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Autoethnography and Teacher Development

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Autoethnography and Teacher Development

Jon Austin and Andrew Hickey

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Autoethnography and Teacher Development
Jon Austin, University of Southern Queensland, Queensland, Australia
Andrew Hickey, University of Southern Queensland, Queensland, Australia

Abstract: Autoethnography has largely been deployed in formal therapeutic situations, with its potential for application in
general personal and professional development only now emerging. Autoethnography presents valuable opportunities for
application in situations requiring a connection between self-understanding and broader socialization processes. This paper
explores the nature of autoethnographic approaches to research, including various methodological issues pertaining to
Self as data-source, and describes initial outcomes of a research project aimed at illuminating procedural and epistemolo-
gical issues attached to the use of autoethnography in teacher education and professional development situations. The im-
portance of excavating Self and identity through the autoethnographic process is highlighted with the paper drawing upon
examples from practice to illustrate possibilities for the deployment of agency through critical analyses of Self.

Keywords: Autoethnography, Teacher Education, Memory work, Conscientisation, Critical Pedagogy

Introduction
Moments in Qualitative Social Science
S SOCIAL RESEARCHERS position

A themselves to meet the epistemic challenges

presented by the on-coming Eighth and
Ninth Moments in qualitative research
(Lincoln & Denzin, 2005), ethnography, a previously
Research
Denzin and Lincoln’s ‘Moments’ have been widely
utilized as a means of charting the conceptual and
epistemological development of forms of qualitative
standard(ised) methodological approach to studying research (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005b; 2005a). For the
the social, has been subjected to calls to account for purposes of this paper, most salient are the Seventh
and reconsider the desirability of its ‘truth claims’ and Eighth Moments. The Seventh moment, the
and Western-centric underpinnings. One outcome “methodologically contested present”(Denzin &
of this has been the emergence of “new ethnograph- Lincoln, 2005b, p 20), is characterized by an appear-
ies” (Goodall 2000) with their concern to “heal the ance of chaos and multiplicity that has led to the
artificial separation of subject and object, modulate discarding of older, simplistic means of classifying
the ‘authorial voice’ and acknowledge our subjective and categorizing research approaches and paradigms
involvement in the creation of social knowledge” in the shadow of the rise of “conjugated and complex
(Bochner & Ellis 1996, p 301). Autoethnography is new perspectives” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005a, p
one of these “experimental postmodern ethnograph- 1115) that are very much of their time:
ies” (Foley & Valenzuela, 2005), one that we see as
nestled amongst the methodologies of the oppressed The important thing to note about many practi-
(Sandoval, 2000). cing interpretivists today is that they have been
With the narrowing of the focus of ethnographic shaped by and influenced toward postmodern
studies over the past half-century - from large-scale perspectives, the critical turn (as powerful an
studies of whole cultures to smaller sub-groups – the influence as the interpretive turn and the post-
last remaining frontier for rigorous, sustained and modern turn were in their own times), the nar-
powerful anthropological work is that of the research- rative or rhetorical turn, and the turn toward
er’s Self. The focus of the researcher has shifted from a rising tide of voices (Denzin & Lincoln,
looking on to looking in, with the anthropological 2005a, p 1115 emphasis in the original)
canon now admitting of the importance of the inward
turn to our understanding of the individual-societal The emergence of new ways of both experiencing
dialectic. Prominent here is work dealing with reflex- and writing/telling the world in the Seventh moment
ivity, narrative inquiry and self analysis, as presented has contributed to an increasingly untidy, non-
through methodologies including testimonio (Yudice standardised, chaotic appearance of social scientific
1991, Menchu 1984), life history (Plummer 1983) work. However, Denzin and Lincoln argue that such
and, as discussed in this paper, autoethnography. messiness is, in effect, the result of “the intense de-
sire of a growing number of people to explore the

