Locating the researcher and practitioner: Autoethnography as a method for Reflexive Research and Practice PETER McILVEEN

Peter McIlveen (2008)2 Overview Advance autoethnography Awareness of oneself and reflexivity in research-practice Contextualising oneself Narrative psychology and narrative research Overview of autoethnographic method Potential for application of autoethnography –Reflexivity –Critical Consciousness Personal application of evocative approach (McIlveen, 2007)

Peter McIlveen (2008)3 Awareness of Oneself: Our Shared Value Regardless of ontological and epistemological assumptions, the awareness of one’s self—the researcher/practitioner—is a core requirement for “good” science and practice. We all agree philosophically: the researcher/practitioner is somewhere, somehow, and at all times in the mix of the research-practice process. We all differ pragmatically: extricate, diminish, accept, engage, or use oneself. –Positivist and Post-positivist approaches require “objectivity” and concomitant separation of the self from the focus of the research- practice process. –Constructivist and Social Constructionist approaches accede “subjectivity” and the self is inherent to the research-practice process: co-construction toward shared meaning. –Critical and Ideological approaches extend the constructivist embrace of subjectivity and explicitly requires intervene using the self.

Peter McIlveen (2008)4 Beyond Awareness of Oneself: Reflexivity Reflexivity is more than reflective awareness of oneself—of knowing I am “in it”. Reflexivity entails: –Awareness and acceptance of my being “in it” –And –Transformative engagement with “my being” in it. Trans-paradigmatic performance therefore entails: –Either: extricate, diminish, accept, engage, or use myself –And –Transformation of my self through “my being in it”. How does one reflexively research-practice?

Peter McIlveen (2008)5 Contextualising Research & Practice The focus of research-practice does not exist in a vacuum; therefore research-practice cannot occur in a vacuum. In vocational psychology, the Systems Theory Framework (STF; Patton & McMahon, 2006) is a heuristic lens for comprehensively conceptualising research and practice. The STF captures: –the individual client/participant and researcher/practitioner; –the professional engagement between the client and practitioner or the participant and researcher; –the supervision of research or practice; and –research per se

Peter McIlveen (2008)6

7

8 Copyright 2007 by McMahon & Watson

Peter McIlveen (2008)9 Contextualising Research & Practice The STF identifies content influences and process influences that constitute, surround, and permeate research-practice in vocational psychology and career development (McMahon & Watson, 2007) Myriad influences of the STF contextualise—in space, time, and relation—the research-practice process. The researcher, the practitioner, and the processes of research and practice must be contextualised—subjectively or objectively—as a condition of genuine reflexivity. The STF process influence story carries the meaning of contextual systems of influences and, therefore, can become the focus of narrative psychology and narrative research.

Peter McIlveen (2008)10 Narrative Psychology: Life in Stories and as Stories Narrative psychologies comprehend the person and identity as a social construction formed within the dynamic interactions of socially mediated and embodied talk, text, and image. Predominant narrative psychology theorists: –Gergen, Harre, Hermans, McAdams, Polkinghorne, Sarbin. “In the end we become the autobiographical narratives by which we ‘tell about’ out lives (Bruner, 2004, p. 694). Narrative theory in vocational psychology: –STF (Patton & McMahon, 2006) –Theory of Career Construction (Savickas, 2005) –Contextual Action Theory (Young, Valach, & Collin, 2002) –Dialogical self (McIlveen & Patton, 2007).

Peter McIlveen (2008)11 Narrative Research: Story as Data and Method Narrative research may include (Hosmand, 2005): –A descriptive report of a privately constructed self-account in its original narrated form; –A recounting of a dialogically generated narrative or set of narratives in story form; –A storied account of an experience constructed from interviews, reports, observations, and artefacts. Analysis of Narrative and Narrative Analysis (Smith & Sparkes, 2006) –Story as data entails analysis of narrative/s. Thinking about and of stories –Story as method is narrative analysis Thinking through and with stories

Peter McIlveen (2008)12 Autoethnography: Reflexive Narrative Research Autoethnography entails the researcher/practitioner performing a narrative analysis of his/her experience of a particular phenomenon. –The researcher/practitioner him/herself and his/her story is the focus of enquiry –Combination of autobiography and ethnography Conceptualised as: –“research, writing, story, and method that connect the autobiographical and personal to the cultural, social and political” (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2006, p. 189). –“a form of self-narrative that places the self within a social context” (Reed-Danahay, 1997, p.9). Transgresses and subverts the subjective-objective duality of the researcher-practitioner.

