are five approaches to qualitative research: narrative, phenomenological, ethnography, grounded theory and case study. Of those five approaches, narrative or narrative inquiry is identified as a qualitative research approach that investigates and presents the story of a participant or participants  (Creswell & Poth, 2016; Saldana, 2011). Scholars identify autoethnography as a type of narrative research in which the researcher is both the author and the subject of the research  (Creswell & Poth, 2016; DeBetta, 2022; Denzin, 2013; Eisenbach, 2016).

I searched the literature for definitions and the defining features of autoethnography. In that search, the definitions of several scholars were of particular interest because of their relationship to autoethnography or their description of the method. The works that I examined are listed here with their authors in chronological order of publication and a brief description of their relationship to autoethnography:

1. David M. Hayano  (1979). Auto-Ethnography: Paradigms, Problems, and Prospects - one of the earliest, if not the earliest mention of autoethnography in the literature. Viewed from the field of anthropology.

2. Deborah Reed-Danahay  (1997/2020). Auto/ethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social - Anthropological view by the Chair of Anthropology at the University at Buffalo. I was introduced to autoethnography while completing a masters degree at the University at Buffalo in the Graduate School of Education.

3. Carolyn C. Ellis & Arthur Bochner  (2000). Autoethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity: Researcher as Subject - Leading autoethnographic researchers and mentors to autoethnographers.

4. Stacy Holman Jones  (2005). Autoethnography: Making the Personal Political - Contemporary autoethnographer. Mentored by Carolyn Ellis.

5. David Butz & Kathryn Besio  (2009). Autoethnography - Contemporary autoethnographers.

When reading these works, I looked for language that defines autoethnography. After identifying such language, usually one or two paragraphs, I examined the passages for a concise, ‘dictionary style’ definition, with the structure, “autoethnography is __________________.” One such passage was found:

“Autoethnography is an autobiographical genre of writing and research that displays multiple layers of consciousness, connecting the personal to the cultural”  (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 739).

Other works provided description of action or characteristics:

“Autoethnography works to hold self and culture together, albeit not in equilibrium or stasis”  (Holman Jones, 2005, p. 764).

This paper is concerned with the following:  (1) how anthropologists conduct and write ethnographies of their ‘own people’;  (2) the problems of methodology and theory associated with this approach; and  (3) whether anthropology can profit from these exercises. I refer to this entire scope of issues as auto-ethnography  (Hayano, 1979, p. 99).

After reading and re-reading the passages, I analyzed them for keywords that provide shape and contour to the concept of autoethnography. Across all the works, the most frequently occurring keywords were self, culture, social, autobiography  (or some form of the word), and write  (or some form of the word). Among other keywords that were used to describe autoethnography or the work of autoethnographic research were: “own people” ethnography  (Hayano, 1979, p. 99); cultural displacement, multiplicity of identities, new forms of theory and writing  (Reed-Danahay, 1997/2020, p. 2); blurred distinctions, action, embodiment, genre  (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 739); clarity, connection, change (2005, p. 764); outward projection, introjection, research and representational orientation  (Butz & Besio, 2009, p. 1660).

Two of the works included keywords that identified features that were not characteristic of autoethnography according to the authors. Holman Jones  (2005) submits that the self and culture bound together in autoethnography are not bound in equilibrium and stasis. Hayano  (1979) held that autoethnography was “not a specific research technique, method, or theory”  (Hayano, 1979, p. 99).

The keywords provide clues as to what some scholars believe autoethnography is or is not. My own synthesis of the definitions is that autoethnography as a method places the researcher’s point of view front and center. At the same time, the consumer of autoethnographic research may properly infer that the researcher is not making a claim to a necessarily correct point of view or precise conclusion. Rather, the view of the autoethnographer is in dynamic tension with culture. That is, there are many other views that have standing in the researcher’s domain and those other points of view  (and associated actions) influence the researcher, the immediate context of the research, and wider social spheres.

In order to better understand how I myself might arrive at a working definition that would guide my own autoethnographic study, I looked for broad concepts or categories into which the keywords can be placed. In other words, what are the descriptors of how the keywords function categorically in the definition? The categories at which I arrived are  (alphabetically) as follows: assumption; attribute; discipline; factor; location; method; non-attribute; outcome; philosophy; research approach; vehicle; worldview/orientation. Table 2.1a-c shows the organization of keywords into categories.

