Autoethnography: Qualitative Research Methodology with/of Tensions

In this chapter, I discuss tensions at the macro and micro levels of autoethnographic research. By macro level, I mean tensions that are ongoing between divergent research approaches, emerging from onto-epistemological and axiological leanings, in qualitative research broadly or in autoethnography circles in particular. The introduction of autoethnography to ethnography and wider qualitative research has sparked tensions amongst methodologists about whether or not autoethnography could be a legitimate way of generating research knowledge. Additionally, what constitutes and involves “good” autoethnography has been a persistent question within the sub-field of autoethnography. By micro level, I refer to tensions that we can attend to or unpack by engaging in autoethnographic research or those we might experience in the process of autoethnographic research. That is, autoethnography provides methodological affordances to examine our tensions vis-à-vis our positionality within the sociopolitical discourses. Further, doing/writing autoethnography could lead to our experience of macro-level methodological tensions in our individual researcher identity. Accordingly, I organized my understanding/discussion of tensions at macro and micro levels in four sections.