Alfredo E. Evangelista, KG Hutchins, Kathleen Ragon
{"title":"Bringing Autoethnography to Undergraduates","authors":"Alfredo E. Evangelista, KG Hutchins, Kathleen Ragon","doi":"10.1525/joae.2023.4.2.236","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2023.4.2.236","url":null,"abstract":"The label “autoethnography” has been applied to a wide range of knowledge-producing practices, from what might be considered “normal” science to narrative-driven writing to performance. These debates highlight some of the most fundamental tensions about legitimate ways of knowing/knowledge production in the contemporary world. Further, one strength of autoethnography as a method lies in situating personal experience within broader political, social, and cultural events, which can create new opportunities in academia for voices often silenced. With these elements of autoethnography in mind, and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors founded an interdisciplinary autoethnography course cluster and lab at Oberlin College and Conservatory. In this essay, we describe the course cluster, lab, and successes and challenges of each. We also discuss the strategies and innovations of introducing undergraduate students to autoethnography. We hope that our model will be instructive for colleagues with similar goals at their institutions. Through the cross-course workshops and collaborative exercises of the autoethnography lab, our students had the opportunity to use autoethnography not just to analyze their communities but also to build a community of practice.","PeriodicalId":170180,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Autoethnography","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131831050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Autopsy Poetry","authors":"K. Kallenberg","doi":"10.1525/joae.2022.3.3.365","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2022.3.3.365","url":null,"abstract":"The deaths of Marcus and Noel—childhood friends of the author—is the point of departure for this essay. The author uses the concept of an autopsy—both the actual autopsies performed on her friends after their deaths and an autopsy as a metaphor for dismantling the author’s own memories of her two dead friends. The aim of the essay is to show rather than tell how self-identity and memory become reshaped through the experience of loss. It is empirically based on ethnographic interviews with friends and relatives of Marcus and Noel and on autoethnographic field notes. The idea of autopsy records as being rather poetic has inspired a method of writing in which creativity interacts with empirical descriptions. The knowledge engendered by the experience of loss and grief in this autoethnographic project has altered the previous beliefs and memories of the author and added layers of sorrow, aggression, and misery. The knowledge the author now possesses has changed her perceptions of the past. The essay could be read as if it were an autopsy of the author’s own life, experiences, relationships, and emotions. It contributes to the knowledge on death, grief, and friendship by evoking reflection in its readers about their own lives, experiences, emotions, and relationships. The two dead friends depicted in the essay were people who now live in the memories of the friends and relatives they left behind. This common human experience transcends the individual subjects who were the author’s friends.","PeriodicalId":170180,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Autoethnography","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132640103","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond the Blue Gown","authors":"Adrienne Mercer Breen","doi":"10.1525/joae.2022.3.4.493","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2022.3.4.493","url":null,"abstract":"That the lived experience of patients has not been included in health care planning and delivery, and that this exclusion can negatively impact patients’ health and well-being is established in existing literature about patient engagement. When patients receive support to reflect on and share their health care experiences with their care providers, however, mutual learning and a strengthened care relationship can result. The author uses autoethnographic research to tell and analyze her own patient story and to examine how the model of transformation through writing can help patients move from a “first” (disempowered, suffering) story to a “second” story of empowerment and new perspective.1 The author explores to what extent expressive and reflective writing may play a role in helping patients to “re-narrate” what has happened to them within the health care context, and to spark dialogue with health care leaders that may result in improved care for others.","PeriodicalId":170180,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Autoethnography","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132652543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Phiona Stanley, D. Clarke, Fiona Murray, Jonathan Wyatt
