Autoethnography: Narrative Research or Legacy Memoirs?

Misgivings about the significance of autoethnography as a qualitative research approach and its scholarly contribution are unrelenting. Existing guidelines for undertaking trustworthy autoethnographic research are often presented modestly to appease the evocative and analytic branches of autoethnography. Little seeks to draw the line between writing an autoethnographic memoir and undertaking autoethnographic research. Based on existing criticisms of autoethnographic memoirs presented as narrative research, I explore associations of autoethnography with narrative research, the usual observations of self-victimization/self-indulgence and the contribution of a conceptual framework to autoethnographic research. Using my doctoral research as a lens, I argue that autoethnography, which carries a qualitative research purpose, must transcend generating knowledge for its own sake to produce knowledge with social significance.