Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 30, Issue 4, pp. 531–542, ISSN 0195-6086, electronic ISSN 1533-8665. © 2007 by the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permis- sion to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/si.2007.30.4.531. Sketching as Autoethnographic Practice Carol Rambo University of Memphis This article is an “autoethnographic sketch” that “draws out” substan- tive observations about the “sketchy” character of concepts such as identity, theory, self, and society. Using vignettes from my experiences as an art student, post-structuralist theory, and symbolic interaction, I render a brief sketch of how autoethnography and other representations of self can be conveyed in a layered process. The materials in each vignette may not seem to be consistent with or related to the other lay- ers, but as each layer is superimposed on the others, an image or impression emerges from the whole. By presenting these materials in this way, the format or metaphor of sketching offers autoethnographers the possibility of doing analysis and evocation, while leaving open other interpretive possibilities. Artificial closure is not imposed on the final product. I also briefly sketch how self and society exist sous rature and in différance to each other, thus making autoethnographic sketching a useful tool for symbolic interactionists and other observers of society. Keywords: autoethnography, art, symbolic interaction, Derrida, layered account It is worth trying to practice drawing difficult expressions . . . and the subtlety of tone they require. —Bruce Barber, The Fundamentals of Drawing Portraits A UTOETHNOGRAPHY In this space I write down the word “Autoethnography,” and place an X through it, in an attempt to more fully indicate what I mean (Derrida 1976). *** It was 1979. Ms. Marie Miranda, my ninth-grade art teacher, was a short, plump, leprechaun of a woman with yellow-blonde hair stacked in a lacquered, pin curl tower. Direct all correspondence to Carol Rambo, Department of Sociology, 231 Clement Hall, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152; e-mail: carol.rambo@memphis.edu.