Autoethnography as a Valid Research Tool

Since I left the police in 2018 and continued my academic journey into criminology I have been faced with the dilemma that many of my contemporary researchers seemingly hold the view that qualitative methodologies such as autoethnography lack the academic rigour necessary for the research to be taken seriously. I have struggled with this idea as my lived experience is that the richness of personal and emotional data gained from being immersed in the research is an invaluable resource for reflection and construction of concepts and theory. To this end I write this chapter as an antidote to the prevailing tyranny of the quantitative which I believe exists within the discipline of criminology. I have successfully defended autoethnography as a valid methodology in a number of conferences and events and certain within my PHD viva where my examiner asked me the killer question “Why is autoethnography research and me-search”? This chapter aims to answer that question and promote autoethnographic thinking in the social sciences.