At the end of Writing the New Ethnography, Dr. H.L. (Bud, Buddy, Dr. Bud) Goodall, Jr. (2000) called on ethnographers to fully engage “a dialogic ethic and a transformational vision” aimed at “evolving to a higher state of scholarly consciousness” (p. 198). In his later work, he continued to urge ethnographers and other qualitative researchers to expand our audiences and to speak to issues that engage our communities, our cultures, and our world in a vibrant conversation about making the world a better place. As the founding member of The Ethnogs, Nick Trujillo (aka Gory Bateson) another of our great ethnographers, penned the song “The Anthem” to commemorate the fact that ethnography is not merely a method, but “a way of life.” He, too, wrote and taught the transformative powers of narrative/ethnographic scholarship. Together, these two pioneers shaped our way of thinking about and writing ethnography.
Sadly, on August 24, 2012, our dear friend Bud lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. A mere two months later, Bud’s longtime friend, colleague, and fellow ethnographic pioneer, Nick Trujillo, also died, suddenly and unexpectedly. To honor their legacy, The H.L. “Bud” Goodall, Jr. and Nick Trujillo “It’s a Way of Life” Award has been established. This award will honor a published or other public work in narrative ethnography that “exemplifies excellence in storytelling informed by scholarship and intended for both scholarly and public audiences” (Bud’s words).
Each November, the call for awards will be announced at the National Communication Association Conference, and the award will be granted the following May at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. The Awards Review Committee seeks nominations of published or publicly performed/screened ethnographic work that engages a transformational vision, advances scholarship, and speaks to broad audiences across a variety of fields and walks of life. We welcome nominations of good work from ethnographic/qualitative researchers in any area of expertise, from any perspective, and in any form. The awards will be rotated, year-by-year, in the following categories:
The BEST BOOK AWARD (published) is given in odd-numbered years (e.g., 2025, 2027, 2029). Books published within the previous two years can be nominated.
The BEST ARTICLE/ALTERNATIVE TEXT AWARD (published or publicly performed) is given in even-numbered years (2024, 2026, 2028). Publications and public performances from the previous two years can be nominated.
For more information about the award, contact Dr. Chris Poulos at cnpoulos[at]uncg.edu
2013: Robin M. Boylorn, Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience
2014: Lisa Tillmann, Off the Menu; and Keith Berry, “Spinning Autoethnographic Reflexivity, Cultural Critique, and Negotiating Selves“
2015: Arthur P. Bochner, Coming to Narrative: A Personal History of Paradigm Change in the Human Sciences
2016: Bryant Keith Alexander, Claudio Moreira and Hari Stephen Kumar, Memory, Mourning, and Miracles: A Triple-Autoethnographic Performance Script
2017: Keith Berry, Bullied: Tales of Torment, Identity, and Youth
2018: Amber Lauren Johnson, From Academe, to the Theatre, to the Streets: My Autocritography of Aesthetic Cleansing and Canonical Exception in the Wake of Ferguson
2019: Tasha Dunn, Talking White Trash: Mediated Representations and Lived Experiences of White Working-Class People
2020: Sandra Faulkner, Crank Up the Feminism: Poetic Inquiry as Feminist Methodology
2021: Reinekke Lengelle, Writing the Self in Bereavement: A Story of Love, Spousal Loss, and Resilience
2022: Jennifer L. Erdely and Jade C. Huell, I Got Your Back: A One(ish) Person Show Exploring Pain, Medicine, Empathy, and Performance
2023: Tony E. Adams, Stacy Holman Jones, and Carolyn Ellis, Handbook of Autoethnography (2nd edition)