Evocative Autoethnography ─ Writing Lives and Telling Stories

Arthur P. Bochner is Distinguished University Professor of communication at University of South Florida and one of the leading figures in autoethnography and personal narrative. His most recent book, Coming to Narrative, won best book awards from both the National Communication Association (NCA) Ethnography Division and the International Congress for Qualitative Inquiry. He is coauthor of Understanding Family Communication, coeditor with Carolyn Ellis of two influential edited volumes on interpretive ethnographyComposing Ethnography and Ethnographically Speakingand coedits the Writing Lives book series. He has authored over 100 refereed articles and book chapters on personal relationships, personal narrative, qualitative methods, and philosophy of communication. Bochner served as president of the National Communication Association in 2008, was elected an NCA Distinguished Scholar, and was honored with the career Legacy Award from the NCA Ethnography Division in 2014. Carolyn Ellis is Distinguished University Professor of communication and sociology at the University of South Florida and one of the leading figures in autoethnography. She was honored with the 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award in Qualitative Inquiry from the International Congress for Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI) and with the career Legacy Award from the National Communication Association (NCA) Ethnography Division in 2013. In 2014, the NCA awarded Ellis and Arthur Bochner the Charles H. Woolbert Research Award for their 2000 chapter, Autoethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity: Researcher as Subject.” In 2015, she was honored with the title of NCA Distinguished Scholar. Her book The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography is the foundational work on autoethnographic methods. Revision: Autoethnographic Reflections on Life and Work (2008) received both the Cooley Award of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction and the outstanding book award from ICQI. Equally well known are her groundbreaking autoethnographic studies Fisher Folk and Final Negotiations. Her current autoethnographic work is with holocaust survivors.