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VOLUME 2, 2007
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THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL SCIENCES, VOLUME 2

multiple unexplored places of a global society in We would hope that our developing understanding
transition” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005a, p 1116). It is of new forms of inquiry through autoethnography,
in such a turbulent time of new searches for under- with their associated reformulations of what counts
standing that autoethnography comes into its own. as truth, have allowed us to begin re-invigorating
From this accounting for the situatedness of notions of teaching as a broadly transformative
knowledge (Harraway 1988) and recognition that activity. Due to this, we suggest that autoethnography
“academic and other knowledges are always situated offers significant opportunities for building on the
, always produced by positioned actors working concerns of the seventh moment as well as actively
in/between all kinds of locations, working engaging key themes of the eighth moment via its
up/on/through all kinds of research” (Cook 2005), reconnection to social purposes through the interrog-
the eighth moment emerges. Attached to this meth- ation of Self and the attendant connections this yields
odological whirlpool are the features of the seventh to agency, power and voice as a ‘liberation method-
moment which evolve with increasing methodologic- ology’. We also suggest that Education forms a key
al sophistication, but where such developments will location for the presentation and application of the
result from accommodating four “new improvisations critical, emancipatory and transformative social
on old issues”. For Denzin and Lincoln, these impro- practices that autoethnographic work provokes.
visations focus on: a reconnection of social science
to social purposes; the rise of indigenous social sci-
Autoethnography: What’s so
ence(s); the decolonization of the academy; and the
Ethnographic about Autoethnography?
homecoming of Western social sciences(Denzin &
Lincoln, 2005a, p 1117). Autoethnography as a formal, structured, recognized
The first and fourth of these “new improvisations” approach to the study of the self has a relatively short
are particularly important for the purposes of our history. The earliest acknowledged use of the term
work and for the focus of this paper. The ways in was in 1975 when Karl Heider coined the term to
which we see autoethnography being deployed to describe the ethnographic-type explanations of cul-
provide a significant provocation to the reconceptu- tural constructs given by members of that cultural
alisation of the links between education and social group (Heider, 1975). Whilst growing out of con-
transformation resonate clearly with the movement cerns with the difficulty of maintaining the pseudo-
of social science into its eighth moment. A hallmark scientific objectivist façade of “classic” anthropo-
of this moment is research that works towards the logy, it has really been with the unfolding of the
reconnection of social betterment ends, emancipatory postmodern era and the ascendancy of the tenets of
practices and accounts from multiple perspectives. poststructuralist theory that the power of the individu-
As Denzin and Lincoln argue, “qualitative research- al, the significance of the “new” evidentiary sources
ers’ concerns for social justice, moral purpose and and forms of representation and the settling in of
‘liberation methodology’ will mark this next moment identity as the lynchpin of socio-cultural research
with passion, purpose and verve”(Denzin & Lincoln, that accompanied these that has brought the new
2005a, p 1123). Additionally, Western social scient- ethnographies into prominence and relevance.
ists will continue to question their complicity – past, While it is not the purpose of this paper to enter
present and future - in the maintenance of exploitat- into detailed discussion of essential features of auto-
ive and dehumanizing relationships of power: ethnography – this paper is not meant to provide an
apologia for the approach - it is, however, important
Questioning whether, when and under what to provide a brief overview of major points of devel-
conditions our knowledge has served to enhance opment of and departure from perhaps more comfort-
democratic ends and extend social justice as able, familiar forms of ethnography. The table that
well as when and under what conditions it has follows (Table 1: Features of Ethnography and Au-
served to reify historical power and resource toethnography) presents summary statements of these
distributions. (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005a, p departures, and is intended only to provide the reader
1122) with something of a theoretical and procedural basis
from which to engage the aspirations of the authors
in their work with educators.
 JON AUSTIN, ANDREW HICKEY

