Benefits of Autoethnography

The next morning we wake as the sun rises to one of the best days for hiking: sunny, cool, and dry. We head to breakfast, and we begin to stuff ourselves with pancakes and warm maple syrup, coffee, and Tang, followed by scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy, grits, potatoes, and sausage. “I kept thinking last night about all you have told us,” Cindy says. “And then I wondered about the benefits of autoethnography.”

“There are many benefits, but let me focus on two,” says Carolyn, digging into her second helping of hot pancakes. “First, there are many therapeutic possibilities of autoethnography for authors, participants, and audiences. Second, autoethnographers do not want to exploit others just for the purpose of research; consequently, one benefit of autoethnography is the method's focus on and valuing of the relational ethics in research—the interpersonal ties and responsibilities to those we study” (Ellis, 2007).

Therapeutic Possibilities

“Writing from personal experience can be therapeutic,” Tony says. “Writing is, as hooks (1994) suggests, a way to name our pain and, in so doing, make this pain go away. Writing personal stories can be therapeutic for authors as we write to make sense of ourselves and our experiences (Kiesinger, 2002); purge our burdens (Atkinson, 2007); and question canonical stories—conventional, authoritative, and ‘projective’ story lines that ‘plot’ how ‘ideal social selves' should live (Tololyan, 1987, p. 218; Bochner, 2001, 2002). In writing, autoethnographers seek to understand and improve relationships (Adams, 2006); reduce prejudice (Ellis, 1995c, 2002, 2009b); encourage personal responsibility and agency (Pelias, 2000, 2007); raise consciousness and promote cultural change (Ellis, 2002; Goodall, 2006); and give people a voice that, before writing, they may not have felt they had” (Boylorn, 2006).

“So writing can be therapeutic for an author, the researcher,” Susan says.

“Yes, but it can also be therapeutic for participants and readers,” Carolyn responds. “Personal stories can make witnessing possible—giving participants and readers the ability to observe and, consequently, better testify on behalf of an event, problem, or experience (Bochner & Ellis, 2006; see also Greenspan, 1998; Rogers, 2004). By way of researching and writing, an autoethnographer is able to identify cultural problems often cloaked in secrecy—for example, government conspiracy (Goodall, 2006); harmful gender norms (Crawley, 2002; Pelias, 2007); or how persons with same-sex desire navigate the disclosure of this desire. Autoethnographers not only work to alleviate and validate the meaning of their pain but also allow participants and readers, through witnessing, to feel validated and perhaps better able to cope with or change particular circumstances.”

“Sounds like meaningful work,” Cindy says. “I know that when I read, I often get joy from experiences similar to mine, or texts that motivate me to think and live differently.”

Relational Ethics

“I think I'd like to do an autoethnography. But I'm wondering what happens when we include others in our stories. What do we owe them?” asks Susan.

“Excellent question,” says Carolyn. “Autoethnographers recognize that research and researchers do not exist in isolation. We live connected to social networks that include friends and relatives, partners and children, coworkers, and students, and we work in universities and research facilities. As a result, when we conduct and write research, we implicate others. For instance, if a woman studies and develops antismoking campaigns within a university, tobacco companies may refrain from financially contributing to the university because of her research; even though she is doing the research herself, she may speak on behalf of others—in this case, on behalf of the university. Likewise, in traditional ethnographies the communities and participants being written about can usually be identified” (see Vidich & Bensman, 1958).

“In using personal experience, autoethnographers implicate not only themselves with their work but also close, intimate others” (Adams, 2006; Ellis, 2007), says Tony. “For instance, if a son tells a story that mentions his mother, it is difficult to mask his mother without altering the meaning and purpose of the story. Similar to people identifiable in a community study, such as the minister or town mayor, the author's mother is easily recognizable.”

“Or if an autoethnographer writes a story about a particular neighbor's racist acts, the neighbor is implicated by the words even though the autoethnographer may never mention the name of the neighbor” (Ellis, 2009b), adds Carolyn. “She may try to mask the location of the community, but it does not take much work to find out where she lives and, therefore, may not take much work to identify the neighbor about whom she speaks.

“Autoethnographers often maintain and value interpersonal ties with their participants, thus making relational ethics more complicated,” Tony says. “Participants often begin as friends or become friends through the research process. We do not normally regard them as impersonal ‘subjects' only to be mined for data. As such, ethical issues affiliated with friendship become an important part of the research process and product” (Tillmann, 2009; Tillmann-Healy, 2003).

“Autoethnographers thus consider ‘relational ethics' as a crucial component of research,” Carolyn adds, “that should be foregrounded throughout the research and writing process” (Ellis, 2007).

“And how do you deal with these?” asks Cindy.

“On many occasions this obligates autoethnographers to show their work to others implicated in or by their texts, acknowledging how these others feel about what is being written about them and allowing them to talk back to how they have been represented,” says Carolyn.

“Similar to traditional ethnographers, autoethnographers also may have to protect the privacy and safety of others by altering such identifying characteristics as circumstance or topics discussed, or characteristics like race, gender, name, place, or appearance,” adds Tony. “For example, if we wrote about our hike, we might change your names or occupations.”

“What would be interesting about the hike?” ask Susan and Cindy together. “There wasn't an epiphany here.”

“Let's talk about that later,” says Tony, not wanting to discuss negotiations of his gay identity. “For now, let me just say that autoethnographers must stay aware of how these protective devices can influence the integrity of their research as well as how their work is interpreted and understood. Most of the time they also have to be able to continue to live in the world of relationships in which their research is embedded after the research is completed.”