How Does Jack Kerouac's Use Of Autoethnography

Jack Kerouac, the author of On the Road, was a French American man that was born in America. This novel follows Kerouac’s character, Sal, and his friends as they travel through America. Kerouac’s novel is an autoethnographic piece of writing. The autoethnography in the writing shapes the novel into a study of Kerouac’s life and personal experiences through his characters. By writing this novel, the readers are able to see what Kerouac experienced in America. By blending this idea and genre, Kerouac authors a strong travel narrative that allows people to understand the struggle that he has to find his true self and the meaning of twentieth century America, his novel is littered with personal experiences, something that allows the reader to connect

Though it only developed in the 1980’s, it started when social scientists began to question traditional ethnographic research and reporting methods and initiated a reform movement to revise and reconstruct the ways in which inquiry, research, and reporting were conducted (Hogan). Autoethnography was born from the idea of ethnography, which uses data and facts to report on a culture. Autoethnography can be defined as a research and reporting method that utilizes a writer’s personal experiences and history to help analyze, describe, or report on cultural, social, or political phenomena

In On The Road, Kerouac is self-engaging with personal narration of his cultural analysis and personal interpretation, especially being a French man in an American culture. Though he does not have really have the choice whether to be engaged with this new culture or not, he analyzes it because it is different than what he has ever seen before. We can even see the struggle of this new culture this through other characters too, especially Sal’s fully French