Table 1: Features of Ethnography and Autoethnography

Ethnography Autoethnography
Research purpose Description of the ‘Other’ in or- Description of the Self with this new research presenting
der to understand via categoriza- work that allows for the trying on of someone else’s
tion those from different, exoti- subjectivity. Here the emphasis is on the interrogation of
cised cultural locations. the socio-cultural processes of identity construction that
have led the researcher to this point in their identity
formation.
Research focus The external, exotic Other. The Inward / the Self as made exotic via the process of
Autoethnographic interrogation.
Delimiting the field The exotic external within which The ‘mundane’ internal; the field of the Self, in which
the researcher ‘enters’ the Oth- the self constitutes ‘the field’.
er’s cultural milieu.
Data gathering Fieldwork and its associated eth- Fieldwork as Memory Work and the excavation of ‘arti-
nographic techniques including facts’ via the remembering of experiences of identity
participant observation, inter- formation.
view, focus group, document
analysis, etc.
Data analysis Theorising across the cultural Theorising within; explaining & reconciling the Self as
milieu in order to explain the a socially constructed entity.
Other.
Reporting format (Generally) written text, formal, Dynamic, multiple, evocative, utilizing diverse presenta-
objective. tion media and formats.
Truth/ veracity Externally verifiable. Does truth matter? Phenomenological constructions of
Truth in identity construction feature as a key point of
the research process.
Researcher loca- Detached observer/reporter. Central, reflexive rememberer.
tion

Central to the concerns of autoethnography as one example). However it is this shift of the ethno-
method is the shift inward of the field of study and graphic gaze from something outside and exotically
the implications this shift generates. While the ethno- ‘over there’ to that which is Self that is the funda-
graphic field constitutes that of the Other - that loca- mental point of delineation between the two methods.
tion to which the ethnographer ‘goes’ to undertake This shifting of the gaze from the external subject
the research - the autoethnographic field is that of of ethnographic study to the ordinary and seemingly
the Self, in which techniques of data collection and mundane Self as the central location for inquiry in
recording are reconfigured to account for this inward autoethnographic work presents a point of conceptual
investigation of the Self. A key element of this pro- and methodological implication for each of these
cess is the charting of identity and those processes methods.
of sense-making that individuals engage in as part
of the socio-cultural dynamic, with this potentially
The Personal-Political-Professional
occurring across entire life-spans, multiple locations
Project
and diverse social contexts.
While key differences between the two exist due The authors are both teacher educators who share a
to this inward investigation, ultimately autoethno- belief in the capacity of teachers to contribute in
graphy follows many of the paradigmatic concerns major ways to the larger project of global social
of ethnography. The investigation of the exotic via justice captured in the catch-all phrase “critical ped-
entry into the ‘field’ (whether this be the milieu of agogy” (For more detailed explorations of the
the Other in ethnography or the Self in autoethno- philosophies, politics and pragmatics of critical
graphy) of investigation remains, with many of the pedagogy, see Freire, 1998; Giroux, 1988; Kincheloe,
techniques of enquiry sharing similar epistemological 2005; McLaren, 1995; Shor, 1987; Weiler &
roots (the excavation of artifacts of evidence- arti- Mitchell, 1992). We answer George Counts’ question
facts of cultural production in ethnography as op- “Dare the school build a new social order?” (Counts,
posed to artifacts of memory in autoethnography- as 1932) with a resounding “yes”, and through our
THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL SCIENCES, VOLUME 2

professional and personal practices and activities, Autoethnography as a Critical Political

