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1 – 10 of 95Caecilia Drujon d’Astros, Camille Gaudy and Marianne Strauch
This paper aims to explore the role of the researcher’s emotions in ethnographic practice in accounting research. This paper focuses on shame as an emotion that lingers on…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the role of the researcher’s emotions in ethnographic practice in accounting research. This paper focuses on shame as an emotion that lingers on, despite the efforts to work through those emotions.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a collective autoethnography to make sense of the fieldwork and after-fieldwork emotions and their consequences. This autoethnography began with the three authors discovering their shared feeling of shame.
Findings
Building on Hochschild’s theory (1979, 1983) on emotional labor, the authors demonstrate how shame emerged as a central and lingering emotion of the ethnographies beyond an emotional labor process. The authors show how a double shame appeared toward the field participants and the academic accounting community, affecting the writing and the work.
Originality/value
The authors demonstrate that the perception of the research community’s rules of feelings gives rise to emotions that ultimately change the work. The authors show how collective autoethnography can help accounting research to acknowledge and give room to emotions.
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Anita Garvey, Reem Talhouk and Benjamin Ajibade
Drawing upon the authors’ experiences as minoritised academic scholars within leadership roles of a Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic (BAME) Network in the United Kingdom (UK…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing upon the authors’ experiences as minoritised academic scholars within leadership roles of a Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic (BAME) Network in the United Kingdom (UK) academe, the authors explored the research question “In what ways do racially minoritised academics use coping techniques and strategies to counter racism and inequality in the higher education environment”.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a collective autoethnography approach accompanied by storytelling, underpinned by a qualitative interpretative process, supported by inductive, data-driven theorising. The authors’ approach is supplemented by the usage of content analysis (Schrieier, 2012) to analyse the data and generate findings.
Findings
The research findings specifically highlight (1) collectivism, solidarity and belonging, (2) knowledge expansion and critical consciousness, (3) disarming approaches and emotional labour, (4) resistance through setting boundaries and (5) intersectionality and BAME men allyship, as specific approaches for taking forward anti-racism.
Research limitations/implications
Autoethnographic research has encountered challenges around verification, transparency and veracity of data, and issues have been debated due to its subjective nature (see Jones, 2010; Keeler, 2019; Méndez, 2013). Additional complications arise regarding neutrality and objectivity associated with the researchers' identities and experiences being represented in autoethnographic accounts. The authors acknowledge that the accounts provided are subjective, and have influenced the research process and product.
Originality/value
Research on the experiences of minoritised academics leading staff equality networks constitutes a research gap. This article offers an original analysis through outlining the authors’ lived experiences in leadership positions of a BAME Network and hope to other minoritised employees undertaking anti-racist work.
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Cristina-Alexandra Trifan, Roxane de Waegh, Yunzi Zhang and Can-Seng Ooi
This paper explores the collaborative dynamics and dimensions within a virtual multi-cultural and interdisciplinary workplace. The study focusses on the use of online…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores the collaborative dynamics and dimensions within a virtual multi-cultural and interdisciplinary workplace. The study focusses on the use of online communication technologies to enhance social inclusion and networking within academia.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses an autoethnographic approach to draw on the personal experiences of a team of four scholars, including three early-career researchers and a senior scholar. Their reflections on their academic positionality and the institutional constraints reveal both the strengths and vulnerabilities of collaborating in a virtual workplace.
Findings
The findings offer insights into the complexities of navigating social dynamics, such as delegating responsibilities, organising meetings across various time zones and encouraging continuous collaboration, inclusivity and effective communication during an extensive timeline. As a result, their experiences revealed that a virtual workplace culture with similar and different attributes to a “normal” workplace emerged.
Originality/value
The paper demonstrates how to create an effective and inclusive virtual workplace by exemplifying best practices in academia and providing practical guidance for individuals and institutions based on honest, co-produced autoethnographic reflections of the authors’ lived experiences.
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Nina Winham, Kristin S. Williams, Liela A. Jamjoom, Kerry Watson, Heidi Weigand and Nicholous M. Deal
The purpose of this paper is to explore a novel storytelling approach that investigates lived experience at the intersection of motherhood/caregiving and Ph.D. pursuits. The paper…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore a novel storytelling approach that investigates lived experience at the intersection of motherhood/caregiving and Ph.D. pursuits. The paper contributes to the feminist tradition of writing differently through the process of care that emerges from shared stories.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a process called heartful-communal storytelling, the authors evoke personal and embodied stories and transgressive narratives. The authors present a composite process drawing on heartful-autoethnography, dialogic writing and communal storytelling.
