Autoethnography

I found Pratt's idea of an autoethnographic text to be extremely fascinating. As a student I have taken a few different sociology and anthropology classes where the conversation is consistently about other cultures - how they are different, the same, religious, or scholarly. The discourse of the ethnography is one that is crucial to these studies. Pages and pages are written about other cultures around the world and here in the U.S. Anthropologists struggle to keep an unbiased eye and immerse themselves in the culture in order to best understand and convey the ideas and mores of the studied culture, but in most cases, that anthropologist is simply that, a researcher who may never be able to fully understand the culture or group of people being studied. For that reason, stereotypes emerge, or just unfavorable notions or views towards a group of people. Despite how open minded a scholar might say he or she is, if a a culture is 180 degrees different from their own, it may be difficult to convey these differences in a positive light. What is more, the scholar may be able to describe the culture in a neutral way, but the results may be negative and portray a culture negatively. Even statistics can be miscontrued and used to support an opinion.

For all of these reasons, I think the idea of an autoethnographic text is an insightful way to respond to what is written about one's culture - positive or negative. It is a chance to combat stereotypes, or at the very least explain why a group of people might be the way they are. In a sense it is giving the people who may have been represented in a scholarly discourse, the last word - their own.
I think a very general and popular culture version of the idea of an autoethnographic text the artist Lupe Fiasco's words about where he comes from. His song entitled, "Comin From Where I'm From", describes life growing up in an impoverished American neighborhood. It emphasizes the troubles of poor communities, and how they can often be difficult to overcome. With many pieces written about American "ghettos", I find Lupe's rap to be an important insight and response to such texts and stereotypes.

http://www.actionext.com/names_l/lupe_fiasco_lyrics/comin_from_where_im_from.html