Open AccessPurpose, Power, Politics, Privilege, and Promise: A Review of International Perspectives on Autoethnographic Research and Practice
Author(s) -
Kay Aranda
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the qualitative report
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.335
H-Index - 35
ISSN - 2160-3715
DOI - 10.46743/2160-3715/2018.3873
Subject(s) - autoethnography , scholarship , sociology , politics , privilege (computing) , power (physics) , resistance (ecology) , vulnerability (computing) , scope (computer science) , epistemology , gender studies , political science , law , ecology , philosophy , physics , computer security , quantum mechanics , computer science , biology , programming language
This collection of international critical scholarship seeks to question, provoke, unsettle and reengage with changing understandings of autoethnography, its research and practices. In this review I share my reading of these contributions by highlighting important themes running throughout the book. These involve the shared but differently positioned vulnerabilities present in knowledge making, alongside desires for recognition, visibility or belonging. However, equally present are processes of misrecognition, silencing and othering resulting from unequal distributions of power and privilege. This book reaffirms how autoethnographic research may recognise vulnerabilities, but these are always more than individual suffering. Vulnerability becomes political. The scope and reach of these international perspectives potentially promise grounds for action and resistance much needed from all our research.