This methodological exploration engages critically
with autoethnographic technique and scholarship, to examine and exemplify the
value of autoethnography in enhancing qualitative inquiry within cross-cultural
research. Though encompassing a myriad of definitions and approaches,
autoethnography represents both a process
and a product, that
seeks to describe and systematically analyse personal experiences (auto) in
relation to their wider cultural (ethno) context, producing an account of this
critical process (graphy) to enhance sociological understandings. However,
there is debate and methodological polarisation among autoethnographers
concerning the degree to which (re)presentations of the method (the product)
should be explicitly analytical, whereby personal stories are embedded within
specific theoretical framings, and relevant wider literature. Therefore,
specifically; this piece examines and demonstrates the use of autoethnography
as a methodological tool in facilitating enhanced critical reflection and understandings
within the context of the researcher’s wider study in which she; a Scottish,
white, self-funded PhD student, employed narrative interviews amongst other
qualitative methods within a population of Ugandan children living within an
orphanage in Kampala. Given Uganda’s geopolitical history of colonial
oppression and ongoing semi-authoritarian rule, combined with the researcher’s
positionality plus a decade of personal experiences before, and beyond formal
fieldwork, this article demonstrates the use of autoethnography engaging a
postcolonial lens to illuminate the sociocultural and historical systems of
power, that that shape personal reality (ontology), the ways the experiential
components of this reality are portrayed and
therefore the constraints under which such portrayals can be interpreted
(epistemology), for example within narratives or interviews. In doing so, the methodological value of a
moderate approach to autoethnography is argued: that blends the human, heuristic value of personal experience
as embodied knowledge with the scholarly
affordances of theory and literature, showing
how this method assists in situating one’s positionality and consequent
influence within their research context; but offers words of critique and
caution concerning the challenges of autoethnography.
