International Symposium on Autoethnography and Narrative (ISAN)
Symposium on Autoethnography and Narrative Inquiry: Reflecting on the Legacy of Carolyn Ellis and Art Bochner (2019)
For decades, Art Bochner and Carolyn Ellis have championed the development and application of autoethnography, narrative inquiry, and qualitative methods. As architects of the rise of autoethnography, Ellis and Bochner have been passionate advocates of novel forms of investigating, expressing, and representing lived experience through narrative modes of writing, storytelling, and performance. As authors and editors of multiple books, book series, edited collections, articles and essays, they have shown us how to fuse the personal and the academic, the arts and the social sciences, rigor and imagination. Individually and collectively, their work has touched the lives of thousands of students and scholars across the globe. Indeed, it would be surprising to meet an autoethnographic researcher whose work has not been influenced by their scholarship.
In 2019, we held a symposium to honor Ellis’ and Bochner’s work. (Click here for the program.)
Doing Autoethnography (2011-2020)
In 2011, Dr. Derek Bolen started the Doing Autoethnography conference at Wayne State University. The conference took place five additional times—2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2020. Derek’s time, energy, and vision has contributed greatly to the success of autoethnography in several academic contexts. Here are the programs from every Doing Autoethnography conference: 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2020.
Sandra Pensoneau-Conway, Tony Adams, and Derek Bolen edited Doing Autoethnography, a book that features research from the first five Doing Autoethnography conferences (2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016). Contributors interrogate autoethnography ethically, theoretically, relationally, and methodologically, as well as address many interrelated themes: identity norms and negotiations; experiences tied to race, gender, sexuality, size, citizenship, and dis/ability; exclusion and belonging; oppression, injustice, and assault; barriers to learning/education; and living with/in complicated relationships.
International Conference of Autoethnography (UK; 2014-present)
The 9th International Conference of Autoethnography (formerly the British Conference of Autoethnography) was held in Bristol on July 17-19, 2022. Click here for more information.
2014 Keynote (Alec Grant)
Critical Autoethnography (Australia; 2015-Present)
Critical Autoethnography an Australia-based community furthering the methodological, conceptual and epistemological work of autoethnography in critical and artful ways. The Facebook group is the main communication tool for a yearly conference and a global community of scholars with particular attention to the global south.
2022 Program
2020 Program
2018 Program
2017 Program
2016 Reflection on Conference (Fitzpatrick)
2015 Program
International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (2005-Present)
ICQI has been held annually on the campus of the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Founded in 2005, its mission is to facilitate the development of qualitative research methods across a wide variety of academic disciplines. ICQI provides leadership to demonstrate the promise of qualitative inquiry as a form of democratic practice, to show how qualitative inquiry can be used to directly engage pressing social issues at the level of local, state, national and global communities. The Congress sponsors the journal International Review of Qualitative Research (IRQR), and three book series.
2011 Program
2009 Program
2008 Program
1990 Stone Symposium: Sociology of Subjectivity (Program)