Revision: Autoethnographic Reflections on Life and Work

by Carolyn Ellis

Overview

Carolyn Ellis is the leading writer in the move toward personal, autobiographical writing as a strategy for academic research. In addition to her landmark books Final Negotiations and The Ethnographic I, she has authored numerous stories that demonstrate the emotional power and academic value of autoethnography. This volume collects a dozen of Ellis’s stories—about the loss of her husband, brother and mother; of growing up in small town Virginia; about the work of the ethnographer; about emotionally charged life issues such as abortion, caregiving, and love. Atop these captivating stories, she adds the component of meta-autoethography—a layering of new interpretations, reflections, and vignettes to her older work. An important new work for qualitative researchers and a student-friendly text for courses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781000037913
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/28/2020
Series:	Routledge Education Classic Edition
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	396
File size:	956 KB

About the Author

Carolyn Ellis is Distinguished University Professor Emerita of Communication and Sociology at the University of South Florida. She has contributed to the narrative and autoethnographic study of human life through integrating ethnographic, literary, and evocative writing to portray and make sense of lived experience in cultural context. Her publications include Final Negotiations: A Story of Love, Loss, and Chronic Illness, Evocative Autoethnography: Writing Lives and Telling Stories (with Arthur Bochner), and Autoethnography: Understanding Qualitative Research and Handbook of Autoethnography, both with Tony E. Adams and Stacy Holman Jones. She co-edits the Routledge book series Writing Lives: Ethnographic Narratives.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Classic Edition

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Reflecting on Meta-Autoethnography

Part One: Growing Up in a Rural Community, Getting an Education, and Finding My Place in Community Ethnography

Chapter 1: Goin’ to the Store, Sittin’ on the Street, and Runnin’ the Roads: Growing Up in a Rural Southern Neighborhood

Chapter 2: Talking Across Fences: Race Matters

Chapter 3: Investigating the Fisher Folk and Coping with Ethical Quagmires

Part Two: Becoming an Autoethnographer

Chapter 4: Reliving Final Negotiations

Chapter 5: Renegotiating Final Negotiations: From Introspection to Emotional Sociology

Part Three: Surviving and Communicating Family Loss

Chapter 6: Surviving the Loss of My Brother

Chapter 7: Rereading "There Are Survivors": Cultural and Evocative Responses

Chapter 8: Rewriting and Re-Membering Mother

Chapter 9: Coconstructing and Reconstructing "The Constraints of Choice in Abortion"

Part Four: Doing Autoethnography as a Social Project

Chapter 10: Breaking Our Silences/Speaking with Others

Chapter 11: Learning to Be "With" in Personal and Collective Grief

Chapter 12: Connecting Autoethnographic Performance with Community Practice

Part Five: Reconsidering Writing Practices, Relational Ethics, and Rural Communities

Chapter 13: Writing Revision and Researching Ethically

Chapter 14: Returning Home and Revisioning My Story

Notes

References

Name Index by Judy Perry

Subject Index by Judy Perry

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

"Revision is primarily a why-to-do autoethnography book rather than a how-to-do autoethnography manual. It is a testament to the importance and value of autoethnography as a qualitative research method. Ellis examines and re-examines her 'I' in ways that 'aren't easily addressed by orthodox social science.' This book is appropriate for beginner and veteran autoethnography researchers alike, as it showcases some of the finest autoethnographic works in print."

- The Qualitative Report

"Everyone who is interested in autoethnography and ethnography, autobiography and biography, in writing and the rhythm of life should read this book. You should read this book, and feel it, and then go back to work and live it."

- Leanne Pupcheck, Southern Communication Journal

From the Publisher