In Praise of Subjectivity: My involvement with autoethnography,  and why I think you should be interested.

Alistair (Alec) Grant

doi:10.1921/swssr.v23i3.2151

Authors

Alistair (Alec) Grant University of Bolton, Visiting Professor https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8227-5184

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1921/swssr.v23i3.2151

Keywords:

Autoethnography, Subjectivity

Abstract

This article is adapted and developed from the author’s inaugural professorial lecture University of Bolton, delivered twice – in November 2022 and March 2023. With the intention to speak directly to readers, Grant begins by defining and unpacking autoethnography, before turning to its component parts, and its historical emergence and philosophical underpinning. He then provides an answer to the question: ‘Why do autoethnography?’ This enables him to overview his single- and joint-authored autoethnographic work from recent years, and his current work, which links to collegiate relationships at the University of Bolton and beyond. After rebutting the main criticisms levelled against autoethnography, the author ends the article by briefly mentioning its international status in 2023.

Author Biography

Alistair (Alec) Grant, University of Bolton, Visiting Professor

Alec Grant, PhD, is a Visiting Professor at the University of Bolton. He was the winner of the International Conference of Autoethnography 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award for services to autoethnography

References

Adams, T. E., Holman Jones, S., Ellis, C. (2015) Autoethnography. New York: Oxford University Press.

Bakhtin, M.M. (1982) The Dialogical Imagination. Ed. M. Holquist; Trans. C. Emerson and M. Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Clifford, J., Marcus, G.E. (Eds.). (1986) Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Delamont, S. (2009) The only honest thing: autoethnography, reflexivity and small crises in fieldwork’. Ethnography and Education, 4(1): 51-63.

https://doi.org/10.1080/17457820802703507

Ellis, C., Flaherty, M. (1992) Investigating Subjectivity: Research on Lived Experience. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Freeman, M. (2010) Hindsight: The Promise and Peril of Looking Backward. New York: Oxford University Press.

Fricker, M. (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power & the Ethics of Knowing. New York: Oxford University Press.

Grant A. (2010a) Autoethnographic ethics and re-writing the fragmented self. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. 17: 111-116.

Grant A. (2010b) Writing the reflexive self: an autoethnography of alcoholism and the impact of psychotherapy culture. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. 17: 577-582.

Grant A. (2011) A critique of the representation of human suffering in the CBT literature with implications for mental health nursing practice. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. 18: 35-40.

Grant A. (2014) Troubling ‘lived experience’: A poststructural critique of mental health nursing qualitative research assumptions. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. 21: 544-549.

Grant A. (2015) Demedicalizing misery: Welcoming the human paradigm in mental health nurse education. Nurse Education Today. 35: e50-e53.

Grant A. (2016a) Researching outside the box: Welcoming innovative qualitative inquiry to Nurse Education Today. Nurse Education Today. 45: 55-56.

Grant A. (2016b) Living my narrative: Storying dishonesty and deception in mental health nursing. Nursing Philosophy. 17: 194-201.

Grant A. (2016c) Storying the World: A posthumanist critique of phenomenological-humanist representational practices in mental health nurse qualitative inquiry. Nursing Philosophy. 17: 290-297.

Grant A (2018a) Drinking to Relax: An autoethnography of a highland family viewed through a New Materialist lens. In A. Sparkes. (Ed). Auto/Biography Yearbook 2017. pp 33-46. Nottingham: Russell Press.

Grant A. (2018b) Moving around the hyphens: A critical meta-autoethnographic performance. In: Bull P, Gadsby J, Williams S. (Eds.). Critical Mental Health Nursing: Observations from the inside. Monmouth: PCCS Books.

Grant A. (2019) Dare to be a wolf: Embracing autoethnography in nurse educational research. Nurse Education Today, 82, 88-92.

Grant A. (2020a) Autoethnography. In Aranda K. (Ed). Critical Qualitative Research in Healthcare: Exploring the philosophies, politics and practices. London and New York: Routledge.

Grant A. (2020b) The Reflexive Autoethnographer. In Aranda K. (Ed). Critical Qualitative Research in Healthcare: Exploring the philosophies, politics and practices. London and New York: Routledge.

Grant, A. 2022. What has autoethnography got to offer mental health nursing? British Journal of Mental Health Nursing: Autoethnography and Mental Health Nursing Supplement. 11(4): pp. 4-11. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjmh.2022.0035

Grant, A. 2023. Crafting and recognising good enough autoethnographies: a practical guide and checklist. Mental Health and Social Inclusion. (ahead-of-print version). https://doi.org/10.1108/MHSI-01-2023-0009

Grant, A. Forthcoming. In Search of My Narrative Character. In: Grant, A. (Ed.). Writing Philosophical Autoethnography. New York and London: Routledge.

