Critical Autoethnography

"In this groundbreaking volume, Robin and Mark bring together autoethnographic and critical standpoints to examine everyday interpersonal and cultural experiences of identity from the inside out. The authors gently, lovingly, vulnerably, and incisively extend the work of autoethnography and invite us--all of us--to appreciate the ways in which an intersectional approach reveals the relationships among culture, communication, identity, emotions, and everyday lived experience." --From the Foreword by Carolyn Ellis and Arthur Bochner

Robin M. Boylorn is Assistant Professor of Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Alabama. Her research focuses on issues of diversity and social identity, and the intersections of race, class, and gender/sex. Her work offers social and cultural critiques of representations of black women utilising her personal lived experience(s) and creative and performative writing. She has published articles in leading academic journals, including Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies , Qualitative Inquiry , International Journal of Qualitative Methods , and Critical Studies in Media Communication , and the book Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience , (Peter Lang 2013). Mark P. Orbe is Professor of Communication and Diversity in the School of Communication at Western Michigan University where he has a joint appointment in Gender and Women's Studies. His teaching and research explore the inextricable relationship between culture and communication in a variety of contexts. He has published over 100 journal articles, book chapters, and books on issues related to culture, power, and communication, and is past secretary-general of the World Communication Association.

Foreword: Merging Culture and Personal Experience in Critical Autoethnography, Carolyn Ellis and Arthur BochnerIntroduction: Cultural Autoethnography as Method of Choice, Robin M. Boylorn & Mark P. OrbeSection I: Complicating Mundane Everyday Life EncountersIntroductionChapter 1: The Transitory Radical: Making Place with Cancer, Jeanine M. Minge and John Burton Sterner Chapter 2: Negating the Inevitable: Empowerment Through Autoethnography and Retrospective Sensemaking, Tabatha L. RobertsChapter 3: Post-Coming Out Complications, Tony E. AdamsSection II: Embracing Ambiguous and Non-Binary IdentitiesIntroductionChapter 4: Negotiating More, (Mis)labeling the Body: A Tale of Intersectionality, Amber L. JohnsonChapter 5: Performing Fortune Cookie: An Autoethnographic Performance on Diasporic Hybridity, Richie Neil HaoChapter 6: Critical Autoethnography as Intersectional Praxis: A Performative Pedagogical Interplay onBleeding Borders of Identity, Bryant Keith AlexanderSection III: Negotiating Socially Stigmatized IdentitiesIntroductionChapter 7: A Story & A Stereotype: A Race(d), Class(ed) & Gender(ed) Auto/ethnography, Robin M. BoylornChapter 8: Caught in Code: Arab American Identity, Image, and Lived Reality, Desiree YomtoobChapter 9: Lather, Rinse, Reclaim: Cultural (Re)Conditioning of the Gay (Bear) Body, Patrick SantoroChapter 10: The (Dis)ability Double Life: Exploring the Terrible Dichotomy of (Il)Legitimacy in HigherEducation, Dana Morella-PozziSection IV: Creating Pathways to Authentic SelvesIntroductionChapter 11: Socio-economic Im(Mobility): Resisting Classifications Within a 'Post-Projects' Identity, Mark P. OrbeChapter 12: Mindful Heresy, Holo-expression, and Poesis: An Autoethnographic Response to the Orthodoxies of Interpersonal & Cultural Life, Sarah Amira de la GarzaChapter 13: Favor: An Autoethnography of Survival, Rex L. CrawleyConclusion: Critical Autoethnography: Implications & Future Directions, Mark P. Orbe & Robin M. BoylornAbout the Editors and ContributorsIndex