Peter McIlveen (2008)13 Performing Autoethnography Methodically stories the nexus of person-experience-theory-practice. Evocative autoethnography (Ellis & Bochner, 2000): –Emotive, radically subjective, poetic, free-form rhetoric; seeks empathic understanding from the reader. Analytic autoethnography (Anderson, 2006): –Factual, objectified reporting of experience, similar to traditional, empirical field note reporting. Indicators of quality (cf. Morrow, 2005). –Faithful and comprehensive rendering of experience; –Transforms the author through self-explication; –Informs the reader of the unfamiliar, the unlikely, or the unexpressed.

Peter McIlveen (2008)14 Examples of Autoethnography Related to vocational psychology and career development: –Exploration of the construction and personal experience of a career assessment and counselling procedure (McIlveen, 2007, in prep) –Exploration of the experience of a workplace promotion— failure and success (Humphreys, 2005). Other examples: –The experience of eating behaviour with respect to exploring the phenomenology of eating disorder (Smith, 2004); –The influence of race, class, and gender in the process of a community psychology research project (Langhout, 2006). –The experience of infertility in context of feminist research into infertility (Kirkman, 1999).

Peter McIlveen (2008)15 Application: Learning Reflexivity Reflexivity as a discipline can be attained through training: –Cultural awareness training (Watson, 2006): Questions the background and influence of beliefs, values, and culture,and their role and expression (cf. McIlveen, 2007). –Reflecting on My Career Influences (McMahon & Patton, 2006): Explores connectedness, reflection, meaning-making, learning, and agency (cf. McIlveen, in prep). Autoethnography as a narrative analysis of an experience of “being in it”, is a report on the nexus of person-experience- theory-practice and is, therefore, an ideal vehicle for reflexivity in research/practice.

Peter McIlveen (2008)16 Application: Critical Consciousness Emancipatory communitarian practice and critical consciousness (Blustein, 2006): –Raising critical self-awareness in the oppressed, disenfranchised, disadvantaged. –Redirecting vocational psychology and career development toward those “outside” the mainstream of society. Autoethnography has potential to raise the critical consciousness of researchers and practitioners by: –Bringing their attention to their “being in it”; and –Engaging in transformative writing for self and others in the field who are the unfamiliar, the unlikely, or the unexpressed. –Using autoethnography to generate critical consciousness of social class (McIlveen, Beccaria, du Preez, Patton, in prep).

Peter McIlveen (2008)17 In Conclusion “However far man may extend himself with his knowledge, however objective he may appear to himself – ultimately he reaps nothing but his own biography” (Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, 1878/1994, p. 238)

Peter McIlveen (2008)18 References Anderson, L. (2006). Analytic autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4), Blustein, D. L. (2006). The psychology of working: A new perspective for career development, counseling, and public policy. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. P. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp ). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Hesse-Biber, S. N., & Leavy, P. (2006). The practice of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Peter McIlveen (2008)19 References Hoshmand, L. T. (2005). Narratology, cultural psychology, and counseling research. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52(2), Humphreys, M. (2005). Getting personal: Reflexivity and autoethnographic vignettes. Qualitative Inquiry, 11(6), McIlveen, P. (2007). The genuine scientist-practitioner in vocational psychology: An autoethnography. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 4(4), McIlveen, P., & Patton, W. (2007). Dialogical self: Author and narrator of career life themes. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 7(2), McIlveen, P. (in prep). Reflexive scientific practice: Self-administration of My Career Chapter.

Peter McIlveen (2008)20 References McIlveen, P., Beccaria, G., du Preez, J., & Patton, W. (in prep). Wearing Your Class on Your Sleeve: Autoethnography and Critical Consciousness in Vocational Psychology. McMahon, M., & Patton, W. (2006). The systems theory framework: A conceptual and practical map for career counselling. In M. McMahon & W. Patton (Eds.), Career counselling: Constructivist approaches (pp ). London: Routledge. Morrow, S. L. (2005). Quality and trustworthiness in qualitative research in counseling psychology. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52(2), McMahon, M., & Watson, M. (2007). An analytic framework for career research in the post-modern era. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 7(3), Nietzsche, F. (1994). Human, all too human. London: Penguin Group. Patton, W., & McMahon, M. (2006). Career development and systems theory: Connecting theory and practice. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Peter McIlveen (2008)21 References Reed-Danahay, D. E. (1997). Introduction. In D. E. Reed-Danahay (Ed.), Auto/Ethnography. Rewriting the self and the social (pp. 1-17). Oxford: Berg. Savickas, M. (2005). The theory and practice of career construction. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Career development and counseling: Putting theory and research to work (pp ). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Smith, B., & Sparkes, A. C. (2006). Narrative inquiry in psychology: Exploring the tensions within. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(3), Watson, M. B. (2006). Career counselling theory, culture and constructivism. In M. McMahon & W. Patton (Eds.), Career counselling: Constructivist approaches (pp ). London: Routlege. Young, R. A., Valach, L., & Collin, A. (2002). A contextualist explanation of career. In D. A. Brown (Ed.), Career choice and development (4th ed., pp ). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.