CFP Journal Special Issue: Cyber Autoethnography, Cyber Culture, and Cyber Identities

Editor: Dr. Ahmet Atay (College of Wooster)

Special Issue: Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies

Traditionally, most autoethnograhic research dealt with cultural experiences that are bounded by the idea of relational aspects of our communication and by our presentations and performances of identities in physical and cultural contexts. Hence, this research has focused on the physical dimensions of human experiences, such as coming out (Adams, 2011), bulimia and body (Tilmann, 1996), face-to-face interactions, family relationships (Poulos, 2012), disability (Lindemann, 2010), and home and identity (Chawla, 2014). However, not many autoethnographies have focused on human experiences in cyber spaces. Similarly, scholars working on autoethnographic research have widely ignored human experiences and cultural identities within mediated cultures as well as in digital and cyber spaces.

Some of the recent scholarship in popular culture and cultural studies aims to bridge the gap between autoethnography and mediated representations, for example, Boylorn’s (2008) work on representation of Black women on reality television. Furthermore, the entire issue of Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, “Iconography of the West: Autoethnographic Representations of the West(erns)” examined the notion of representation through an autoethnographic lens. In addition to media representations, some scholars, such as Lavery (2007), Monaco (2010), and Sturm (2015), studied different aspects of television and popular culture fandom. Recently, Manning and Adams (2015) co-edited a special issue of Popular Culture Studies Journal, focused on the usage of autoethnography in popular culture scholarship

By building on the previous scholarship that discusses the link between media and popular culture and autoethnography, the purpose of this special issue is to focus on the idea of cyber or digital autoethnography. Building on Gajjala’s work (2002, 2004, 2006) and work such as that of Terri Senft (2008) as well as on work by anthropologists such as Tom Boellstorf (2012), we argue that because of increased digitalization of everyday life, our identities and realities are becoming increasingly mediated and digitalized. Hence, our identities are patched together and they are the mixture of (cyber)experiences, (cyber)stories and (cyber/mediated) representations. In order to study our lived experiences within a culture, which is heavily digitalized, we need to develop a methodology that would allow such experiences to be studied. In this special issue, our goal is to develop the theoretical framework of cyber autoethnography and also present cyber autoethnographic writing that br!
 eaks the boundaries of traditional, physical-based, space-bound autoethnographies.

In this special issue, our goal is to develop the theoretical framework of cyber autoethnography and also present cyber autoethnographic writing that breaks the boundaries of traditional, physical-based, space-bound autoethnographies.

We welcome autoethnographic manuscripts that engage (but are not limited to) the following domains of issues and experience:

1-Theorizing cyber autoethnography

2-Cyber identities and autoethnography

3-Cyborgs

4-Digial homes

5-Cyber autoethnography and cyber culture

6-Cyber cosmopolitanism

Abstracts are due by January 25, 2017, with a word length of no more than 500 words. Full- length manuscripts are due on August 25, 2017, with a word length of no more than 6,000 words including references, endnotes, and so forth. Abstracts should emailed as Word documents to Ahmet Atay (aatay@wooster.edu) for an initial review.

*Work Cited*

Adams, Tony E. Narrating the Closet: An Autoethnography of Same-Sex Attraction. New York:Left Coast Press. 2011. Print.

Boellstorf, Tom., Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce, and T. L. Taylor. Ethnography and VirtualWorlds: A handbook of Method. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2012. Print.

Boylorn, Robin M. “As Seen on TV: An Autoethnographic Reflection on Race and Reality Television. Critical Studies in Media Communication 25.4 (2008): 413-433. Print.

Gajjala, Radhika. An Interrupted Postcolonial/Feminist Cyberethnography: Complicity and Resistance in the “Cyberfield.” Feminist Media Studies, 2(2), (202): 177-193. Print.

Gajjala, Radhika. (2004). “Negotiating cyberspace/negotiating RI.” In Our Voices: Essays in Culture, Ethnicity, and Communication, edited by Alberto Gonzales, Marsha Houston, and Victoria Chen, 82-91. Los Angeles: Roxbury. 2004. Print.

Gajjala, Radhika. (2006). “Cyberethnography: Reading South Asian digital diaspora.” In Native on the net: Indigenous and diasporic peoples in the virtual age, edited by Kyra Landzelius, 272-291. London: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Lavery, David. “The Crying Game: Why Television Brings Us to Tears.” Flow 5.9 (2007). Web.

Lindemann, Kurt. Cleaning Up my (Father’s) Mess: Narrative Containments of “Leaky”Masculinities. Qualitative Inquiry 16, (2010): 29-38. Print.

Manning, Jimmie. & Tony E. Adams, T. E. (eds). Connecting the personal and the popular:Autoethnography and popular culture. The Popular Culture Journal, 3 (2015). [Special issue on popular culture and autoethnography.]

Monaco, Jeanette. “Memory Work, Autoethnography, and the Construction of a Fan-Ethnography.” Participations 7.1 (2010). Web.

Poulos, Christopher. Stumbling into Relating: Writing a Relationship with My Father.Qualitative Inquiry 18(2) (2012): 197-202. Print.

Tillmann-Healy, Lisa M. “A Secret Life in a Culture of Thinness: Reflections on Body, Food, and Bulimia.” In Composing Ethnography: Alternative Forms of Qualitative Writing, edited by Carolyn Ellis and Arthur P. Bochner, 76-108.Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 1996.

Senft, Theresa, Camgirls: Celebrity & Community in the Age of Social Networks. Single author. New York: Peter Lang. 2008

Sturm, Damion. “Playing With the Autoethnographical Performing and Re-Presenting the Fan’s Voice.” Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 15.3 (2015): 213-223. Print.