Collective Autoethnography

Collective Autoethnography: A Practical Guide for Studying Shared Experience Across Research, Teaching, and Practice introduces a rigorous and accessible qualitative methodology for researchers who want to study shared lived experience collaboratively. The book presents CoAE as a complete six-phase method, guiding readers from forming a research group and generating data together, all the way through analysis, interpretation, and collective writing. The book walks readers through every phase of the CoAE process: building a research container, developing shared interview protocols, conducting and transcribing collaborative interviews, coding independently before synthesizing together, reaching genuine consensus through structured dialogue, and weaving individual voices into a unified narrative. Throughout, readers encounter a sustained worked example drawn from a real 2020 study, alongside practitioner tools, readiness checks, and field-tested templates ready for immediate use. The book gives careful attention to the ethical dimensions unique to collective inquiry, including iterative consent, power dynamics, and the researcher-participant dual role, and extends the method across dissertation research, K-12 school inquiry, healthcare, and community-based settings.

This book is written for qualitative researchers, doctoral students, teacher educators, and practitioners across education, healthcare, social work, and the organizational sciences who are ready to do research that is as relational, rigorous, and generative as the questions they are asking.