A summary of my reflection on the categories is as follows:

Assumption: Autoethnography assumes that there are multiple ways of knowing, identifying and articulating the self. Moreover, any one or any set of those ways of knowing is beyond full or exhaustive understanding. And it follows that the self and culture are beyond knowing entirely.

Attribute: Autoethnography is intentional and deliberate. It stems from ethnography which focuses on studying culture in groups of people  (Agar, 2009; Behar, 2003; Creswell & Poth, 2016). Autoethnography shifts the focus of study to culture and the self. It is a reflexive practice that is at the same time moving in and around the self, connecting culture to the self and the self to culture, gazing upon the self, seeing the self in society, thinking and feeling. It is a deep dive into identity and being. Ultimately, autoethnography calls the researcher to vulnerable  (re)presentation of self via a unique understanding of truth.

Discipline: Autoethnography has roots in the discipline of anthropology. It is applied in many fields and disciplines, especially the social sciences and humanities  (see location category).

Factor: Typical factors in autoethnographic research include  (categorically) the self, society, culture, and identity. However, those factors should not be thought of as discrete as in other fields of research, as in any one factor might constitute a type of variable  (e.g. independent or dependent). Autoethnography is characterized by “movement between story, context, writer, and reader, crisis and denouement”  (attribute category)  (Holman Jones, 2005).

Location: Autoethnography is located in the scientific community with the social sciences and humanities.

Method: Autoethnography combines autobiography  (the telling of life stories) and ethnography  (the study and representation of people in culture).

Non-attribute: Autoethnography and its component parts exist in disequilibrium. At the same time, it insightfully highlights disequilibrium in the self and society.

Outcome: There is not an expected outcome or set of outcomes from autoethnography. It does not start with a hypothesis and test whether or not the hypothesis is correct or true. This does not mean that it is unconcerned with truth. To the contrary, it seeks truth from the point of view of the researcher and/or those with whom the researcher engages in society. Outcomes are often unexpected. Insight, clarity and new conceptualizations of identity and culture are likely to emerge.

Philosophy: Autoethnography has largely to do with ways of knowing. It sets out with the understanding that there are many ways of knowing in addition to empiricism. It posits that truth can be understood in different ways, many of which are traditionally not articulated or allowed to be heard. Autoethnography seeks to give voice to those obscured views of truth.

Research approach: Autoethnography is made from the essence of ethnography as a research approach.

Vehicle: Writing is the primary vehicle of representation in autoethnography. There are different forms of autoethnography - such as visual, performance, narrative, musical - all with stories and some representative form that is construed as text.

Worldview/Orientation: Autoethnography emerged in postmodern and postcolonial thought.

Taken together, these definitions and reflections provide a kind of navigation point for my autoethnographic research journey. I might not always get everything right in exploring and describing my experiences. However, these definitions suggest that getting it exactly right might not be the point or even the best. These readings demonstrate that autoethnography does not seek or require methodological orthodoxy. Rather, autoethnography is about heading in a direction that leads to revealing the hows and whys of self in cultural context. For example, in doing autoethnography, I will be able to interrogate my own methods with respect to specific attributes such as moving between the subjective and the objective  (Reed-Danahay, 1997/2020). If I sense being off course in my understanding, I will interrogate my epistemology – am I relying too much on one way of knowing? In my analysis, am I refracting experiences and shifting from insider to outsider, from outsider to insider  (Ellis & Bochner, 2000)?

Autoethnography is an action oriented, qualitative research method that at the same time collates and amalgamates many views to study and represent the self and culture. Such a method seems quite appropriate to study the leadership experiences of a Black male, Seventh-day Adventist, Black jazz avant-gardist. Those identities in myself are both distinct  (collated) and a unique mix  (amalgam) in culture  (sites and spaces of leadership experiences). I am thankful to have these bits of the literature, along with others that will be collected along the way, as a light to point the ship of my research.