attempt to bring the social transformative potential Methodology
of teachers to actuality. At present, autoethnography
seems to us to be a very powerful ‘method’ of pro- Of the many purposes to which autoethnographic
voking the type of conscientisation necessary for approaches have and might be put, the view of auto-
authentic community engagement and commitment ethnography promoted by Holman Jones is one that
espoused by critical pedagogues (Freire, 2000 pp seems to offer the greatest possibility of developing
39ff). a social-betterment orientation in those who would
One of the crucial underlying beliefs of those who teach. Jones views autoethnography, the personal
see teaching as something more than the reproduction text, as “a critical intervention in social, political and
of existing social relations is that a socially-transform- cultural life” (Jones, 2005, p 763), one that can
ative education requires authentic knowledge of and “move writers and readers, subjects and objects,
connection to the experiences, histories and hopes tellers and listeners into this space of dialogue, debate
of those who inhabit the margins. This means that and change” (p.764). Similarly, Ellis sees autoethno-
educators must enact a pedagogy of enablement, re- graphy as “research, writing, story and method that
straint and solidarity. By this, we mean that educators connect the autobiographical and personal to the
must give voice to those whose stories are typically cultural, social, and political (Ellis, 2004, p xix), a
unheard while at the same time restraining the dom- view shared by Spry (Spry, 2001, p 710) (“a self-
inant hegemonic narratives that would continue the narrative that critiques the situatedness of self with
silencing process. The end point of this is to contrib- others in social contexts”), Neumann (Neumann,
ute to the building of lines of connectivity between 1996, p 189) (“texts[that] democratize the represent-
disparate groups within the classroom (and, by obvi- ational sphere of culture by locating the particular
ous extension, the community) with the goal of experiences of individuals in a tension with dominant
raising to visibility the imperative of emancipatory expressions of discursive power”) and Reinelt
social solidarity. (Reinelt, 1998, p 285) (autoethnography as “a radical
Attendant upon this particular philosophical ori- democratic politics - a politics committed to creating
entation is a view of professional educational practice space for dialogue and debate that instigates and
that aims to disrupt the taken-for-granted assump- shapes social change”). As such, autoethnography
tions about the teaching-learning relationship, to, in holds significant potential as a point of interrogation
effect, “practice what it preaches”. The tension for critical, reflexive practice in Education. It is from
between domesticating and transformative pedago- this perspective that the authors have applied auto-
gies is perhaps best captured in Freire’s description ethnography specifically with pre-service teachers
of what he terms the “banking model” of education in undergraduate university Education programs.
where the privileging of hegemonic knowledge and
sources of cultural authority leads to the maintenance The Research Project
of a culture of silence (Freire, 1974 p 58 ff). Educat-
ors enacting a critical approach to their pedagogy We move now to address a number of possibilities
work to unsettle such a culture. that have become exposed through the conduct of a
From our perspective, a socially-transformative large, complex research project that utilizes autoeth-
teacher education program is one that draws intend- nography as a method for the critical exploration of
ing teachers into a consideration of their own silence professional identities. This project has been conduc-
and/or privilege in the face of injustice, one that ted over three years to date, and has involved several
provokes the conscientization necessary to under- hundred undergraduate teacher education students
stand the power of contemporary socialization pro- and a smaller number of postgraduate and doctoral
cesses that support structures of inequality, oppres- candidates. The essential purpose of the project has
sion and exploitation as achieved largely through the been to explore the impact of self-focused, profes-
colonizing of mass or popular culture by the dictates sional identity research on people intending to teach.
and imperatives of global capital. To us, a critical In more standard ethnographic language, the authors
practice of autoethnography is one way of opening are the principal researchers in this project, but both
up such an orientation. Via the interrogation of Self acknowledge the significant role performed by those
as a socially constructed entity, autoethnography with whom we have worked here.
encourages the critical appraisal of Identity and the The project, commenced with a small seeding
operations of those locations in which formations of grant from the University of Southern Queensland,
Identity are constructed. has involved the use of survey, extensive participant
observation, learning conversations (Thomas & Hari-
Augstein, 1985), various forms of visual data-gather-
ing (primarily still photographic and video recording)
and the collection of documentary and realia forms
 JON AUSTIN, ANDREW HICKEY

