The Future of Autoethnography is Black

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Research Article| July 27 2020 The Future of Autoethnography is Black Aisha Durham, Aisha Durham Aisha Durham is an associate professor of Communication and 2019 Fulbright-Hays Fellow at the University of South Florida where she uses autoethnography, performance writing, and intersectionality to examine power, identity, and culture. Research about hip-hop feminism is published in her monograph, Home with Hip Hop Feminism: Performances in Communication and Culture, and her edited books, Globalizing Cultural Studies: Ethnographic Interventions in Theory, Method, and Policy and Home Girls Make Some Noise! Hip Hop Feminism Anthology. email: aishadurham@usf.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Marquese McFerguson, Marquese McFerguson Marquese McFerguson is an instructor and recent doctoral graduate in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida where he examines hip hop and American popular culture from a Black feminist perspective. McFerguson situates his research on Black masculinity in performance studies and critical cultural studies where he employs spoken-word poetry and autoethnography. He is a 2018 recipient of the John T. Warren top paper award sponsored by the NCA Ethnography Division. email: mcferguson@mail.usf.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Sasha Sanders, Sasha Sanders Sasha Sanders is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida. Her embodied, reflexive approach to exploring media and culture engages Black feminist thought, critical cultural studies, and performance studies in Communication. She is a 2020 recipient of the top paper award sponsored by the Western States Communication Association Performance Studies Division. email: sashasanders@mail.usf.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Anjuliet Woodruffe Anjuliet Woodruffe Anjuliet G. Woodruffe is a doctoral student and graduate teaching assistant in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida. She is a scholar whose research interests intersect critical race, cultural studies, and women and gender studies. She uses autoethnography, performance studies, and Black feminist thought to analyze representations of transnationals living in the United States. email: awoodruffe@usf.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of Autoethnography (2020) 1 (3): 289–296. https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2020.1.3.289 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Aisha Durham, Marquese McFerguson, Sasha Sanders, Anjuliet Woodruffe; The Future of Autoethnography is Black. Journal of Autoethnography 27 July 2020; 1 (3): 289–296. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2020.1.3.289 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of Autoethnography Search In this piece we present a provocation: that the future of autoethnography is Black. To say “Black” is to consider the possibility that blackness can flesh the felt-sense self as a part of the marked cultural body, can story relational experiences that are inventive and transgressive in its work to democratize forms and humanize the other in cocreated encounters, and can serve as an ontology of resistance in which blackness is harnessed to understand the ubiquitous and generative nature of power—the power to shape identity and experience, and the power employed by the autoethnographer to author or rescript new ones. The ability to conceive creative ways to communicate or convey cultural knowledge across space, body, and time has been a politically imaginative, life-sustaining technology for the African diaspora. Giving a nod to the past-future1 Black-centered narratives that define Afrofuturism,2 our provocation turns this lens toward autoethnography where researchers... You do not currently have access to this content.