Ethics in Autoethnography and Collaborative Autoethnography

Autoethnography as an approach to inquiry has gained a widespread following in part because it addresses the ethical issue of representing, speaking for, or appropriating the voice of others. In this article, I place the emergence of autoethnography within its historical context and discuss the contributions and limitations of autoethnography as an approach to inquiry. I examine ethical aspects of autoethnography, showing how the method is rooted in ethical intent, yet autoethnographers nevertheless face ethical challenges. I suggest that collaborative autoethnography, a multivocal approach in which two or more researchers work together to share personal stories and interpret the pooled autoethnographic data, builds upon and extends the reach of autoethnography and addresses some of its methodological and ethical issues. In particular, collaborative autoethnography supports a shift from individual to collective agency, thereby offering a path toward personally engaging, nonexploitative, accessible research that makes a difference.