Problematic Autoethnographic Research: Researcher’s Failure in Positioning

This article problematizes and discusses the “auto”ethnographical approach, which has recently become pervasive in research-oriented writings, to “tell the story of self and subject” in order to analyze wider cultural and social conditions. This method can be found in the remarkable array of a variety of disciplines in which scholars have explicitly and implicitly highlighted identity-related issues. One problem with this approach is its failure to recognize the ideological generalization in identifying the researcher’s position, with the risk of eventually becoming a neutral “truth through the researcher’s reality.” This paper focuses on the crisis between history and memory in contextualizing a researcher’s collective identity, and the crisis between insiderness and outsiderness in research. As a researcher and writer, I apply my examples to the conceptual framework built in this study on the identity crisis of my life, struggles, and conflicts. Considering researchers’ struggles and conflicts in determining self with regard to the identity established in research, my impetus for writing this paper is to provide a roadmap that critically examines the contexts that should be considered when a researcher positions self in the study and writing.