“Was that (racial) prejudice, or was it just me?”: an autoethnographic approach to deconstructing prejudice

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2024

Abstract

In this chapter, I advance the argument that qualitative methods can best get to the root of the issue of prejudice in ways that quantitative methods, such as a survey, cannot. I use an autoethnographic approach to demonstrate how this methodology makes the abstract material. Prejudice and its consequences are frequently treated as being disconnected, with minimal or no attention given to the role that societal structures (i.e., racist and sexist ideologies) play in shaping these attitudes and their impact on the daily lives of those most harmed by them. Autoethnography is a type of self-reflexivity that allows the subject to share their perspective and experience in an authentic manner. It can bring to life the abstractness of oppression and make it somewhat accessible to those whose identities and experiences are too far removed from those intersectional realities being shared. As such, it can affirm the intersectional realities of those who feel muted, marginalized, and dismissed in ways that aggregate research cannot. Thus, in this chapter, I engage in self-reflexivity that allows me to share my perspective and experience with racial prejudice in an authentic manner.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Research Handbook on Communication and Prejudice

First Page

177

Last Page

185

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