Like all writing, biographies are interpretive. In Interpretive Autoethnography, Norman Denzin combines one of the oldest techniques in the social sciences with one of the newest. Bringing in elements of postmodernism and interpretive social science, he reexamines the biographical and autobiographical genres as methods for qualitative researchers. Grounded in theory and rigorous analysis, this accessible book points up the inherent weaknesses in traditional biographical forms and outlines a new way in which biographies should be conceptualized and shaped. The book provides a guide to the assumptions of the biographical method, to its key terms, and to the strategies for gathering and interpreting such materials. Denzin introduces the key concept of "epiphany," or turning points in person’s lives. A final chapter returns to autoethnography’s primary purpose: to make sense of our fragmented lives.

Autoethnography: Process, Product, and Possibility for Critical Social Research by Sherick A. Hughes and Julie L. Pennington provides a short introduction to the methodological tools and concepts of autoethnography, combining theoretical approaches with practical “how to” information. Written for social science students, teachers, teacher educators, and educational researchers, the text shows readers how autoethnographers collect, analyze, and report data. With its grounding in critical social theory and inclusion of innovative methods, this practical resource will move the field of autoethnography forward.

The second edition of the award-winning Handbook of Autoethnography is a thematically organized volume that contextualizes contemporary practices of autoethnography and examines how the field has developed since the publication of the first edition in 2013. Throughout, contributors identify key autoethnographic themes and commitments and offer examples of diverse, thoughtful, effective, applied, and innovative autoethnography. The second edition is organized into five sections: In Section 1, Doing Autoethnography, contributors explore definitions of autoethnography, identify and demonstrate key features of autoethnography, and engage philosophical, relational, cultural, and ethical foundations of autoethnographic practice. In Section 2, Representing Autoethnography, contributors discuss forms and techniques for the process and craft of creating autoethnographic projects, using various media in/as autoethnography, and marking and making visible particular identities, knowledges, and voices. In Section 3, Teaching, Evaluating, and Publishing Autoethnography, contributors focus on supporting and supervising autoethnographic projects. They also offer perspectives on publishing and evaluating autoethnography. In Section 4, Challenges and Futures of Autoethnography, contributors consider contemporary challenges for autoethnography, including understanding autoethnography as a feminist, posthumanist, and decolonialist practice, as well as a method for studying texts, translations, and traumas. The volume concludes with Section 5, Autoethnographic Exemplars, a collection of sixteen classic and contemporary texts that can serve as models of autoethnographic scholarship. With contributions from more than 50 authors representing more than a dozen disciplines and writing from various locations around the world, the handbook develops, refines, and expands autoethnographic inquiry and qualitative research. This text will be a primary resource for novice and advanced researchers alike in a wide range of social science disciplines.

'Interpretive Biography' combines one of the oldest techniques in the social sciences and humanities with one of the newest. Bringing in elements of postmodernism and interpretive social science, it re-examines the biographical and autobiographical genres.

Brimming with examples, this book demonstrates how qualitative researchers can use autoethnography as a method for qualitative research. Topics include a brief history of autoethnography; the purposes and practices of doing autoethnography; interpreting, analyzing, and representing personal experience; and evaluating autoethnographic work.

Norman K Denzin ponders the prospects, problems and forms of ethnographic interpretive writing in the twenty-first century. He argues that postmodern ethnography is the moral discourse of the contemporary world, and that ethnographers can and should explore new types of experimental texts to form a new ethics of inquiry.

The first ever practical text on this increasingly popular research method, it provides a background and considers some of the criticisms of the approach. It is suitable for all social science students, both graduate and upper level undergraduate. The book is structured to mirror the process of writing about experience, from establishing an idea through to the process of writing and the development of creative writing skills, and provides detailed worked examples of the whole process. The final two chapters are devoted to exploring two cases in which readers can see the principles discussed in action. There are also a wide range of case studies drawn from a wide a range of social science disciplines and exercises throughout the text.

This methods book will guide the reader through the process of conducting and producing an autoethnographic study through the understanding of self, other, and culture. Readers will be encouraged to follow hands-on, though not prescriptive, steps in data collection, analysis, and interpretation with self-reflective prewriting exercises and self-narrative writing exercises to produce their own autoethnographic work. Chang offers a variety of techniques for gathering data on the self—from diaries to culture grams to interviews with others—and shows how to transform this information into a study that looks for the connection with others present in a diverse world. She shows how the autoethnographic process promotes self-reflection, understanding of multicultural others, qualitative inquiry, and narrative writing. Samples of published autoethnographies provide exemplars for the novice researcher to follow.

Assessing Autoethnography provides readers with multiple ways to analyze autoethnographies and other forms of personal narrative writing. Given the proliferation of such forms across academic contexts, the book offers a guide of what autoethnography is, why it matters, and how to do it. Taking each of the three parts of auto-, ethno-, and -graphy in detail, Herrmann, and Adams, provide criteria and points of discussion to ensure robust assessment of an autoethnographic work as a whole. Every chapter is accompanied with exemplars and considers issues such as ethics, storytelling, and good writing. The book discerns the kinds of personal experiences that often work best for autoethnographic projects and provide ways to evaluate fieldwork, interviews, and representations. Written by two experts in the field, Assessing Autoethnography offers guidance to scholars and dissertation advisors, across diverse disciplines, in producing autoethnographic work and utilizing autoethnographic methods. The book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of Communication Studies, Education, Sociology, Women’s and Gender Studies, Critical Race Studies, Mass Communication, English, and other related disciplines.

Autoethnography is generating increasing levels of interest in research circles, gaining popularity as an innovative and inciting qualitative approach. Drawing on the vast diversity of researchers' opinions on autoethnographic praxes, this book presents a cogent analysis of the ongoing debates in the field before moving on to the discussion of a new approach to both theorizing about and 'doing' autoethnography: a 'symbiotic autoethnography'. This approach synthesizes central aspects from the diversity of existing arguments into one adaptable 'framework' that combines key characteristic features of autoethnographic research. The author uses the concept of 'symbiosis' 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 book offers both experienced and novice researchers a theoretically informed multi-functional and multi-disciplinary methodological tool that can accommodate the dynamics of diverse personal experiences within a topography of specific professional, cultural and socio-political contexts.