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Book Review: Autoethnography as Method and Creating Autoethnographies

Autoethnography is a method with roots in anthropology. The branches extend to humanities, other social sciences and, increasingly, the health sciences. Chang and Muncey articulate the methodology of autoethnography while illustrating the method. The authors take readers on markedly different routes. This comparative book review is one example of how very different approaches stem from a similar sociocultural framework. Chang’s book is divided into three parts. The historical and theoretical concepts of culture and self are discussed in great detail in the first two chapters. Her anthropological background shines through as she connects culture, self, and the other to qualitative research. This discussion makes way for her articulation of why self-narratives are not enough when doing autoethnography. Section one concludes with a historical and theoretical discussion of autoethnography, followed by the benefits and pitfalls of choosing this method. Before moving to the next section, Chang cautions that the “mixed bag labeled autoethnography” (p. 56) refers to a variety of narrative inquiries, and has created much confusion among researchers and readers. She suggests researchers define their choice clearly to avoid confusion. This section concludes with Chang describing the book’s focus on cross-cultural autobiographical data with ethnographic methodology and intent. As a professor who directs a qualitative methods seminar, I appreciate how Chang methodically lays out how to do autoethnographic research. The first chapter in section two begins with how to find a research topic and ends with a discussion of ethical issues. The ethical section is brief, but gives the reader enough information to consider beforehand how to negotiate the identities of people who may become intertwined in the autoethnography. She writes, “As you play a multi-faceted role as researcher, informant, and author, you should be reminded that your story is never in a vacuum and others are always visible or invisible participants in your story” (p. 69). The keywords that best describe the second section are validate, triangulate, self-observational, and self-reflective data. Each chapter has a list, chart, graph, or exercise to assist the autoethnographer with everything from how to find a topic to how to collect self-observational and external data. Data collection is described at the macro and micro levels. Collecting, evaluating, and organizing data is described as a multilayered activity that paves the way for analysis and ultimately interpretation. The primary exercise involves prioritizing items from categorized themes. Although Chang suggests the data collection process is messy, the steps she provides are tidy. Section three pushes the autoethnographer to begin writing. The first chapter discusses data management, whereas the second explains analysis and interpretation. Here again, keywords are helpful: label, classify, and refine. Chang echoes Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln when she writes that there are no quick and easy results in autoethnography. She goes on to remind readers that “autoethnographic data analysis and interpretation involve shifting your attention back and forth between self and others, the personal and the social context” (p. 125). The zooming in and out of collected data approach to analysis and interpretation is much like the micro and macro approaches to data collection. Zooming in, according to Chang, allows the researcher to focus on one data set at a time. She describes zooming out as the “birds-eye view to the data, which enable you to see how your own case is related to others, and how your case is connected to its context, and how the past has left traces in the present” (p. 129). Chang constructs and contextualizes how data analysis and interpretation in autoethnography make sense in a social science field. The section that solidly contextualizes this as 417978QHRXXX10.1177/104973231141797 8Book ReviewsQualitative Health Research