The Autoethnographer, or, There and Back Again

What is it about?

In this chapter, I (re)visit, (re)collect, and (re)construct my dissertationing memories starting from the first time I encountered autoethnography and ending with successful defense. The research question I seek to answer is: How did my interest in autoethnography slowly yet gradually transform into the main research methodology of my dissertation? I utilize what I call retro/intro/prospective analysis to scrutinize mystory of dissertationing in a critical yet evocative style. The findings show that my decision to choose mystory as my dissertation topic was influenced by several critical incidents of realization which I group in three distinct periods: Pre-comps, During comps and post-comps. In the first period, I heard and learned about what autoethnography was as a qualitative research methodology. In the second period, I aligned autoethnography with my ethico-onto-epistemological stance through my socio-historical review of teacher knowledge. In the third period, I made sure that autoethnography was the right call for me to narrate mystory in affective ways owing to several turns applied linguistics has taken over decades. Looking back, I do realize that my dissertation would not have been completely satisfactory for me were it not in the form of an autoethnography.

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Photo by Vasily Koloda on Unsplash

Photo by Vasily Koloda on Unsplash

Why is it important?

It may inspire doctoral candidates to come up with their own dissertation topics and associated theoretical frameworks and methodologies.

Perspectives