Use of Autoethnography as a Research Methodology

Having attained a sense of what autoethnography is, I turned my focus to how autoethnography is used as a research methodology. In the search I attempted to find literature with connections to topical points that I have described, namely, leadership, Black male identity, religious identity, and the jazz avant-garde. Additionally, because institutional education has been an important cultural context for me, I was interested in finding autoethnographic accounts that also connected education to the foregoing topical points.

I found nine studies that were of interest. All of the studies, in at least some respect, align with the topical points and at the same time are sufficiently diverse. As I examined the studies, I was not very much concerned with the content of the studies. I did not try to glean understanding from the authors’ insights on self and culture.  (Transparently, those insights are unavoidable when reading the studies. However, they are not reported here because the primary focus of this part of the study is method.) My objective was to know how these scholars applied autoethnography as a method to their chosen topic. By examining these studies, I wanted to know if I could arrive at a method via autoethnography for studying myself.

I read nine autoethnographic studies or studies of autoethnography that were concerned with leadership and/or identity. The studies I examined are listed here in the order that they were first read. 

1. Karen A. Longman, Heewon Chang, and Michelle Loyd-Paige  (2015). “Self-analytical, Community-building, and Empowering: Collaborative Autoethnography of Leaders of Color in Higher Education.”

2. Carl Henry Dethloff  (2007). “A Principal in Transition: An Autoethnography.”

3. James F. Lane, Jr.  (2013). “The Man Behind the Mask: A Principal’s Search For a Moral Leadership Purpose.”

4. Franscec Fusté-Forné.  (2020). “Say Gouda, Say Cheese: Travel Narratives of a Food Identity.”

5. Brent E. Sykes.  (2014). “Transformative Autoethnography: An Examination of Cultural Identity and its Implications for Learners.”

6. Ekua Mcmorris.  (2018). “Performative Acts of Race: Authenticity, Blackness And Identity Through Photography, Memory And Movement.”

7. Damion Waymer.  (2008). “A Man: An Autoethnographic Analysis of Black Male Identity Negotiation.”

8. Katie Nichole Ball.  (2011). “‘When They Called Us Jie Mei  (Sister)’ An Autoethnographic and Narrative Study of Religious Development In Emerging Adulthood.”

9. Shawn Anthony Robinson.  (2017). “Phoenix Rising: An Autoethnographic Account of a Gifted Black Male With Dyslexia.”

Each study was read to discover the purpose of the study and the methodology that was used to achieve the purpose. The authors write for a variety of purposes ranging from methodological analysis to describing personal experience to examining issues of leadership, culture, race and identity.

Most  (6) of the studies involve only one person as both the researcher and the subject of the research. Three studies have different configurations: one study (Longman et al., 2015) was authored by three researchers who were part of a larger group of 14 scholars who all conducted autoethnography as a collaborative project; another study (Fusté-Forné, 2020) is ostensibly an autoethnography of cheese in the city of Gouda; the third study (Ball, 2011) that departs from the single researcher as subject model examines spiritual growth of the author, as autoethnography, together with narratives of five other participants.

Six of the studies (Dethloff, 2007; Lane, 2013; Longman et al., 2015; S. A. Robinson, 2017; Sykes, 2014; Waymer, 2008) discuss leadership. Those same six studies are authored by educators, with two (S. A. Robinson, 2017; Waymer, 2008) giving accounts from a student perspective. Eight of the nine studies explore identity (Ball, 2011; Fusté-Forné, 2020; Lane, 2013; Longman et al., 2015; McMorris, 2018; S. A. Robinson, 2017; Sykes, 2014; Waymer, 2008). Two authors (S. A. Robinson, 2017; Waymer, 2008) study Black male identity. One author (S. A. Robinson, 2017) includes a focus on intersectional identity. And one author (Ball, 2011) treats religious identity.

Among the focus points in my dissertation there are two that are not represented in the academic literature: No autoethnographic studies were found in the area of Seventh-day Adventist identity. Similarly, a search for autoethnographic research in the jazz avant-garde did not yield any results.

Data Collection Methods

The studies use a variety of data collection methods and approaches. Most of the studies use notes, journaling, diaries or some form of writing to describe memories, experiences, and feelings. Several studies use documents, photographs, or photography as data or as a means of collecting data. Table 2.1 shows the data collection methods for the studies.

