Automethodology: Tracing a Home for Praxis-Oriented Ethnography

摘要

The authors trace the development of ethnographic practices according to the methodological assumptions of ethnographers within different historical periods. As communication scholars, the authors find Calvin O. Schraga??s conceptualization of the self to be informative and advantageous for navigating an ethnographic sense of a??selfa?? in the current status of the methodological contestation. Borrowing from Schraga??s work, which focuses on communicative praxis in understanding the self, this article explores an innovative methodological framework called automethodology. By examining the deployment and emplotment of the self within the automethods of autobiography, autoethnography, narrative co-construction, community autoethnography, critical complete-member ethnography, reflexive ethnography, autoperformance, and layered account, the authors develop epistemological foundations for praxis-oriented ethnographers. Throughout this journey, the authors end up situating themselves in a place they consider homea??in the practices of automethodology.