Analyzing dominant concepts of autoethography as a scientific method

Krljan, Antun. (2018). Analyzing dominant concepts of autoethography as a scientific method. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology
Department of Sociology. [mentor Potkonjak, Sanja and Rodik, Petra].

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Abstract

This paper analyses two dominant concepts of autoethnography as a scientific method: evocative and analytic autoethnography. The comparison of the stories about their history shows that the introduction of an autobiographical element is a common point for both stories. The use of author's personal experience (autoreferentiality) as a source of data for the study of social and cultural reality is argued to be a defining feature of autoethnography and methodologically justified. It is argued that autoethnographies go beyond self-absorbed stories and become scientific texts when they manage to overcome the idiosyncraticy of the author's experience. Analytic autoethnography approaches research in the same way as mainstream qualitative methods. Evocative autoethnography follows the epistemology of verisimilitude and emotional resonance which is incommensurable with the mainstream methodology. Methodological use of autoreferentiality is shown to be ethically problematic because 52 the author's identity prevents anonymization of people who are publicly related to the autoethnographer.

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