The Rewards and Shortcomings of Auto-Ethnographic Study

Abstract

This article is an abstract from a personal auto-ethnographic journey I undertook in my PhD research into the role of the Xhosa initiation practice in moral regeneration. In this article I explore the advantages and disadvantages of auto-ethnographic study. This includes how I was received by the communities and my informants given the fact that I investigated a practice that is part of my own culture and a practice I went through. Further, that this article is an informant s perspective in the sense that it shares opinions and perceptions of the informants on my research work.

Keywords: Rewards, auto-ethnographic, shortcommings, initiation, moral regeneration.