Ethnography Division
Interest Group Awards
Listed here are awards given by the Interest Group to its members. Interests Groups are smaller communities within NCA's large membership that provide a range of resources including networking opportunities, Annual Convention programming, leadership opportunities, awards, and specialized information dissemination channels, among others.
Read more about this Interest Group.
Best Book Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Wilfredo Alvarez, Everyday Dirty Work: Invisibility, Communication, and Immigrant Labor, published by the Ohio State University Press in 2022. |
| 2022 | Pablo J. Boczkowski, Abundance: On the Experience of Living in a World of Information Plenty, published by Oxford Press in 2021. |
| 2021 | Andrew Herrmann, The Routledge International Handbook of Organizational Autoethnography; |
| 2020 | Amber Johnson and Loretta LeMaster, Gender Futurity, Intersectional Autoethnography: Embodied Theorizing from the Margins (Routledge, 2020) |
| 2019 | Marcelo Diversi and Claudio Moreira, Betweener Autoethnographies (Routledge, 2018) |
| 2018 | Javon Johnson, Killing Poetry: Blackness and the Making of Slam and Spoken Word Communities (Rutgers University Press, 2017) |
| 2018 | Julie-Ann Scott, Embodied Performance as Applied Research (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) |
| 2016 | Keith Berry, Bullied: Tales of torment, identity, and youth (Routledge Press, 2016) |
| 2015 | Devika Chawla, Home, Uprooted: Oral Histories of India’s Partition (Fordham University Press, 2014) |
| 2014 | Arthur P. Bochner, Coming to Narrative: A Personal History of Paradigm Change in the Human Sciences (Left Coast Press, 2014) |
Best Book (Monograph)
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2013 | Robin Boylorn, Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience (Left Coast Press) |
Best Book (Edited Collection)
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2013 | Stacy Holman Jones, Tony E. Adams, and Carolyn Ellis, The Handbook of Autoethnography (Taylor & Francis) |
| 2012 | Tony Adams, Narrating the Closet: An Autoethnography of Same Sex Desire (Left Coast Press, 2011) |
Best Journal Article Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Billy Huff, "On [Be]Becoming in Boystown," published in Journal of Autoethnography |
| 2022 | Joshua Hamzehee, “Eclectic Truth Poetry Slam to Baton Rouge SLAM! An Obituary for Summer 2016: A Recording of Critical Performance Ethnography” published in Text and Performance Quarterly. |
| 2021 | No award given |
| 2020 | Peter R. Jensen, Joëlle Cruz, Elizabeth K. Eger, Jenna N. Hanchey, Angela N. Gist-Mackey, Kristina Ruiz-Mesa, and Astrid Villamil, "Pushing Beyond Positionalities and Through 'Failures' in Qualitative Organizational Communication: Experiences and Lessons on Identities in Ethnographic Praxis," Management Communication Quarterly, 34(1), 121-151 (2020) |
| 2019 | Angela Gist-Mackey, "(Dis)embodying Job Search Communication Training: Comparative, Critical Ethnographic Analysis of Materiality and Discourse During the Unequal Search for Work," Organization Studies, 39(9):1251-1275. |
| 2018 | Julie-Ann Scott & Hunter Houtzer, "'She Was Here': Research as Resistance to the loss of 'Culturally Uncomfortable' Identities," Qualitative Inquiry, 24(2):134-150. |
| 2016 | Julie-Ann Scott, “Narrative performance research: Co-storying ‘almost passing’”, Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, 4(3), 70-91. |
| 2015 | Amber Johnson, “Confessions of a video vixen: My autocritography of sexuality, desire, and memory”, Text and Performance Quarterly, 34 (2014): 182-200 |
| 2015 | Amber Johnson, “Confessions of a video vixen: My autocritography of sexuality, desire, and memory”, Text and Performance Quarterly, 34 (2014): 182-200 |
| 2014 | Kurt Lindemann, “Access-Ability and Disability: Performing Stigma, Writing Trauma”, The Northwest Journal of Communication, 40 (2012): 129-149. |
| 2013 | Kristenn Blinne, “Auto (erotic) Ethnography” Sexualities 15 (2012): 953-977 |
| 2012 | Robin P. Clair, “Reflexivity and rhetorical ethnography: From family farm to orphanage and back again”, Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies, 11 (2011): 117-128. |
