Critical Autoethnography And Intercultural Learning

Critical Autoethnography and Intercultural Learning shows how critical autoethnographic writing in a field such as intercultural education can help inform and change existing research paradigms. Engaging story-telling and insightful analysis from emerging scholars of diverse backgrounds and communities shows the impact of lived experience on teaching and learning. Different areas of intercultural learning are considered, including language education; student and teacher mobilities; Indigenous education; backpacker tourism; and religious learning. The book provides a worked example of how critical autoethnography can help shift thinking within any discipline, and reflects critically upon the multidimensional nature of migrant teacher and learner identities. This book will be essential reading for upper-level students of qualitative research methods, and on international education courses, including language education.

Critical Autoethnography: Intersecting Cultural Identities in Everyday Life, Second Edition, examines the development of the field of critical autoethnography through the lens of social identity. Contributors situate interpersonal and intercultural experiences of gender, race, ethnicity, ability, citizenship, sexuality, and spirituality within larger systems of power, oppression, and privilege. Approachable and accessible narratives highlight intersectional experiences of marginalization and interrogate social injustices. The book is divided into three sections: Complexities of Identity Performance, Relationships in Diverse Contexts, and Pathways to Culturally Authentic Selves. Each thematic section includes provocative stories that critically engage personal and cultural narratives through a lens of difference. The chapters in the book highlight both unique and ubiquitous, extraordinary and common experiences in the interior lives of people who are Othered because of at least two overlapping identities. The contributors offer first person accounts to suggest critical responses and alternatives to injustice. The book also includes sectional summaries and discussion questions to facilitate dialogue and self-reflection. It is an excellent resource for undergraduate students, graduate students, educators, and scholars who are interested in autoethnography, interpersonal and intercultural communication, qualitative studies, personal narrative, cultural studies, and performance studies.

The premise that intercultural contact produces intercultural competence underpins much rationalization of backpacker tourism and in-country language education. However, if insufficiently problematized, pre-existing constructions of cultural 'otherness' may hinder intercultural competence development. This is nowhere truer than in contexts in which wide disparities of power, wealth, and privilege exist, and where such positionings may go unproblematized. This study contributes to theoretical understandings of how intercultural competence develops through intercultural contact situations through a detailed, multiple case study of three conceptually comparable contexts in which Western backpackers study Spanish in Latin America. This experience, often 'bundled' with home-stay, volunteer work, social, and tourist experiences, offers a rich set of empirical data within which to understand the nature of intercultural competence and the processes through which it may be developed. Models of a single, context-free, transferable intercultural competence are rejected. Instead, suggestions are made as to how educators might help prepare intercultural sojourners by scaffolding their intercultural reflections and problematizing their own intersectional identities and their assumptions. The study is a critical ethnography with elements of autoethnographic reflection. The book therefore also contributes to development of this qualitative research methodology and provides an empirical example of its application.

This book presents the collaborative work of two professors, one in Mexico and the other in the United States, and their respective students, participants in a Ph.D. course called “Critical Autoethnography.” The chapters emerged from virtual conversations as doctoral students and professors examined the intersections between critical pedagogy and autoethnography. They problematized the cultural and theoretical intersections between the participants in both countries, questioning whether their differences were causes or results of power and privilege. They used dialogue as inquiry to interrogate the theoretical perspectives that framed their prior experiences. They realized that these perspectives reflected their cultures, and that although they often intersected, they diverged at times. The fluidity of the learning experience shaped the chapters that form the book sections, including the theory and the praxis, or exemplars, of performing critical autoethnography. Each author explores personal experiences or events through the lens of critical pedagogy, underscoring the problematization of the cultural and societal context that shaped their actions, in particular as they performed in racial, ethnic, and religious settings that reflected power and privilege. The two professors served as editors and authors, as they engaged in constant iterative peer review and dialogue. Both the Mexican and the United States perspectives are reflected throughout the book, and it is this global perspective that separates this book from others that deal with similar topics.

Wayfinding and Critical Autoethnography is the first critical autoethnography compilation from the global south, bringing together indigenous, non-indigenous, Pasifika, and other diverse voices which expand established understandings of autoethnography as a critical, creative methodology. The book centres around the traditional practice of ‘wayfinding’ as a Pacific indigenous way of being and knowing, and this volume manifests traditional knowledges, genealogies, and intercultural activist voices through critical autoethnography. The chapters in the collection reflect critical autoethnographic journeys that explore key issues such as space/place belonging, decolonizing the academy, institutional racism, neoliberalism, gender inequity, activism, and education reform. This book will be a valuable teaching and research resource for researchers and students in a wide range of disciplines and contexts. For those interested in expanding their cultural, personal, and scholarly knowledge of the global south, this volume foregrounds the vast array of traditional knowledges and the ways in which they are changing academic spaces and knowledge creation through braiding old and new. This volume is unique and timely in its ability to highlight the ways in which indigenous and allied voices from the diverse global south demonstrate the ways in which the onto-epistemologies of diverse cultures, and the work of critical autoethnography, function as parallel, and mutually informing, projects.

An Introduction to Critical Autoethnography and Education: The Vulnerable Researcherexamines the practice of critical autoethnography, which combines critical pedagogy, autoethnography, and often, critical ethnography, as a research methodology for conducting research in vulnerable communities without establishing hierarchical systems. Researchers who work collaboratively with participants in these communities can provide a means for often-unheard voices to reach wider audiences. Researchers function as collaborators/participants in the research, asking themselves the same questions they ask the other participants in the research. This methodology requires reflection and introspection, as researchers examine the Self and the complexities of their cultural perspectives, whether visible or invisible, hidden beneath layers of socially constructed beliefs and behaviors. This interrogation and problematization of words and actions surpasses chronological and supposedly objective recounting of autobiography, leading to a deep understanding of the sociocultural, socioeconomic, political, and historical beliefs that created their ways of understanding and navigating the world. Traditional research situates researchers as experts. Pushing against existing norms, critical autoethnography negates hierarchical thinking, believing all collaborators co-construct equally valuable knowledge and meaning. Accessible to diverse audiences, this book would be appropriate in graduate qualitative methods or foundations courses, at introductory or advanced levels. It would be also be a good addition to any undergraduate courses preparing students to conduct research in vulnerable communities. Perfect for courses such as: Qualitative Research Methods I | Qualitative Research Methods II | Advanced Qualitative Research Methods | Social Justice in Education Research | Case Study | Ethnographic Research in Education | Anthropology in Education | Critical Qualitative Inquiry | Multicultural Research Methods

Autoethnography: Process, Product, and Possibility for Critical Social Research by Sherick A. Hughes and Julie L. Pennington provides a short introduction to the methodological tools and concepts of autoethnography, combining theoretical approaches with practical “how to” information. Written for social science students, teachers, teacher educators, and educational researchers, the text shows readers how autoethnographers collect, analyze, and report data. With its grounding in critical social theory and inclusion of innovative methods, this practical resource will move the field of autoethnography forward.