of evidence. Verbal data (interviews and learning quence of steps in engaging explorations of the Self.
conversations) have been digitally recorded and This process seems to involve three major stages:
professionally transcribed. Poland’s transcription Memory Work, Analysis and Metaphor-Selection
protocols and accuracy checks (Poland, 1995)have and Representational Activity.
been applied to all transcriptions and have provided Memory has been described as the fundamental
evidence of high levels of accuracy. Data analysis medium of ethnography (Marcus, 1992, p. 316). It
conducted to date has been organized around Dey’s is the essential core material for the reflexive pro-
five stages of qualitative data analysis (Dey, 1993) cesses involved in considering identity and identity
and coding and associated categorization of data formation:
have been conducted using NVivo 7 software (QSR
International, 2006) [Memory] relates history to identity and vice
The project has involved two distinct groups of versa. This means that questions of how and
participants. The first, three successive annual intakes what we remember are important…memory is
of first semester, first-year students to a four-year not a collective construction as it was in tradi-
initial teacher education program at the University tional society, when it was communicated and
of Southern Queensland, Australia. The second group handed down in oral traditions and storytelling;
is comprised of a small number (N=6) of postgradu- now it is expressed in individual memories and
ate students, primarily masters level students but also autobiographies. (Svensson, 1997, p. 93)
including two Ph.D candidates. The former group,
from which the major part of the data underpinning For many of the participants, the most challenging
this paper is derived, undertake a compulsory course, part of the autoethnographic process was the
Identity and Culture in the first year of their degree dredging up of memories – recollections of events
programs, where they are introduced to contemporary that, in the broader scheme of things are not neces-
notions of identity and to autoethnography as a sarily significant but evocative – from which to re-
means of excavating aspects of personal identity view and reconsider influences on their lives and
along racial, class and gender dimensions. Over the identities. In the research project involving under-
course of the project, well over three hundred stu- graduate students investigating their emerging pro-
dents have engaged in this type of work, and from fessional identities, this seems to be particularly dif-
this group, volunteers have been solicited for the ficult when considering racialised aspects of identity,
purposes of assisting the authors in trying to determ- with the identity axes of class and gender generally
ine the challenges, benefits, impact and contribution less problematic for most students. The large major-
to participants’ view of themselves as intending ity of participants (in excess of 95%) identify as
teachers that derive from a focus on the Self and white, and, as explored in much of the literature on
processes of Identity formation. whiteness studies (Austin, 2001; McIntyre, 1997b),
The second group of participants, all of whom are many of these students experience initial frustration
practicing teachers undertaking post-graduate further at what they see as not having lived a raced life. A
studies in education that connect to life history, nar- common comment from white students when attempt-
rative or autoethnography specifically, have been ing to generate initial memories of raced experience
invited to participate in a companion study that, while is that, as whites, they haven’t ever really experi-
still in its early stages, looks to explore the effect of enced race in their lives.
autoethnographic work. The focus here is specifically This is a crucial point for opening up the vistas of
on inquiry of Self using autoethnography as a basis lived lives to the autoethnographic experience. It is
for professional development, on senses of social / only when participants come to understand that it is
community connection and senses of agency amongst largely what passes as the mundane (and thereby,
these experienced teachers (the data from this study the generally unnoticed) that is in fact the significant
form the basis of a further paper currently under that the evocative memories flow. For our white
preparation, but are utilized in this paper where ap- students, the proclaimed lack of experience of a ra-
propriate). cialised past (and present) is in itself the remarkable.
One participant, Maryanne1 found that her presumed
unexceptional racialised existence was in fact full of
Working Autoethnographically with formative experiences that she had overlooked or
Pre-Service Teachers forgotten, but that, when exposed to the rigors of the
While eschewing any thought of formularizing auto- autoethnographic gaze, yielded illuminative moments
ethnographic work, our work with undergraduate of insight. By way of illustrative example, the follow-
students has led us to conclude that a very large ing is an extract from a further publication in prepar-
percentage of participants follow a particular se-
1
All names, other than those of the authors, have been pseudonymised
THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL SCIENCES, VOLUME 2

