“It’s the End of the PhD as We Know it, and We Feel Fine…Because Everything Is Fucked Anyway”: Utilizing Feminist Collaborative Autoethnography to Navigate Global Crises

Abstract

Unpacking our experiences as trainee researchers navigating a global pandemic; in this research four researchers identify and interpret otherwise individual experiences through a collective lens. These shared responses are collated and understood through the multivocal method of what we term a “feminst collaborative auto-ethnography.” Relational ethics using a praxis of care, in line with feminist epistemology underpin the systematic analysis of our shared experiences to enhance intersubjectivity and the co-construction of knowledge. Individual reflections and collaborative sessions were utilized to immerse ourselves both situationally and critically into the pool of data. Concurrently creating and analyzing our collaborative inquiry. We utilized mind maps, probing, and reflexivity to engage with our individual and shared social, emotional, and structural challenges. Through analysis of the collaborative data we identified that we had all developed safety seeking strategies, and that a focused research method not only provided direction, but provided a support network. The researchers found that collaborative autoethnography is a useful and holistic method of understanding and navigating adversities in the PhD process, allowing for us to interpret multiple levels of adversity and support-strategies during Covid-19 times.

Posthumous Autoethnography?

“…I further claim that this pragmatic stance helps us see the questions we address as questions about being human , both individually and communally. Clearly, this stance resonates with that adopted by Rutter et al (2021) since it is concerned with both individual experiences (their individual lockdown experiences) as well as their connections with or disconnections from their respective groups. At its base a pragmatic stance entails the idea that education is an initiation into the skills and processes of human conversation.…”

“…Second, they wanted to unpack how they as women constructed their social positions especially within the academic community. They rejected the “god trick” (or what Hilary Putnam called the “god’s eye view”) in research and writing believing instead that, far from asserting that truth or knowledge is out there waiting to be discovered, they should emphasize that it is through collaboration, intersubjectivity and reflexivity that we create knowledge in our research projects (see Rutter et al, 2021, p. 2). Initially they saw their approach as one of supporting one another during COVID-19.…”

“…Their doing so was based on the use of collaborative autoethnography as a method of understanding adversity, as a process of mutual support and catharsis, and as a way of identifying and exploring shared challenges and adaptive behaviors. Most importantly, they also saw their approach as what they termed an innovative feminist-collaborative autoethnography (Rutter et al, 2021, pp. 1–2).…”

“…Also they began to regard autoethnography as a form of democratic politics committed to creating space for further dialogue and potential change. One of their main hopes for their research was that it would “stimulate solidarity , stemming from reliability, recognisability and realism” for readers since what they clearly offered was an emic or insider authority (Rutter et al, 2021, p. 9, my italics).…”

“…They felt that too many students had been, and continue to be, marginalized within higher education and their experiences hidden or ignored. They wanted their feminist-collaborative autoethnography to promote political and social change and to help students relate to and sympathize with their own academic, personal, and social struggles and to “feel less alone in the academic abyss” (see Rutter et al, 2021, p. 10).…”