Making the Invisible Visible: How Chronic Illness Changes Narrative and the Autoethnographic Perspective

Health Commun. 2024 Sep 25:1-3. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2024.2407702. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

Autoethnography and narrative have long been used in health research, particularly as tools for understanding and exploring personal experiences with illness. As an autoethnographer, I employed this methodology in almost all of my previous academic work, and I thought I knew it well. However, when I approached narrating and investigating my rare, invisible, chronic illness, my understanding of the methodology was challenged; the emic and etic perspectives are complicated when sharing what is inside my own body.