[URBANTH-L]Session Particpants to round out autoethnography panel at SANA

[Boone Shear]

Hello.
 
We are looking for one or two more papers to round out a session discussing the possibilities and problematics of autoethnography at the upcoming 2005 SANA meeting in Merida. The session abstract is attached and pasted below. If you have interest, please contact us as soon as possible.
 
Thanks,
 
Juan Florencia 
UMASS Anthropology Department
 
Boone W. Shear
Western Michigan University
 

 

Reimagining Ethnographic Praxis: Constructing Knowledge through Autoethnography

 

 Autoethnography offers a useful approach in which to respond to the methodological and theoretical complications facing anthropology in the wake of postmodernism. This session explores the practice of autoethnography, when subject and researcher become one and the same, and the resistance of anthropology as a discipline to accept the validity of autoethnographic works. 

The postmodern turn has problematized anthropological methodology and theory by questioning processes of representation, revealing positional asymmetries between researcher and subject, and subverting “objective” constructions of knowledge. We propose autoethnography as an effective avenue to circumvent the web of political and epistemological entanglements that go largely unresolved with more traditional approaches.

Papers will focuses on the legitimization of autoethnography and argue for its inevitable space within the discipline. To this end, we include analysis and discussion of autoethnography as a method, as well as examples of autoethnographic praxis.