Revision: Autoethnographic Reflections on Life and Work

Carolyn Ellis is a prominent writer in the move toward personal, reflexive writing as an approach to academic research. In addition to her landmark books Final Negotiations and The Ethnographic I, she has authored numerous stories that demonstrate the emotional power and academic value of autoethnography.

Now issued as a Routledge Education Classic Edition, Revision: Autoethnographic Reflections on Life and Work collects a dozen of Ellis’s stories―about the loss of her husband, brother and mother; of growing up in small town Virginia; about the ethical work of the ethnographer; and about emotionally charged life issues such as abortion, caregiving, and love. Atop these captivating stories, she adds the component of meta-autoethography―a layering of new interpretations, reflections, and vignettes to her older work.

A new preface text by the author reflects on the subsequent developments in the author’s life and her vision for autoethnography since the book’s original publication. Demonstrating Carolyn’s extensive contribution to autoethnographic scholarship, this new edition offers compelling ideas and stories for qualitative researchers and a student-friendly text for courses.

Carolyn Ellis is Distinguished University Professor Emerita of Communication and Sociology at the University of South Florida. She has contributed to the narrative and autoethnographic study of human life through integrating ethnographic, literary, and evocative writing to portray and make sense of lived experience in cultural context. Her publications include Final Negotiations: A Story of Love, Loss, and Chronic Illness, Evocative Autoethnography: Writing Lives and Telling Stories (with Arthur Bochner), and Autoethnography: Understanding Qualitative Research and Handbook of Autoethnography, both with Tony E. Adams and Stacy Holman Jones. She co-edits the Routledge book series Writing Lives: Ethnographic Narratives.