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 Zealands 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.
Reviews
"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 oers critical contributions to the eld which serves as a reection of robust-ness and rigour within the method."
Tara McGuinness, University College Dublin
List of Illustrations
Chapter
1. On the difficulties of writing about culture in autoethnography
Phiona Stanley & Greg Vass
Chapter
2. "Help me": The English language and a voice from a Korean
Australian living in Singapore Hyejeong Ahn
Chapter
3. Personal instructions on how to remain a stranger to enforce a
sociological perspective Silvia Bénard Calva
Chapter
4. Writing flows: The self as fragmentary whole David Bright
Chapter
5. Searching for my Mexico: An autoethnographic account of
unlearning and relearning about the limits of knowing the Other Alice
Cranney
Chapter
6. Negotiating the v: The self in relation to others and
navigating the multiple spaces as a New Zealand-raised Tongan male David
Faavae
Chapter
7. Scene, seen, unseen Fetaui Iosefo
Chapter
8. How do we know what they need? Learning together through
duoethnography and English language teaching to immigrant and refugee women
Ulrike Najar & Julie Choi
Chapter
9. Performing problematic privilege in Japan Gabrielle Piggin
Chapter
10. Nuanced "culture shock": Local and global "mate" culture Robert
E. Rinehart
Chapter
11. In which I am sung to, cry, and other suchlike: Reflections on
research in and with Tibetan refugees in India Harmony Siganporia
Chapter
12. Walking to heal or walking to heel? Contesting cultural
narratives about fat women who hike and camp alone Phiona Stanley
Chapter
13. Reading Shiva Naipaul: A reflection on Brownness and leading an
experiential learning project in Malawi C. Darius Stonebanks
Chapter
14. Untangling me: Complexifying cultural identity Gresilda A.
Tilley-Lubbs
Chapter
15. Whose story is it anyway? Reflecting on a collaborative research
project with/in an educational community Greg Vass, Michelle Bishop,
Katherine Thompson, Pauline Beller, Calita Murray, Jane Tovey & Maxine Ryan
Chapter
16. Six tales of a visit to Chile: An autoethnographic reflection on
questions of culture Esther Fitzpatrick
Acknowledgements
About the authors
Index
Phiona Stanley and Greg Vass (UNSW Sydney, School of Education) are critical, qualitative researchers working on various aspects of interculturality. They have each worked in various countries and have published and supervised doctoral students in international education, Indigenous education, and language education.
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