Symbiotic Autoethnography: Moving Beyond the Boundaries of Qualitative Methodologies

LIANA BEATTIE

Research output: Book/ReportBookpeer-review

Abstract

Recently, autoethnography has started to generate increased levels of interest in research circles, gaining popularity as an innovative and inciting qualitative approach. This trend has resulted in the appearance of several schools of thought that either challenged or complemented each other. Intrigued by such diversity of researchers’ opinions on autoethnographic praxes, in this book the author presents a cogent analysis of the ongoing debates in the field before moving to the discussion of a new ‘symbiotic’ way of both theorizing about and ‘doing’ autoethnography. In the emerged approach of Symbiotic Autoethnography, the author not only synthesizes the diversity of existing arguments, but also offers new insights into the key features of autoethnographic research as well as suggesting a number of potential solutions to some of its polemical aspects. A concept of ‘symbiosis’ has been used in this book in its broader sense to denote close interdependence and interrelation between its suggested seven attributes, including temporality, researcher’s omnipresence, evocative storytelling, interpretative analysis, political (transformative) focus, reflexivity and polyvocality. The author presents her approach of Symbiotic Autoethnography not as a static and fixed structure that is only applicable in one rigid format, but rather as a flexible assemblage, where every feature expands, contracts and overlaps with the other, moving across various dimensions of specific research contexts and unique subjective experiences. Thus, this book offers both experienced and novice researchers a theoretically informed multi-functional methodological tool that has the capacity to accommodate the dynamics of researchers’ diverse personal experiences within a wide topography of specific professional, cultural and socio-political contexts.
Original languageEnglish
PublisherBloomsbury Academic
Number of pages220
ISBN (Print)9781350201385
Publication statusPublished - 28 Jul 2022

Keywords

  • Autoethnography
  • temporality
  • omnipresence
  • polyvocality
  • reflexivity
  • discerning data
  • embodied ethics

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