| 2012 | Claudio Moreira and Marcelo Diversi, “Missing Bodies: Troubling the Colonial Landscape of American Academia”, Text and Performance Quarterly, 31 (2011): 229-248 |
Best Book Chapter Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Keith Berry, "Meditations on the Story I Cannot Write: Reflexivity, Autoethnography, and the Possibilities of Maybe," published in The Routledge Handbook of Autoethnography. |
| 2022 | Katherine J. Denker, Kayla Rausch, and Savaughn E. Williams, “Learning Through the Process: Failure, Frustration, and Forward Movement in Autoethnography” published in The Routledge International Handbook of Autoethnography. |
| 2021 | No award given |
| 2020 | No award given |
| 2019 | Julianna Kirschner, "Mind and Matter: (Re)membering, Performing, and Being" featured in Creative Selves/Creative Cultures: Critical Autoethnography, Performance, and Pedagogy |
| 2018 | Julie-Ann Scott & Kelly P. Herold, "Almsot Passing: Using Disability Disclosure to Recalibrate Able-Bodied Bias in the Classroom" |
| 2016 | Michaela D.E. Meyer, "On the Identity Politics of Pregnancy: An Autoethnographic Journey Through/In Reproductive Time" featured in Rachel Silverman and Jay Baglia (Eds.) Communicating Pregnancy Loss: Narrative as a Method for Change (pp. 135-148). Peter Lang Health Communication Series. |
| 2015 | Desirée D. Rowe, "Cruel Optimism and the Problem of Positivity: Miscarriage as a Model for Living" (In R. Silverman and J. Baglia [Eds.], Communicating Pregnancy Loss: Narrative as a Method for Change; 2014) |
| 2014 | Devika Chawla, "Walk, Walking, Talking, Home" (In S. Holman Jones, T. Adams, and C. Ellis [Eds.], Handbook of Autoethnogrpahy; 2013) |
| 2013 | Laura Ellingson, "Interview as Embodied Communication" (In J.F. Gubrium, J.A. Holstein, A.B. Marvasti, and K.D. McKinney [Eds.] Handbook of Interview Research; 2012) |
| 2012 | Krishna Pattisapu and Bernadette Calafell, "(Academic) Families of Choice: Queer Relationality, Mentoring, and Critical Communication Pedagogy." (In N. Bardhan and M. Orbe [Eds.], Identity and Communication Research: Intercultural Reflection and Future Directions; 2012) |
Best Aural or Visual Ethnography Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock, Frank Trimble, & Evan Scott-Pollock, "Gazed At: Stories of a Mortal Body" |
| 2016 | Elizabeth Spencer, “Unraveling: A Caregiver’s Journey of Discovery” |
| 2015 | Kendra Dyanne Rivera, “More than a Fence: (de)Constructing Mexico-U.S. Borders” |
| 2014 | Lisa Tillmann, “Off the Menu: Challenging the Politics and Economics of Body and Food” |
| 2013 | Lisa M. Tillmann, “Remembering a Cool September” |
Best Special Journal Issue Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Godfried A. Asante & Jenna N. Hanchey, "(Re)Theorizing Communication Studies from African Perspectives," published in Review of Communication (vol. 21, no. 4 & vol. 22, no.1) |
| 2022 | Bryant Keith Alexander, “Survival in/at the Intersections” published in International Review of Qualitative Research. |
| 2021 | No award given |
| 2020 | No award given |
| 2019 | Devika Chawla, Editor, "Migrations/Borders and Margins" for Departures in Critical Qualitative Research (8:1 and 8:2) |
| 2018 | Bryant Keith Alexander & Mary E. Weems, "June 12, 2016: Terrorism and Hate in Orlando, America-Poetic and Performative Responses," Qualitative Inquiry, 23.7: 483-571. |
| 2016 | Tony Adams & Jimmie Manning, “Connecting the Personal and the Popular: Autoethnography and Popular Culture," The Popular Culture Studies Journal, Vol 3, Issue 2 (2015). |
| 2015 | Andrew F. Herrmann and Kristen DiFate, “The New Ethnography: Goodall, Trujillo, and the Necessity of Storytelling,” Special issue of Storytelling, Self, and Society, 10 (2014). |
| 2013 | Tony E. Adams and Stacy Holman Jones, “On Studying Ourselves and Others,” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 9 (2013). |
| 2012 | Keith Berry and Robin P. Clair, “The call of Ethnographic Reflexivity: Narrating the Self’s Presence in Ethnography,” Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies, 11. |
