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15 - Autoethnography

from Part III - Methodological Approaches

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2021

By
Keith Berry
Edited by
Michael Bamberg ,
Carolin Demuth  and
Meike Watzlawik
Michael Bamberg
Affiliation:
Clark University, Massachusetts
Carolin Demuth
Affiliation:
Aalborg University, Denmark
Meike Watzlawik
Affiliation:
Sigmund Freud University, Berlin
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Summary

When examining video ethnographic data, as well as interviews, and fieldnotes, the researcher examines the situated nature of participants’ production of identity elements in action and interaction through the analysis of the various kinds of mediated action on the micro level. In addition, the researcher can utilize the analytical tool, layers of discourse, in order to analyze the immediate identity element production (produced in the moment), link it to the continuous identity element production (produced within and with the networks of the participant), and link it to the general identity element production (produced within and with institutions and/or society that the performer belongs to). Thereby situated identity elements can clearly be shown to link to the concrete socio-historically and socioculturally embeddedness on the meso and the macro levels. In this chapter, we shall exemplify these analytical tools through two transcripts depicting one participant from a larger ethnographically informed study.

Keywords

Autoethnographycultureidentitystories
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Identity , pp. 324 - 344
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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