PAPER #3—AUTOETHNOGRAPHY (FINAL RESEARCH PAPER)
What is Autoethnography?
• Autoethnograhy is a recognized qualitative social research method where the researcher
documents a group by recording his or her own individual experience. It foregrounds
experience and story as a meaning-making enterprise.
• Autoethnographic essays involve thinking critically and writing about a specific cultural
or subcultural group that you, the writer, have experienced or belonged to in your life. In
this case, that group should be related to your family (however you may choose to define
that word.)
Overview:
One of the central questions of this course is, “How do a person’s cultural and familial
experiences shape his or her identity?” For this essay, you’ll be examining an aspect of your
own identity and family relationships. In doing so, you will also do engage in academic
research so that you can join a larger conversation about the issues that you’ve chosen as
your focus.
Assignment
For this essay you will focus on your own culture and the most important aspects of your
personal identity. Then you will consider your own personal archive, gathering
information about and analyzing your own family relationships, structures, and
interactions. You may want to begin with one piece of evidence from your personal archive
(such as a photo, a significant quotation, a letter, a ticket stub, etc.) as a way into your paper
or as a focal point.
In this paper, you will still be moving continually between claims and evidence— between
concrete, vivid details of experience and you answer to the “So what” question—but the
much of the evidence will come from your personal experience.
Secondly, you will research an aspect of your identity that relates very closely to your
personal experiences in your family or cultur. Therefore, your personal stories and your
research should compliment (or complicate) each other; your research may help you to
expand your knowledge of your own identity and ideas about family, but your experiences
may also challenge scholarly accounts of that culture.
Your thesis statement will synthesize, or bring together, the two parts of your paper—your
research and your personal experience.
Expectations:
Your final essay will be 6-7 pages, double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font. It
will be formatted according to MLA guidelines and include a “Works Cited” page at the end.
In this paper, you will also be required to incorporate at least 6 sources that help you to
address and expand your central focus. At least one of these sources must be from a
scholarly or peer-reviewed journal and at least one of them should be a multimedia
source.
Prewriting:
As you begin writing this essay, you may consider following these steps:
● Identify a very specific aspect of your own family culture and identity to use as
a focus. The more focused this aspect is, the better. For example, two of the best
autoethnograpies that I have read have focused on how an analysis of the kimchi
making process allows us to better understand family power structures,
communication patterns, and gender relationships and how mah jong is used to
negotiate dominance in a business setting. That smaller focus – kimchi, mahjong –
allowed us to better understand the larger cultural structures.
● Formulate a series of research quotes and potential key words. In this step, you
will use research to a) identify the academic conversation that is happening about
this topic and to b) find a way to enter into that conversation in a meaningful way.
Additionally, as you try to identify a focal point for the essay, you may want to pay
particular attention to the power structures, artifacts, language practices, and rituals that
are significant to the group that you are exploring. These categories will allow you to
remain specific and concrete, even as you perform your analysis:
▪ What kinds of rituals are typical of your family/group? What kinds of traditions or
patterns of behavior help to link them together? In what ways do these rituals
influence or exemplify the group’s beliefs or values?
▪ What kinds of artifacts —tools, equipment, or clothing—do members of this group
use? What are the practical functions or roles of these artifacts? How do members
use them? What symbolic significance do the artifacts hold?
▪ What are the language practices of this family/group? What special terms, jargon, or
codes do they use to communicate with each other? What makes this use of
language significant? What kinds of non-verbal communication do members of the
family use? How well does this communication work?