| 2012 | W. Benjamin Myers, “Writing Autoethnographic Joy”, Qualitative Communication Research Journal, 1 (2012): 157-162. |
Legacy Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2022 | Sarah Amira de la Garza |
| 2022 | Sandra L. Faulkner |
| 2022 | Laura L. Ellingson |
| 2021 | No award given |
| 2020 | No award given |
| 2019 | Bryant Keith Alexander |
| 2018 | Ronald J. Pelias |
| 2014 | Arthur P. Bochner |
| 2013 | Bob Krizek and Carolyn Ellis |
Top Paper Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2021 | Devika Chawla, "I have English" |
| 2021 | Hsin-I Sydney Yueh and Renu Pariyadath, "Surviving the academy: Linguistic Minorities Building Alliances Through Transnational Collaborative Autoethnography" |
| 2021 | Timothy Paul Huffman, "Rest, Community-Based Research, and the Qualitative/Activist Day" |
| 2021 | Santhosh Chandrashekar, "Unsettling the Master’s House"; |
| 2015 | Sandra Faulkner, “Postkarten aus Deutschland: A Chapbook of Ethnographic Poetry” |
| 2014 | Nicholas Taylor, Christopher Kampe, & Kristina Bell, “Me and Lee: Identification and the Play of Attraction in The Walking Dead” |
| 2013 | Heather Curry, “An Architecture of Erasure: Exploring Absences, Ruptures, Negotiations and Self-making in Families Organizing Around Mental Illness” |
| 2012 | Ryan Castillo, “Unpacking Paradoxes of Walmart: From Emotion to Cultural Labor in the Commodified Performances of Worker and Consumer Identities” |
| 2012 | Mary Gould and Rachel E. Silverman, “Stumbling Upon History: Collective Memory and the Urban Landscape” |
| 2012 | Chris Patti, “Listening with Sal: A(Com)passionate Ethnographic Approach to Workingwith Holocaust Survivors” |
| 2012 | Elizabeth Dortch Dalton, “The Protective Effects of Adolescent Motherhood in South Central Appalachia: Salvation from Drugs and Emptiness” |
John T. Warren Top Student Paper Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Damon Darling, "A Dirty Spectacle: Resistance at the Intersection of Sex Work and Stigma" |
| 2021 | Anjuliet G. Woodruffe, “Conversations with My Son: A Poetic Autoethnography of Black Mothering Experiences” |
| 2021 | Jesse C. Starkey, "Becoming a Relational Human" |
| 2021 | Ekaterina Malova, "Environmental Characteristics and Type 1 Diabetes: Students’ Perspectives on Diabetes Management in College” |
| 2021 | David J. Dooling, "Strutting Toward the Grave: Narrating the Heteropatriarchal Lifespan" |
| 2019 | Marwa Abdalla, "The Performance(s) of a Lifetime, A Lifetime of Performances: An Auto-Archaeology of Religious and Cultural Identities" |
| 2018 | Marquese McFerguson, "Unveiling Our Scars: Playing With and Expanding the Borders of Autoethnography" |
| 2015 | Melissa R. Meade, “In the Shadow of the Coal Breaker: Place and Landscape in the Anthracite Coal Mining Region” |
| 2014 | Meng Li, “Brighter the Moon over My Home Village: Meanings of Home among Chinese Rural-Urban Migrant Workers” |
| 2013 | Heather Curry, “An Architecture of Erasure: Exploring Absences, Ruptures, Negotiations, and Self-Making in Families Organizing Around Mental Illness” |
Best Dissertation
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2022 | Vincent Russell, "Making Space for Marginalized Voices: Deliberative Activism in Participatory Budgeting," University of Colorado at Boulder ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2021. |
| 2021 | No award given |
| 2020 | Joshua Hamzehee, "Baton Rouge SLAM! An obituary for summer 2016: A critical performance ethnography of eclectic truth poetry slam" |
| 2020 | Melissa R. Meade, "In the shadow of "King Coal": Memory, media, identity, and culture in the post-industrial Pennsylvania anthracite region" |
| 2018 Inaugural Winner |
Travis R. Bell, "Documenting an Imperfect Past: Examining Tampa's Racial Integration through Community, Film, and Remebrance of Central Avenue" |
Early Career Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Meng Li |
| Shawna Malvini Redden | |
| Michael Tristano Jr. | |
| 2022 | Jeffrey W. Treem |
| Elizabeth K. Eger | |
| Marissa Doshi |
Mid-Career Award
| Year | Award Winner |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock |
| 2022 | Robin M. Boylorn |
| Devika Chawla | |
| Marianne LeGreco |