Critical Autoethnography for Social Justice Research in Doctoral Education

Abstract

As autoethnography and other methods for self-as-subject research continue to increase in use across doctoral education, this guide proposes to inform the methods in this area specific to critical autoethnography for doctoral scholars desiring to conduct the many forms of social justice research. This includes indigenous research, contemporary feminist research, and arts-based research, which have also seen rise across dissertation research among many disciplines. While many works exist to describe critical autoethnography within specific contexts, few research guides examine critical autoethnography specific for use by the doctoral scholar and specific examples across research focused on societal change and/or disruption of existing power dynamics, lack of parity, or historical trauma from acculturation and/or dispossession. Thus, this chapter offers a concise research methods resource for doctoral scholars and their research supervisors to facilitate use of critical autoethnography across disciplines and among diverse research problems of inquiry.

Book Review. Hernandez, K.-A. C., Chang, H., & Bilgen, W. A. (2022). Transformative autoethnography for practitioners – change processes and practices for individuals and groups. Stylus.

“…There have been other works published in the past two years on autoethnography that deal with similar themes within this book. For example, the deconstructing of colonial power structures within the research academe through storytelling as primary research (see Bartram Scott, 2022;Throne, 2021). Another theme is the 'how to guide' to autoethnography (see Herrmann, 2021).…”