This Land is <i>La Bamba</i> Land: Autoethnographic Encounters With Mexico’s <i>Son Jarocho</i>

This essay is a contribution to Autoethnography as a qualitative method drawing on site visits over a decade in Mexico examining a musical-performative tradition called Son Jarocho . Melding together elements of memoir, reportage, and narrative travelogue—it seeks to provide an exemplar of a scripting technique, entitled “Autoethnographic Encounters.” (hereafter AE). Contextual information is provided in end notes. Each AE represents one moment in the unfolding of a typical narrative arc: Exposition/ Inciting Event (AE1 in this essay); Rising Action (AE2 in this essay); Climax (AE 3 in this essay) and Falling action / Resolution (AE4 in this essay).