Grant A, Zeeman L. (2012) Whose Story is it? An autoethnography concerning narrative identity. The Qualitative Report (TQR). 17 (72): 1-12.

Grant A, Radcliffe M. (2015) Resisting Technical Rationality in Mental Health Nurse Higher Education: A Duoethnography. The Qualitative Report (TQR) Volume 20, Number 6, Article 6, 815-825. http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR20/6/grant6.pdf

Grant A, Barlow A. (2016) The practitioner/survivor hybrid: an emerging anti-stigmatising resource in mental health care. Mental Health Practice. September. 20(1): 33-37.

Grant A, Gadsby J. (2018) The Power Threat Meaning Framework and international mental health nurse education: A welcome revolution in human rights. Nurse Education Today. 68: 1-3.

Grant, A, Young, S. (2021) Troubling Tolichism in Several Voices: Resisting Epistemic Violence in Creative Analytical and Critical Autoethnographic Practices. Journal of Autoethnography. 3(1): pp. 103-117. E-ISSN 2637-5192.

Grant A., Biley F., Walker H. (Eds). (2011) Our Encounters with Madness. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books (246 pages).

Grant A, Zeeman L, Aranda K. (2015a) Queering the relationship between evidence-based mental health and psychiatric diagnosis: Some implications for international mental health nurse curricular development. Nurse Education Today. 35: e18-e20.

Grant A, Leigh-Phippard H, Short N.P. (2015b) Re-storying narrative identity: a dialogical study of mental health recovery and survival. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. 22: 278-286.

Grant, A., Barnes, J. Klevan T., Donaldson, A. 2022. Tensions in Managing the Online Network Development of Autoethnographers: A four-way dialogue. Social Work & Social Sciences Review 18(1) pp.15-30.

Hernandez, K-A.C., Chang, H., Bilgen, W.A. (2022) Transformative Autoethnography for Practitioners: Change Processes and Practices for Individuals and Groups. Gorham, Maine: Myers Education Press.

Holman Jones, S., Adams, T., Ellis, C. (2013) Introduction: Coming to Know Autoethnography as More than a Method. In: Holman Jones, S., Adams, T., Ellis, C. (Eds.). Handbook of Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, Inc.

Klevan T, Grant A. (2022). An Autoethnography of Becoming a Qualitative Researcher: A Dialogic View of Academic Development. London and New York: Routledge.

Klevan T, Karlsson B, Ness O, Ruud T, Grant A. (2016) Between a rock and a softer place – a discourse analysis of helping cultures in crisis resolution teams. Qualitative Social Work.

Lahiri-Roy, R., Matinussen, M. (2023). “Do our diversities count?” Collaborative reflections on dwelling in academe’s intersectional shadowlands. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2023.2178037

Lather, P. (2003) Issues of Validity in Openly Ideological Research: Between a Rock and a Soft Place. In: Lincoln, Y.S. and Denzin, N.K. (Eds). Turning Points in Qualitative Research: Tying Knots in a Handkerchief. pp. 185-215. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

MacIntyre, A. (2005) Is Patriotism a Virtue? In: Matravers, D. and Pike, J. (Eds.). Debates in Contemporary Political Philosophy. An Anthology. London and New York: Routledge, in association with the Open University.

MacIntyre, A. (2007). After Virtue. Third edition (with Prologue). London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Naish J, Grant A, Zeeman L. (2016) Depathologizing sexualities. Mental Health Practice. April. 19(7): 26-31.

Paul, L.A. (2014) Transformative Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Short N, Grant A. (2016) Poetry as Hybrid Pedagogy in Mental Health Nurse Education. Nurse Education Today.43: 60-63.

Short N, Grant A, Clarke L. (2007) Living in the Borderlands; writing in the margins: an autoethnographic tale. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. 14: 771-782.

Van Maanen, J. (1988) Tales of the Field: On Writing ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Wright Mills, C. 2000[1959] The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.

Zeeman L, Aranda K, Grant A (Eds). (2014a) Queering Health: Critical challenges to normative health and healthcare. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books (208 pages).

Zeeman L, Aranda K, Grant A. (2014b) Queer Challenges to Evidence-based Practice. Nursing Inquiry. 21(2): 101-111.