ation2. It provides an insight into how Maryanne’s Not only was this racialised space in the making,
autoethnographic work as a pre-service teacher the engagement with that space also led to a racial-
opened up her understanding of the way in which ised time:
seemingly everyday experiences contain and carry
messages of identity, difference and Otherness. Ini- Maryanne: We weren't allowed down to the
tially, Maryanne identified as white (which, by virtue shops after 2 o'clock in the afternoon. We had
of her actually naming her ‘whiteness’ as a racial a cake shop which sold lollies and things like
category, was in itself sufficiently novel amongst the that and we weren't allowed down there because
student body) but couldn’t see what there was to after 2 o'clock they'd all come out of the pub
excavate about the social processes that have led to and sit in the outside area and our families
forming this part of her identity. The extract here is weren't allowed down there.
based on a series of autoethnographically-oriented Jon: Because of the possibility of danger for
learning conversations between Maryanne and one you?
of the authors: Maryanne: Yep
There was a small shopping centre close to where Jon: Physical danger or cultural danger?
Maryanne’s family lived in Gaywa. This became a Maryanne: I think a bit of both. (conversation
place of racialised space, another location of danger- T3, text units33-40)
ous territory for Maryanne as she grew up. For
(white) children in this neighbourhood, the cake shop In an interesting parallel to other White-Aboriginal
in this shopping centre was an attractive place. Not struggles over land and place, the use of the shopping
only did the cake shop operators sell cakes, bread, centre and cake shop space was a contested one.
buns and other types of bakery goods typical of the Maryanne was allowed by her parents to use the
time, it was also the nearest source of lollies. It was space until a certain time of the day after which it
here that the constructions of Self and Other already was assumed it would no longer be a safe space for
put in place from the conceptions of Home as raced her and others like her - Whites. Her removal from
space were further reinforced: the shopping centre during danger times was simple
and effected without fuss and bother:
We had a cake shop where you bought lollies,
you'd have all the Aboriginals sitting in the I think I was so little that usually with mum,
middle of the shopping centre drunk because she'd just grab my hand and take me home.
the pub was part of the shopping centre. (con- We'd all go down to the cake shop, but if I was
versation T1, text unit 37). there too long, they'd come down and get me.
(conversation T1, text unit. 43-45)
It is interesting to note that it is only by reference to
violations of White cultural mores that the presence Later in the series of conversations, Maryanne again
of Indigenous Australians is noticed and registered. returned to this story, but with a different spin to it.
The only reference to Indigenous Australians in this In speaking of her present racial positioning and level
part of Maryanne’s childhood memories relates to of understanding of the ways in which she had been
(White) socially-shocking behaviour: in her construc- socialised, she further developed the point of the
tion of the past, being drunk in public was the only telling of the cake shop story:
use these people made of the shopping centre. These
Once I left home and started doing my own
people did nothing other than violate. There are no
things and started noticing what was going on
stories of other uses to which these people put the
I think well, I could really have gone to the cake
space, and yet, presumably in a small country town
shop at any time and I could have come home
like Gaywa at that time, a shopping centre would
at any time, it didn't have to be that time and I
have housed a range of everyday activities, not the
suppose that's what I do now. I don't have to
least being that of shopping. Where did the Indigen-
go home at 2 o'clock, I can hang out at Kumbari
ous Australians shop? Is this feature of Maryanne’s 3
or I can go home and it's not a two o'clock
recounting of her early experiences with racial differ-
curfew. (conversation T4, text units 120-121).
ence indicative of the selective remembering and
erasure that accompanies the formation of acceptable, At this point in her life, Maryanne has not only
justifiable and thereby comfortable images of the summoned up the courage to transgress the racialised
Other? borders that had operated with decreasing strength

2
This article is a co-constructed account of Maryanne’s becoming racially aware. See Austin & Hickey Writing the White Racialised Ex-
istence (forthcoming)
3
Kumbari Ngurpai Lag is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) student support centre on the university campus. Part of its
role is to assist ATSI students with university life and work, and to promote general understanding of ATSI cultures on the campus.
 JON AUSTIN, ANDREW HICKEY

