Autoethnography: accept, revise, reject? An evaluative self reflects

ABSTRACT In this article I offer some reflections of how my evaluative self goes about passing judgement on different kinds of autoethnography. I begin by making distinctions between the autobiographical and the autoethnographic before raising questions about whether or not self-reflexive accounts of the fieldwork process can claim the title of autoethnography. Following this, I consider the lists of criteria others have made available to my evaluative self for judging analytic, evocative and performance autoethnographies. Having acknowledged the dangers and possibilities of such lists attention then turns to how my evaluative self might go about judging a selection of autoethnographies published in Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health using multiple criteria from a variety of sources. Rather than being purely a cognitive, linear and rational act the process described is messy, tentative, contingent, and deeply embodied as my evaluative self feels its way towards making certain kinds of judgement calls over others.