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Bloggers on FIRE Performing Identity and Building Community: Considerations for Cyber-Autoethnography

2020; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 13; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/1940844720939847

1940-8455

Judith C. Lapadat,

Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

As a research approach, autoethnography has revolutionized qualitative inquiry. To date, most autoethnographies represent the lives of academics and are published in the research press for a small audience of other academics. However, in the digital world, a subset of blogs has emerged in which the self-narratives are substantially similar to autoethnographies in content, quality, and level of social commentary, but with a broader scope and audience. For example, FIRE bloggers write about how they are striving to reach the goal of Financial Independence and Early Retirement (FIRE). They share detailed accounts of their financial circumstances, personal stories, strategies, and social insights. Through an analysis of FIRE blog texts, I examine digital presentation and performance of identity, relational aspects of online communication, and strategies these bloggers and their followers use to create community. The success of bloggers in bringing together people around the world to form communities with shared aims points to possibilities for how cyber-autoethnographers might broaden the reach of autoethnography while also building a collaborative sense of agency to accomplish personal and political goals. My interest in this cyber-community is theoretical, but intersects with challenges I have grappled with in my personal transition to retirement.