Autoethnography as a Strategy for Engaging in Reflexivity

Abstract

Reflexivity is a key feature in qualitative research, essential for ensuring rigor. As a nurse practitioner with decades of experience with individuals who have chronic diseases, now embarking on a PhD, I am confronted with the question “how will my clinical experiences shape my research?” Since there are few guidelines to help researchers engage in reflexivity in a robust way, deeply buried aspects that may affect the research may be overlooked. The purpose of this paper is to consider the affordances of combining autoethnography (AE) with visual methods to facilitate richer reflexivity. Reflexive activities such as free writing of an autobiographical narrative, drawings of clinical vignettes, and interviews conducted by an experienced qualitative researcher were analyzed to probe and make visible perspectives that may impact knowledge production. Two key themes reflecting my values—fostering advocacy and favoring independence and autonomy were uncovered with this strategy.

Guidance for Research with Trans and Gender-Diverse People

“…In this article, guided by these four categories, we provide examples of "doing" reflexivity via narrations of how we have experienced reflexivity through our research journeys (see Koopman et al 2020; Subramani 2019, for more…”

Taking Power, Telling Stories: Using Collaborative Autoethnography to Explore Transitions to Adulthood with and without Disability Identities

“…Reflexivity is considered particularly valuable in autoethnography (Lapadat 2017). Autoethnography is, in and of itself, a form of reflexivity as a critical, subjective positioning of the researcher (Koopman et al 2020).…”

“…Such formal processes may focus more on institutional risk and risk to participants, without recognition of the centrality of self-care for researchers. Whether or not institutional ethics approval is required for collaborative autoethnography tends to be contentious and inconsistent across institutions (Koopman et al 2020;Lapadat 2017;Roy & Uekusa 2020). Autoethnography is an emerging area of consideration for our own institution's ethics committee.…”

Autoethnography, Reflexivity, and Insider Researcher Dynamics: Reflections on Investigating Violence against Men in Intimate Relationships

“…Where there is a dearth of guidelines to help researchers engage reflexivity more robustly in pursuit of knowledge construction, on the one hand there is an overabundance of concern for reflexivity and positionality to establish ethical rigor in the qualitativeinterpretive method (Koopman, Watling and LaDonna 2020;Pensoneau-Conway, Adams and Bolen, 2017;Berger 2013). On the other hand, criticism of research for sustaining dominance representation, sexist prejudices, and purportedly speaking to discourage achievements gained in the fights against men's oppression of women has generated resistance to engage with qualitative experiences of abuse men (Ratele et al 2016;Seidler 2006).…”

“…However, Song andParker (1995) note that most researchers struggle with understanding their positionality as insiders or outsiders in relation to their experiences and complexities with the phenomenon under examination. Thus, Koopman, Watling and LaDonna (2020) point out that the many sorts of commitment to openness and pathways to richer reflexivity that the insider researcher must maintain are not explicit. They argue that self-reflective autoethnographic practice is an innovation for achieving broader reflexivity because it puts the researcher's lived-through experiences front and centre as an integral component of the knowledge-making process.…”