All of the studies except one (Fusté-Forné, 2020) emphasized reflection and/or reflexivity as a key part of the analysis and writing process. All the studies presented either stories or story-like representations of experiences that connected in some way with one or more cultures. The cultures included both large-scale conceptions of culture and identity, such as “Black” (McMorris, 2018; S. A. Robinson, 2017; Waymer, 2008), “African Caribbean” (McMorris, 2018), “Chickasaw” (Sykes, 2014), as well as cultural definitions that draw a smaller circle of identity such as “one elementary school” (Dethloff, 2007), “Orange Pines Middle School” (Lane, 2013), and the “City of Gouda”  (Fusté-Forné, 2020). All of the authors wove their stories together with cultural connections and references to academic literature. One study also used computer software, NVivo, in their data analysis (Longman et al., 2015).

Validation

The studies were examined with respect to the question: How does the research demonstrate a discipline of inquiry that demonstrates validation? All of the researchers except one (Fusté-Forné, 2020) discuss the concept of validation in some form. There is not a single validation method that the studies hold in common.

The authors use different concepts and terms to discuss validation such as “validity” (Dethloff, 2007), “validity and reliability” (Longman et al., 2015), “trustworthiness” (S. A. Robinson, 2017), and “believability and verisimilitude” (Lane, 2013).  Some studies use some version of triangulation, including member checking, comparison with other studies, consultation with family members, spouse, parents, colleagues and peers (Ball, 2011; Dethloff, 2007; Longman et al., 2015; S. A. Robinson, 2017; Sykes, 2014). McMorris (2018) interlaces personal narrative, photography, analysis and triangulation and make the unique statement about validation:

The collection of visual material forms the basis for a rigorous analytical study, as well as supporting the creation of new images. This allows me to scrutinise and  examine the material, not as an anthropologist or historian might, but as an artist, thus emphasising that an artistic practice has rigour and integrity of its own [emphasis added] (McMorris, 2018, p. 17). 

Conclusion

As I examined the studies, I knew, almost immediately, that this is a space in which my research could exist. My thoughts felt a sense of belonging among the ebb and flow in the work. While each study design is different, they all tell stories that open a window into the souls of self and society. Together they demonstrate that there are likely an infinite number of forms and combinations of forms of autoethnography that constitute method or application of the research genre to a particular self and culture.

A common thread among all the studies is that they all tell stories. For myself, entering into personal storytelling will be both liberating and challenging. Personal storytelling will be liberating because I have not wanted to reveal very much about myself and my history. It has much to do with moving me out of a sort of stuck place. As discussed in the problem statement above, I believe that my advancement as a leader is dependent on understanding certain aspects of myself in society. Personal storytelling is clearly becoming part of the solution to that problem – a kind of key to leadership improvement.

On that same point, I acknowledge a challenge. I have always been a very private person. I am reluctant to share details about myself and my history. Part of reluctance is a sense of shame for some activities in which I have engaged. Part of it is a sense of not belonging in the social spaces in which I often find myself. However, returning to the former point about liberation, I believe that having so many examples of clear methods for storytelling will help me appropriately overcome the challenge.

The variety of methods found in the studies provide ample space for creativity. At the same time, that same variety, as evidenced by the studies included here, offers: a) fresh approaches to scholarship; and b) tools for engagement in research with discipline and rigor, via recursion, reflexivity, deep analysis, and validation. To the point of discipline and rigor, autoethnography is not without critics. Autoethnographer Tony Adams (Adams et al., 2015) talks about a disapproving faculty colleague who maintains that “any research using first-person narration [is] inadequate” (Ellis & Adams, 2014, p. 100). Critics also charge autoethnography with lacking validity and/or insufficiency because of the researcher being the single data source (Holt, 2003). Again, the variety of methods listed above include both strategies for addressing threats to validity and evidence that autoethnography includes multiple sources of data in addition to the researcher.

From this brief review of the literature, it seems clear that autoethnography can be effectively applied as a research method to describe and explore my leadership experiences, particularly in the areas of culture and identity. It also seems clear that there are notable gaps in the literature with respect to Seventh-day Adventist religious identity and the jazz avant-garde. Consequently, there is clear demonstration of the need for the study which uses autoethnography as methodology to study leadership from the perspective of a Black male, Seventh-day Adventist Christian, jazz avant-garde artist.