to contain her within safe white space, she is now to take stock of the processes of identity formation
actively dwelling within the space of the Other. engaged by individuals, autoethnography emerges
Via her recalling of her childhood memories of as a key method for critical interrogation and eman-
an everyday, mundane activity such as going to the cipatory practices.
shops, it was through the autoethnographic process It is the underlying consciousness-raising intent
that Maryanne began to take stock of her racialised that autoethnography presents that raises significant
self, and the processes of socialization that manifes- opportunity as a point of application for critical
ted in those experiences of dealing with Aboriginal pedagogical concerns. We suggest that this in many
Australians. She noted later that these experiences ways is similar to the Action Research Cycle, in
began to make sense in terms of some of the reac- which, after identifying an initial ‘problem’ for in-
tions to events and dealings with Aboriginal Australi- vestigation and social change, critical engagement
ans she had more recently in life. with the problem opens opportunities and solutions
In one episode from her memory work, Maryanne which can be applied to the social system, from
recalled an experience from a teaching practicum in which further reflection, action and application re-
which she witnessed her supervising teacher physic- peats. The cyclical nature of action research is echoed
ally relocate an Aboriginal student to the back of the in autoethnographic work, whereby the initial pro-
room and comment negatively about the student’s vocation to inquiry (in the case of the students repor-
work in terms of the student’s racial characteristics. ted in this paper, this is performed by virtue of their
Maryanne noted: enrollment in the course Identity and Culture) is en-
gaged and interrogated so that formative understand-
One of the things I, more than anything else, ings of Self are generated and located back onto the
[want to] stop in schools- I’ve seen teachers social dynamic as elements of individual Identity
do- is the racial, ‘this child’s no good, will formation. From this, the students are asked to reflect
never learn it’, … stereotyping. (conversation and continually build on their understanding of Self,
T4, text units 16-36). but more particularly, to also actively engage these
understandings for the purposes of emancipatory
This short extract from Maryanne’s autoethnographic practice. As pre-service educators, our students de-
exploration of race and teacher identity provides a velop, within the ‘safety’ of their undergraduate de-
good example of the potential for self-analysis to gree programs, strong understandings of their Identity
lead to consciousness raising of the type envisaged formation and the social processes that work to pos-
by Freire (1974) when he wrote of the importance ition these Identities. Again, mirroring elements of
of education to generate conscientisation. By actively the Action Research Cycle, it is from here that the
engaging her memories of race as a child, locating actionable stage of this autoethnographic process
herself within a racial- social dynamic and then re- moves to having these students apply their own no-
flexively engaging more recent memories, Maryanne tions of Self and understandings of Identity and
has moved from the recall and telling of a tale, a Identity formation in a critical pedagogical way in
story from her life, to actively and critically engaging their own professional practice post graduation.
issues of race in her professional practice. It is this What we are finding is that students who have
connection between reflection, memory work and applied this autoethnographic methodology are able
the mobilization of critical and emancipatory prac- to critically interrogate their Identities and those
tice, in this case a critical pedagogy, that is of signi- processes of socialisation that worked to form these
ficance and demonstrative of the potential for auto- Identities. While further work is currently is forth-
ethnography to function as the underlying methodo- coming by the authors on this topic, work into the
logy for this to occur. application of autoethnography as a key location of
critical pedagogy is required. As presented in this
Conscientisation, Action Research and paper, autoethnography holds significant potential
Social Betterment through as a method for the engagement of socially emancip-
Autoethnography atory professional practices that identify difference
and open opportunities for understanding the ‘Other’.
This paper opened with a survey of autoethnography As a methodology that is primarily interested in ex-
as one of the ‘new ethnographies’ that have emerged cavating the formation of Identity, autoethnography
in line with Lincoln and Denzin’s (2005) seventh holds significant potential for the development of
and eighth moments in qualitative research. From critically reflexive and genuinely emancipatory pro-
applications as a reflexive methodology that works fessional practice, particularly, in Education.
THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL SCIENCES, VOLUME 2

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About the Authors

Dr. Jon Austin
Jon is a long–term member of the academic staff of the Faculty of Education at the University of Southern
Queensland. Coming from an early childhood teaching background, his doctorate was in the area of whiteness
and white ethnicity. Jon is currently pursuing research interests in Autoethnography and new approaches in
qualitative research methodologies.
 JON AUSTIN, ANDREW HICKEY

Mr Andrew Hickey
Andrew is Lecturer in Cultural Studies and Social Theory with the Faculty of Education at the University of
Southern Queensland. He has a background in Sociology, Cultural Studies and Information Management and
is currently writing in areas of ‘representation politics’ and notions of community identities. His doctoral work
is currently examining relationships between the individual and the community and the function of community
in contemporary urban spaces.
 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY
SOCIAL SCIENCES

EDITORS
Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.
Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Patrick Baert, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK.
Norma Burgess, Syracuse University, Syracuse NY, USA.
Vangelis Intzidis, University of the Aegean, Rhodes.
Paul James, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.
José Luis Ortega Martín, University of Granada, Spain.
Francisco Fernandez Palomares, University of Granada, Spain.
Miguel A. Pereyra, University of Granada, Spain.
Chryssi Vitsilakis-Soroniatis, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece.

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