In danger of writing: Performing the poetics and politics of autoethnography with Hélène Cixous and Virginia Woolf
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility of doing more with writing and autoethnography as ethical, response-able and decolonizing practice.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is written in a playful, performative and poetic way and engages with the writings and ideas of Helene Cixous and Virginia Woolf as a conversation between them and the author.
Findings
This paper suggests that an autoethnographic writing practice which is at once affective, critical and performative, holds the possibilities to engage in decoloniality.
Originality/value
Engagement with the past and present legacy of colonial practice in education and ethnography is crucial if the author want to move beyond social justice and decoloniality as metaphor. The writing practice put forward is new and challenging in its push to do this.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author would like to acknowledge the on-going patience, nurturance, generosity, care, relationship and love that Yanyuwa’s family extend to her. This paper would not have been possible without the words and knowledge’s they have gently placed on her tongue. The author also thanks her husband Gordon for being the other to my one and one to my other; for helping her to keep her writing and research practice linked ever so tightly to life where it matters most.
Citation
Mackinlay, E. (2015), "In danger of writing: Performing the poetics and politics of autoethnography with Hélène Cixous and Virginia Woolf", Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 189-201. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-01-2015-0010
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited