One method I considered for this research was autoethnography. This interest emerged partly from curiosity, as autoethnography is widely discussed and used within practice-based research, and partly from a practical concern: I was looking for a more systematic way to acknowledge and record my own experience as part of the research process.
As a researcher who is also attempting to write for publication, I thought that my experience was important as it positioned me within the same structures, anxieties, and institutional contexts that participants described.
Autoethnography is a qualitative research method that foregrounds the researcher’s personal experience as a way of understanding wider cultural, social, or institutional phenomena (reference). In Autoethnography: Process, Product, and Possibility for Critical Social Research, the three stages of the process of producing autoethnographic research are identified as: problematising, legitimising, and synthesising (Rodriguez, Shofer, Harter & Clark, 2018, p. 55). These practices usually involve a systematic self-observation, reflective writing, and the analysis of personal narratives, emotions, and memories, often recorded over time through journals, fieldnotes, or other forms of documentation.
For this reason, I do not consider this research (ARP) to be autoethnographic. Writing for publication is a long, uneven, and often opaque process, and it is even difficult to identify clear starting and ending points. My own experience of this process has unfolded holistically and organically over several years, at a time when I did not anticipate researching it; as such, I do not have the systematic material required for it to be considered autoethnographic.
Nevertheless, I recognise that my positionality as a researcher-writer inevitably shapes the research. For this reason, I include my own reflections where they are pertinent, using them to situate the research rather than to constitute a primary method.
Reference:
Rodriguez, E., Shofer, S., Harter, M. & Clark, N., (2018). First guiding process: Problematizing what you know for new-self insight. In: E. Rodriguez, S. Shofer, M. Harter & N. Clark, eds. Autoethnography: Process, product, and possibility for critical social research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.