Autoethnographic Fragments of My Grandmothers

[Michael Hemmingson]

AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC SKETCHES OF MY GRANDMOTHERS.pdf

This paper of autoethnography won the 2009 Norman K. Denzin Qualitative Research Award.

[Michael Hemmingson]

Thanks!

In a flurry with agent selling two books...hopefully we'll have deals set before Xmas...

[Michele K. Arnesen]

Wow! This is really powerful. I will try to write about my father tonight in 6 sentences. Thank you for the inspiration!

In the meantime, here is a poem I wrote a few months ago. You wrote something in this piece that made me think of it:


My Perestroika

A continual Perestroika am I
an emotional reconstruction
every few years
a reconstruction of self-destruction
fighting with an unknown self
a visitor from the depths of despair
a twin with no name who came
to taunt me at night,
encouraged me to count sheep
then never turned out the light


Glasnost
my third eye
a probing scope into my
internal human rights struggle
a struggle for the right to enjoy
the fruits that grow
a struggle for the right to see
the love in my lover’s eyes
for the ability to see the world
in color
to flitter about to a
Mozart piano sonata



Steady sailing
five years now
riding waves of realizations
crashing into
love
again and again
love of wind on my skin
love of trees bending
to the resonating melody calling
from the bended bow of a violin.
love of water’s buoyancy
floating frolicking, swimming,
diving in the ocean,
cold and tingling
body nude
with friends
winding down roads with
no beginning
no end

Finding notes on the piano keyboard
that sound like wailing walls
discovering melodies in music
that conjure up the scent of
old neighborhoods
old halls
mesmerized by lyrics of songs that
lift me off the ground
then gently set me down
Leonard Cohen
sings to me
tells me how he sought out answers
at a buddhist monastery
he did not find
eternal peace
he sings to me again and again
through the poetry that emerges from
his smoky mind
tells me how he
returned to Boogie Street.


Perestroika did not fail me
It is still reconstructing
and building
and knowing
that Glasnost
will help and be
it’s guiding friend.

[Michael Hemmingson]

The diff is significant, in that you analyze your own memoir, and use "systematic sociological introspection" or "self-psychology of the self." Like any social science research paper, you do a lit review and then place your work in context of the on-going conversation -- how is your paper like the one published three years ago in The Snooty Review of Sociology? Plus, other definitions are auto/e are analytical auto-e in anthropology, and the experiences of teaching enviornemnts (popular in Canada for some reason). In post-colonial studies, auto-e is termed as the native de-defining his/her cultuure to fit the worldview of the colonial power...

Etc.

Wikpedia entry blows. Try reading Carolyn Ellis' stuff on it -- she pioneered the form. before that, auto-e was the study of the self within one's own culture, as opposed to the study of others in their culture. In my book, ZONA NORTE, I study myself and changes in myself over two years while researching seedy Tijuana culture.

[JeSais]

OK so given my understanding of autoethnography comes from (1) this post and (2) wikipedia... I must ask, how then is autoethnography different than memoir?

It seems in autoethnography the writer applies a narrative structure which I assume, like memoir, would be utilizing the tools of fiction. Good memoir, in my opinion, is going to explore larger issues, and/or place the narrator into a larger social context... otherwise why would anyone care?

SO, while I do think my family (the grandfathers) are interesting... what I hope to do is make the narrative compelling because it explores issues like the influence of military culture in family dynamics and the effects of alcohlism.

If you look at a book like Joan Didion's Where I am From, she explores her own family history, set against the backdrop of the history of California...

or something I am currently reading, Hope Edelman's Motherless Daughters, where her own story of mourning her mother is the impetus for extensive research into grief, and the effects of losing a mother --specifically on girls.

or... The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman-- the story of Hmong in Central Calif and the medical tragedy that ensued when cultures collide... years in the making, immersion in the culture, extensive research....

Bottom line is that it seems to me that the line between the two (or three if you throw in the broader genre of creative non-fiction) is rather blurred. So where is the difference?

[Michael Hemmingson]

Autoethnography is the most popular new form of qualitative inquiry going on, not just in sociology and communications where it began, but branching out into anthropology, health research, nursing research, etc. At last hyear's NCA, which was here in SD, there was a plethora of auto-e panels and readings.

I have published two auto-e books this far -- one a collection of essays and one my dissertation.

No great sellers, but they have found a decent audience. I am editing an anthology called First Person Sociology that should be out this time next year from McFarland.

[JeSais]

I'd like to read more in depth (in the middle of grad school here) but am most interested... I am currently working on a piece called The Grandfather Clause, tracing my grandfathers, their influence on me, my family history, etc. I had no idea that what I was doing was kind of a form of autoethnography-- now I am most excited to explore more! thank you for sharing....