Learning How to Drive: Rites of Passage in Being and Becoming (A Collaborative Autoethnography Not Just About Driving)

Abstract

This collaborative autoethnography uses the prompt of “learning to drive” as a pivot point of critically remembering aspects of the authors being and becoming; from the earned autonomy of operating a vehicle to a broader sense of self-determination, social responsibility, and determined directionality as literal and figurative metaphor for life choices. The authors from diverse backgrounds working in the same academic institution engage the processes of reflectivity, reflexivity, and refractivity in autoethnography to theorize through lived experience. In the process, they bridge the gap between past, present, and beyond. The piece ends with prompts for others to tell critical stories of lived experience.