Carolyn Ellis' Evocative Auto-ethnography; A research method aiming at living a better life

卡洛琳·艾理斯是情感唤起式自传民族志的主要开创者。受后现代主义影响,艾理斯将研究方法的核心问题从“怎样获得科学与客观的知识”转为“如何帮助研究者自身以及读者过着有意义、有用、符合道德伦理的生活”。以“叙事真实”和“生命连贯性”为理据,情感唤起式自传民族志让研究者在讲述自己遭遇的人生危机事件的过程中,透过向内反观自我的矛盾和纠结来揭示塑造与限制自我的社会结构,同时达到解放与重塑自我的效果,并且产生唤起读者情感共鸣、启发读者心灵和转变读者生活方式的作用。面对国内正在迅速扩张的实证主义“洋八股”学风,艾理斯的研究方法不仅能带来一股新鲜的气息,也可能刺激国内学者反思与深化自身对于西方诸多社会学研究方法的认识。

Carolyn Ellis is one of the founders of evocative auto-ethnography. Influenced by postmodernism, Ellis turns the crucial issue of research methods from" how to obtain scientific and objective knowledge" into "how to help researchers and readers live a meaningful, useful, moral, and ethical life ". Evocative auto-ethnography, based on the philosophical ideas of "narrative truth "and" the continuity of life", allows a researcher, through telling stories about the crises of his/her own life and introspecting his/her contradictions and ambivalences, to reveal the social structure that shapes and constrains him/her to emancipate and reshape himself/herself, and to evoke readers' emotions, inspire their spirits, and transform their lives. Given the increasing prevalence of the positivist research method in Chinese Sociology, Ellis' evocative auto-ethnography can not only bring a fresh atmosphere but also stimulate Chinese sociologists to rethink and deepen their understanding of various Western research methods.  

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