Findings
The paper makes two key contributions: (1) the paper illustrates a novel feminist process in action and (2) the paper contributes six discrete stories of lived experience at the intersection of parenthood and Ph.D. studies. The paper also contributes to the development of the feminist tradition of writing differently. Three themes emerged through the storytelling experience, and these include (1) creating boundaries and transgressing boundaries, (2) giving and receiving care and (3) neoliberal conformity and resistance. These themes, like the stories, also became entangled.
Originality/value
The paper demonstrates how heartful-communal storytelling can lead to individual and collective meaning making. While the Ph.D. is a solitary path, the authors' heartful-communal storytelling experience teaches that holding it separate from other relationships can impoverish what is learnt and constrain the production of good knowledge; the epistemic properties of care became self-evident.
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This conceptual paper seeks to critically evaluate and illuminate the diverse autoethnographic methodologies that are pivotal for understanding the dynamics of contemporary…
Abstract
Purpose
This conceptual paper seeks to critically evaluate and illuminate the diverse autoethnographic methodologies that are pivotal for understanding the dynamics of contemporary workspaces. The objective is to contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate on the value of autoethnography in workplace research and explore how it can shed light on complex organizational phenomena.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a narrative literature review approach, focusing on four main forms of autoethnography: realist, impressionistic, expressionistic and conceptualistic autoethnographies. Each form is discussed and dissected, emphasizing their specific sub-forms and illustrating their application through representative examples. The paper engages in a critical debate on utilizing autoethnography in workplace research.
Findings
The findings illuminate how autoethnographic methods can be used to gain nuanced and complex understandings of personal experiences situated in workplace culture, as well as how broader social and cultural contexts shape these experiences. The study also highlights the potential of these methods to explore marginalized and silenced stories within workplaces and contribute to the knowledge on power dynamics, inequalities and injustices embedded in the organizational culture.
Practical implications
The following contribution discusses approaches for conducting autoethnographic explorations of selected work environments, offering researchers valuable insights into these methods' application. Through better comprehension and application of these methodologies, researchers can enhance their contribution toward cultivating more inclusive and equitable workplace environments.
Originality/value
The paper stands out in its extensive review and critical discussion of the autoethnographic methods as applied in workplace research. It expands upon individual autoethnographic studies by providing a comprehensive, multifaceted perspective, delving into the merits and limitations of these approaches in particular context of researching contemporary places of work.
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The paper introduces the autoethnography as a healing and everyday resistance strategy for marginalized voices. The focus is to deliver the author’s own reflections on some key…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper introduces the autoethnography as a healing and everyday resistance strategy for marginalized voices. The focus is to deliver the author’s own reflections on some key moments and experiences to stimulate the discussion on autoethnography as a critical instrument channeling one’s reflexivity in the higher education context.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on a case study of Chinese academic professionals to inspire the discussion on the research and practical values of autoethnography. It also provides conceptual reflections on the political meaning and functions of autoethnography.
Findings
The paper highlights two key aspects of autoethnography in the higher education context. Firstly, it emphasizes the importance of autoethnography in navigating the personal political front. Secondly, it promotes the integration of autoethnography into the ordinary lives of overseas Chinese academic professionals for daily healing and resistance.
Originality/value
The paper explores political sensitivity as an important dimension of workplace ethnography. Recognizing political sensitivity avows autoethnography a political act and a research framework, through which the (auto)ethnographer examines his or her own principles for negotiating justice and interpreting the ownership of personal identity against the influx of politically-charged opinions from the surrounding.
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Ahreum Lim, Daeun Jung and Eunsun Lee
As emerging scholars of color with transnational backgrounds, we collectively recount our socialization experiences in US higher education institutes. We explore moments of…
Abstract
Purpose
As emerging scholars of color with transnational backgrounds, we collectively recount our socialization experiences in US higher education institutes. We explore moments of betweenness as catalysts for envisioning a more inclusive academia that operates beyond the tokenism of diversity.
Design/methodology/approach
Employing betweener autoethnography (Diversi and Moreira, 2018), we inquire into the sense of impasse encountered by South Korean female emerging scholars in the field of education in becoming an outsider within the academic system.
Findings
Chronicling our shifts in perspectives of our positionality, we interweave inquiries motivating us to challenge normative pressures and map our betweener experiences onto the Wiedman and DeAngelo’s (2020) socialization model. Through this process, we wedge open in-between spaces in the socialization process that accommodate the nuanced positionality of transnational scholars.
Originality/value
Integrating postcolonial critiques on the Western-centric meritocratic academia, this piece sheds light on the complexity and fluidity of emerging transnational scholars’ socialization processes. The thick, nuanced description deepens the understanding of the complexity of their identity negotiation within the dominant logics of academia. Our inquiries interwoven through betweener autoethnography serve as guidance for mentoring international graduate students and transnational scholars.
