Interpretive Autoethnography

by Norman K. Denzin

“It is time to chart a new course”, writes Norman K. Denzin in Interpretive Autoethnography, Second Edition . “I want to turn the traditional life story, biographical project into an interpretive autoethnographic project, into a critical, performative practice, a practice that begins with the biography of the writer and moves outward to culture, discourse, history, and ideology.”

Drawing on C. Wright Mills, Sartre, and Derrida, Denzin lays out the key assumptions, terms, and parameters of autoethnography, provides a guide to using and studying personal experience, and considers the dilemmas and political implications of textualizing a life. He weaves his narrative through family stories, and concludes with thoughts concerning a performance-centered pedagogy and the directions, concerns, and challenges for autoethnography.

Genres: Research, Anthropology, Ethnography

160 pages, Paperback

First published November 5, 2013

Reviews

[Joe Burnham · Rating 5 out of 5]

No "How-To" ... And That's The Point

I picked up this book after it was suggested I do my dissertation as an autoethnography. My first question of course was, "What's an autoethnography?" My second was, "How do I write one?"

I've read a number of texts and articles now and this might be the best, because it plays by autoethnography rules. Telling how to do something doesn't work for this approach to writing, rather, it needs to be experienced, resonated on, and rethought. This book does exactly that, and as I go to define autoethnography for my audience, I have no question this will be my most cited source.

[Margaret Robbins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so interesting and helped me to better understand auto ethnography, a methodology I have used in my writing and that I hope to incorporate into my dissertation. I am interested in critical and interpretivist lines of thought, so this book helped me to better understand the theory and the practice behind autoethnography. The book also does an excellent job of explaining how performance-based ethnography and autoethnography should be evaluated differently from other forms of research and also why they are such important contributions to humanities and social science research. Also, it was accessible.

[Jaymee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The way I read this book, I understood it more as interpretive autobiography, situated in a larger social context (hence his use of ethnography). But largely this is a critical take on writing auto/biographies.

[Elizabeth Lozano · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his final statement, Norman Denzin tell us that
“Performance autoethnography allows us to bring the world into play, to make it visible, to bring it alive (…). It allows me, in fits of nostalgia, to forge a link between myself and the world, the living and the dead (…) It allows me to make a fleeting sense out of a world gone mad…”

Autoethnography is my love language, my life language. I am so glad to have found it and with it a new community of supportive practitioners . And this book is an impassioned and articulate guide to its practice

[Lisa Oliner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Convincing Argument for Conjuring Universal Truths

Denzin makes a convincing argument for conjuring more universal truths through interpretive methods-one that celebrates our fragility as well as our humanity.