Exo-autoethnography : writing and research on transgenerational transmission of trauma

![CDATA[Since the late 1970s, autoethnographic research and writing has demonstrated that non-fiction creative writing practice can utilise this alternate-ethnographic method as part of its research and narrative, producing rigorous creative work which is palatable both by the academy and the general audience: bringing social science closer to literature. This paper proposes a new autoethnographic method of research and writing I am calling exo-autoethnography: a distinct ethnographic method of qualitative research within non-fiction creative, and autoethnographic writing, that deals with transgenerational transmission of familial trauma. Exoautoethnography is an approach to research that seeks to analyse individual and private experience as directed by the other’s experience or history to better understand: 1. A history that impacted the researcher by proxy; and 2. Personal and community experience as related to that history. Exo-autoethnography is the autoethnographic exploration of a history whose events the researcher (author) did not experience directly, but a history that impacted the researcher through familial, or other personal connections. Placing focus on a history that impacted the self (author) by proxy, the method aims to connect the present with a history of the other through transgenerational transmission of trauma and/or experiences of an upbringing influenced by parental trauma.]]