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Gørill Warvik Vedeler and Kristin Elaine Reimer
In this chapter, we present a collaborative autoethnographic study with two main layers: first, we share experiences of two separate educational research projects and explore how…
Abstract
In this chapter, we present a collaborative autoethnographic study with two main layers: first, we share experiences of two separate educational research projects and explore how different dialogic research practices facilitate both participants and researchers to discover the phenomenon being studied; second, we engage in a dialogic conversation to discover our own research practices. Focussing on projects in two different countries (Norway and Canada), our initial centring question for this chapter is: how do our research practices facilitate insight into participants’ real-life experiences and practices? Then turning the light on our own research practices, we ask: what onto-epistemological assumptions shape our dialogical research practices? The chapter reveals that dialogic research practices allowed collective wisdom to be discovered and ensured that we were able to break through the taken-for-grantedness both of the concept being studied and of our own research practices.
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Geraldine Hardie, Shamika Almeida, Kanchana Wijayawardena, Betty Frino, Hui-Ling Wang and Afshan Rauf
This paper examines the experiences of a team of female academics (teaching a large cohort of undergraduate students) and the coping mechanisms used to combat the challenges they…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the experiences of a team of female academics (teaching a large cohort of undergraduate students) and the coping mechanisms used to combat the challenges they confront in the Australian higher education sector.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a reflective autoethnographic method and strengths perspective, the authors share experiences as female professionals whose intersectional identities presented challenges that extend beyond those typically found in the current higher education setting.
Findings
The individualized nature of academic work exacerbates the systemic marginalization of female academics. Adopting a flock culture serves as a support network for addressing the various intersectional challenges. The authors liken the “flock cultural approach” to a “sisterhood” where individuals impacted by intersectional challenges build a strong and cohesive unit to support each other by utilizing their combined strengths to create positive synergy to cope with ongoing workplace challenges.
Research limitations/implications
The study highlights the benefit of the strengths perspective to understand how female academics with intersectional identities can overcome the challenges of their highly individualized profession.
Practical implications
This paper highlights the importance of building team-based work, cultivating collective achievement and high trust in a highly individualistic profession.
Social implications
Using the strength perspective, the authors disrupt the conventional and currently narrow usage of sisterhood to help develop strong, adaptive, flexible and responsive bonds among diverse female academics. The findings point to how using a “flock culture” – a membership-based philosophy – became the key support mechanism for the marginalized groups, empowering them to confront the systemic barriers within their profession.
Originality/value
First, the findings of this study are shaped by the intersections of factors such as ethnicity, age, race, religion and mode of employment, which all influences the participants’ lived experiences. Second, this study contributes to the transnational feminist movement by unveiling the contextualized barriers that junior academic females from various migrant backgrounds face and identify how they synergized their collective strengths to survive the challenging academic environment. Third, using the strength perspective, the authors disrupt the conventional and currently narrow usage of sisterhood to help develop strong, adaptive, flexible and responsive bonds among diverse female academics.
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This autoethnographic article presents the adaptation of collage—an arts-based method traditionally used in face-to-face settings—into an online research tool. It emphasizes the…
Abstract
Purpose
This autoethnographic article presents the adaptation of collage—an arts-based method traditionally used in face-to-face settings—into an online research tool. It emphasizes the increased relevance of such a transition in the wake of the digital shift and the Covid-19 pandemic. The work aims to reveal how digital collages can facilitate in-depth participant responses in a time when conventional research settings are inaccessible.
Design/methodology/approach
The article incorporates autoethnographic vignettes, which are identified in italics, that offer insights into my personal reflections on the transition and adaptation to an online mode. Firstly, I review how collage can be a valuable tool to include in focus groups and for elicitation during semi-structured interviews. Secondly, I review the challenges I experienced when conducting focus groups online to create the collages. Thirdly, I explore, in more detail, three examples of collages that reflect the diverse ranges that were produced and the insightful discussions that emerged from the participants describing the visual elements of their collages. Finally, the reflective nature of my autoethnographic vignettes provides an insight into the world of the researcher during this turbulent time.
Findings
Findings show that collage, whether physical or digital, remains an effective tool for eliciting nuanced understandings from participants. The research contributes to the arts-based research narrative by showcasing how the digital adaptation of collage methods can yield profound insights into participants' perspectives, therefore enriching the data beyond what traditional interviews could unveil.
Originality/value
These observations can provide support for other researchers who are contemplating the adoption of online arts-based research methods. Understanding how traditionally face-to-face arts-based research methods can be adapted for the digitally evolving landscape is important for shaping the future of online research.
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