{"title":"The Fires We Made, the Fires that Made Us","authors":"Phiona Stanley, D. Clarke, Fiona Murray, Jonathan Wyatt","doi":"10.1525/joae.2022.3.3.381","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2022.3.3.381","url":null,"abstract":"The authors of this essay ventured into the Scottish outdoors together for the weekend in September 2020. They made fires to gather ’round in the early autumn darkness. Here they return to these fires as they introduce the essays in this collection, writing their way into what stays with them, what changed (with) them, what continues to change (with) them, that weekend.","PeriodicalId":170180,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Autoethnography","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124285993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Oil Rigs, Second-Homers, the Journey to Belonging, and the Privilege of Choosing Where to Stay","authors":"S. Helps","doi":"10.1525/joae.2022.3.3.402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2022.3.3.402","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores belonging and identity in relation to the privilege of being a second-home owner in the Scottish Highlands. It explores the contested and conflicted narratives of belonging, being wanted, and wanting to belong. It explores how some troublesome things (oil rigs and second-homers) that take up space also have less obvious, more contested, and often willful purposes.","PeriodicalId":170180,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Autoethnography","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124104413","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Taiwanese Widow’s Journey to Redefine Her Social Identity","authors":"Anhua Yeh","doi":"10.1525/joae.2022.3.3.352","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2022.3.3.352","url":null,"abstract":"The author is a counseling psychologist. When she was forty-five years old, she lost her beloved husband to cancer. The reflective account in this report examines the cultural underpinnings of the challenges that she encountered as she was seeking to redefine her social identity after this traumatic loss. The unspoken norms in a patriarchal tradition thrust her into unexpected confusions and struggles—norms with residues that still permeate modern society in Taiwan. To sort through these conundrums and dilemmas, she turned to autoethnography. After two years of writing, two prominent themes emerged. The first theme centers on the insider/outsider tug-of-war manifested in her interactions with her in-laws. The second pertains to how she is perceived by the society now that her wedded partner has passed away. Is she married? Is she single? Through writing, the sociocultural threads embedded in what she experienced slowly crystallized. She was afforded a more detached vantage point to reflect on her feelings and thoughts and the dimensions that had eluded her before. This enlightenment empowered her and contributed in a meaningful way to moving her forward on her journey to redefine her new identity.","PeriodicalId":170180,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Autoethnography","volume":"76 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124669663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Losing an Ex-Spouse","authors":"Lauren M. Sardi, Kathy Livingston","doi":"10.1525/joae.2022.3.3.313","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2022.3.3.313","url":null,"abstract":"The experience of loss and grief during the COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to explore the connections between the individual and society through the use of the autoethnographic method. In writing this autoethnography, the authors confront questions about grieving as an individual and social process, and explore the importance of social norms in thinking about everyday events such as the death of a loved one. In this article, we discuss “grieving rules” as they pertain to “normal” incidences of death, and then explore what happens when extenuating circumstances such as a global pandemic make adherence to predictable norms difficult or impossible. While recent studies of grief related to the global pandemic focus on the survivors of COVID-19 victims, this study explores the social implications of losing a loved one during a pandemic when the death is not due to COVID-19. This autoethnography relies on grief experienced during the pandemic following a non-COVID death as a possible context for disenfranchised grief.","PeriodicalId":170180,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Autoethnography","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125651381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Capturing the Holistic","authors":"Aditya Deshbandhu","doi":"10.1525/joae.2023.4.2.277","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2023.4.2.277","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":170180,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Autoethnography","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114168687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Scottish Highlands Campervan Mobilities in Pandemic Times","authors":"Phiona Stanley","doi":"10.1525/joae.2022.3.3.398","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2022.3.3.398","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores the idea of “enclosures” as encircling lines. These include semantic boundaries, insider-outsider binaries, and the gray area that includes the technically illegal and the rarely actually prosecuted, focusing on “wild” campervanning in the Scottish Highlands. Also considered are non-enclosures: common grazing, faraway gazes for driving on single-track roads, and alone time in a campervan that is not easily regimented into work and life. This paper thinks with Tim Ingold’s work on lines, showing how the “ghostly lines” of social imaginaries are changing in light of COVID-19. Lockdowns lead to staycations, which lead to overcrowding in the Highlands. Thus, previously elastic lines are drawn tighter, and gray areas coalesce into lines that are more obviously and more problematically crossed.","PeriodicalId":170180,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Autoethnography","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121364563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}