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.

This book showcases, with examples from myriad contexts and standpoints, how cross-cultural autoethnographies might be done effectively, ethically, and reflectively.

In this step-by-step guide to writing autoethnography, the author describes and illustrates the essential features and practices of this qualitative research method.

The research paper has become so ingrained in higher education that its benefits are assumed to be self-evident, but the connection between student writing and learning is not always clear. Educators frequently discuss the lack of critical thinking demonstrated in undergraduate research papers, but it may not be that students will not invest in writing assignments - it's possible that many cannot with the educational support currently provided. Through theory and examples, and with ACRL's Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education integrated throughout, Reading, Research, and Writing: Teaching Information Literacy with Process-Based Research Assignments shows just how difficult research assignments can be for novice learners, and offers concrete plans and approaches for building assignments that enhance student learning. Information literacy and writing-from-sources are important skills for college graduates who leave formal education to be professionals and, hopefully, lifelong learners. Librarians must examine the broader picture that their piece fits within and work across disciplines to produce truly literate - and therefore information-literate, college graduates. -- from back cover.

"Literally translated as "self-culture-writing," autoethnography-as process and product-holds promise for scholars and researchers who describe, understand, analyze, and critique the ways which selves, cultures, writing, and representation intersect. The possibility of autoethnography as a viable methodological approach to provide ways of understanding, crafting, and teaching autoethnography" --

This volume uses autoethnography—cultural analysis through personal narrative—to explore the tangled relationships between culture and communication. Using an intersectional approach to the many aspects of identity at play in everyday life, a diverse group of authors reveals the complex nature of lived experiences. They situate interpersonal experiences of gender, race, ethnicity, ability, and orientation within larger systems of power, oppression, and social privilege. An excellent resource for undergraduates, graduate students, educators, and scholars in the fields of intercultural and interpersonal communication, and qualitative methodology.

Teaching Autoethnography: Personal Writing in the Classroom is dedicated to the practice of immersive ethnographic and autoethonographic writing that encourages authors to participate in the communities about which they write. This book draws not only on critical qualitative inquiry methods such as interview and observation, but also on theories and sensibilities from creative writing and performance studies, which encourage self-reflection and narrative composition. Concepts from qualitative inquiry studies, which examine everyday life, are combined with approaches to the creation of character and scene to help writers develop engaging narratives that examine chosen subcultures and the author's position in relation to her research subjects. The book brings together a brief history of first-person qualitative research and writing from the past forty years, examining the evolution of nonfiction and qualitative approaches in relation to the personal essay. A selection of recent student writing in the genre as well as reflective student essays on the experience of conducting research in the classroom is presented in the context of exercises for coursework and beyond. Also explored in detail are guidelines for interviewing and identifying subjects and techniques for creating informed sketches and images that engage the reader. This book provides approaches anyone can use to explore their communities and write about them first-hand. The methods presented can be used for a single assignment in a larger course or to guide an entire semester through many levels and varieties of informed personal writing.