Abstract
Autoethnography – a qualitative research method that combines characteristics of ethnography and autobiography – is gaining momentum within the creative and performing arts as a research tool, partly because of the opportunity it provides for writers, artists, performers and others to reflect critically upon their personal and professional creative experiences. In recent years, ‘analytic autoethnography’ has been proposed as an alternative to traditional ‘evocative autoethnography’ for researchers who want to practise autoethnography within a realist or analytic tradition. However, questions remain about how this alternative method should be applied in practice. This article takes some steps toward answering those questions by exploring how autoethnographers in the creative arts can employ analytic strategies from the grounded theory tradition in their work. This methodological discussion might benefit artistresearchers who identify themselves as autoethnographers, but who want to use analytic reflexivity to improve theoretical understandings of their creative practice.
Highlights
Many different research methods have been applied to the study of human creativity since the 1950s (Sternberg 1999)
In an Australian academic research environment where governmental and institutional imperatives are placing pressure on artist-researchers to identify the aspects of their creative practice that constitute research and that make an original contribution to knowledge, autoethnography has obvious attractions (Smith and Dean 2009)
Since this article deals with three different research methods – evocative autoethnography, analytic autoethnography and grounded theory – it is likely that some of the terms and concepts that appear in this discussion may be unfamiliar to some readers
Summary
Many different research methods have been applied to the study of human creativity since the 1950s (Sternberg 1999). Anderson (2006a) has expressed concerns about certain aspects of the ‘evocative or emotional’ autoethnographic method championed by Ellis and Bochner (2000) and other symbolic interactionists with postmodern or poststructuralist sensitivities (Denzin 2006) To put these concerns into context, it is worth noting that Anderson describes himself as ‘a friend of evocative ethnography’ (2006b: 452). This article takes some steps toward rectifying that problem by discussing how an analytic autoethnography might employ analytic strategies from the grounded theory tradition while still preserving its essential characteristics This methodological discussion might, benefit artist-researchers who identify themselves as autoethnographers, but who want to use analytic reflexivity to improve theoretical understandings of their creative practice
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