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Questions of Culture in Autoethnography

Phiona Stanley editor Greg Vass editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:29th May '18

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Questions of Culture in Autoethnography cover

Autoethnography allows researchers to make sense of the ‘ethno’ – the cultural – by studying their own experiences – the ‘auto’. It links the self to the cultural, allowing for an inductive grounding of theoretical insight into researchers' lived experiences. But what happens when the culture that we research is not conventionally or entirely our ‘own’? What happens when our culture does not neatly conceptualise the ‘auto’ as an individual, Western self? And does autoethnographic writing risk reducing cultural ‘Others’ if we cannot help but see them through ‘imperial eyes’?

Questions of Culture in Autoethnography showcases how cross-cultural autoethnographies might be done effectively, ethically, and reflectively. Chapters include: identity work among Tibetans in India and among the descendants of Spanish conquistadores in Appalachia; insider/outsider identities in myriad contexts from Mexico to Japan; embodied (gendered, raced, sized) intercultural experiences from Samoa to Aotearoa/New Zealand and from Canada to Malawi; and language stories from Korea to Singapore and from Somalia to Australia. It also explores cultural Otherness within ‘a’ culture, including researchers’ accounts of working with Indigenous Australians, of contesting mainstream cultural narratives from a body positive perspective, and as a US American man in New Zealand’s ‘bloke culture’, only seemingly sharing the same English-language-speaking, 'Western' culture.

For all scholars of qualitative methods and autoethnography, the book has a dual purpose – to show and to tell. It presents evocative autoethnographies of and about ‘culture’, as it is variously understood, and discusses the issues inherent in autoethnographic writing.

"Phiona Stanley and Greg Vass make a valuable contribution to the academic community in their exploration of ethical writing practices for autoethnographers. [.] I recommend this book in particular to readers who are writing about culture and exploring ways to insert themselves into their stories ethically. Additionally, this book offers critical contributions to the field which serves as a reflection of robust-ness and rigour within the method."

Tara McGuinness, University College Dublin

ISBN: 9781138919587

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 310g

198 pages