Unbecoming: The aftereffects of autoethnography

Abstract

Autoethnography is a research methodology that employs conscious becoming as a strategy for producing academic knowledge. As it grows in popularity across disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, should those who employ the methodology start thinking through the consequences of such becoming for the person engaging in it? This essay draws from the author’s long-term work on street style bloggers to argue that autoethnography is a practice with risks both practical and existential, and it suggests that social scientific training should begin to take into consideration the kinds of people ethnographers have to become in order to do their work.