Methods Column Autoethnography: The Science of Writing Your Lived Experience Susan O’Hara, PhD, MPH, RN 1 Abstract This methods column guides health care professionals engaged in design practice to write about their experiences. But it is more than an autobiographical approach. Autoethnographic writing is a scientific method which contextualizes experiences in cultural, social, political and personal history. Through an evidence based approach, professionals in academic, practice, and research can bring their past experiences to a place in the present, and provide direction for future professionals. The six steps outlined here: selecting an approach; ensuring ethical responsibility; deciding theoretical under- pinnings; assembling and gathering data; reflecting and analyzing; and disseminating work with sup- porting drawings, photography, and other evocative formats. With autoethnography our current generation of leaders can not only better understand their own work, but plan for new directions in their future practices and those of the next generation of scholars and practitioners. Keywords qualitative research, autoethnography, analytic, evocative, ways of knowing, narrative The purpose of this column is to introduce health- care design professionals to autoethnography—a qualitative, social research methodology and method. First introduced to describe the relation- ship between the ethnographic and anthropologi- cal researcher and the researched population, autoethnography provides the bridge between the observer and the observed (Goldschmidt, 1977; Hayano, 1979; Heider, 1975). It is a “way of knowing” that acknowledges the researchers’ feelings about their own experiences with the individual participant or group and associated connection during fieldwork and analysis. Autoethnography is used to study and analyze the self and personal experiences in context of influen- tial factors that shape one’s self, provide insight into possible alternative perspectives, and the influence in a specific field or body of knowledge. Using autoethnography, the researcher is both the obser- ver and the participant, the researcher and the sub- ject, and an insider using an outsider’s view or perspective. In contrast, an autobiography is a story of one’s own life without focus on analyzing or interpreting the cultural, ethnic, economic, political, or influences on the self or how one’s life and work has contributed to a body of knowledge in a partic- ular field. (Jaynelle F. Stichler, personal communi- cation, May 10, 2018). This column represents a brief overview and a summary of the steps to write your own 1 School of Nursing, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA Corresponding Author: Susan O’Hara, PhD, MPH, RN, School of Nursing, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA. Email: sos2@clemson.edu Health Environments Research & Design Journal 1-4 ª The Author(s) 2018 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1937586718801425 journals.sagepub.com/home/her