Autoethnography for Librarians and Information Scientists 9780367439996, 9780367439798, 9781003014775

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AUTOETHNOGRAPHY FOR LIBRARIANS AND INFORMATION SCIENTISTS

Autoethnography for Librarians and Information Scientists illustrates that autoethnography is a rich qualitative research method that can enhance understanding of one’s own work experiences, whilst also facilitating the design of tailored experiences for a variety of audiences. Starting with the position that librarians and information scientists require deep insight into people’s experiences, needs and information behaviour in order to design appropriate services and information interventions, this book shows that using only conventional methods, such as questionnaires and focus groups, is insufficient. Arguing that autoethnography can provide unique insights into users’ cultural experiences and needs, contributors to this volume introduce the reader to different types of autoethnography. Highlighting common challenges and clarifying how autoethnography can be combined with other research methods, this book will empower librarians and information scientists to conceptualise topics for autoethnographic research, whilst also ensuring that they adhere to strict ethical guidelines. Chapters within the volume also demonstrate how to produce autoethnographic writing and stress the need to analyse autoethnographies produced by others. Autoethnography for Librarians and Information Scientists is essential reading for any librarian, information scientist or student looking to deepen their understanding of their own experiences. It will be particularly useful to those engaged in the study of service provision, user studies and information behaviour. Ina Fourie is a full professor and Head of Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria. Professor Fourie is currently Vice Chair of the ISIC (Information Seeking in Context) Steering Committee and part of the ASIS&T (Association of Information Science and Technology) Executive Board as Treasurer. She has published more than 130 articles, books and conference papers and has presented in more than 16 countries.

AUTOETHNOGRAPHY FOR LIBRARIANS AND INFORMATION SCIENTISTS

Edited by Ina Fourie

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Ina Fourie; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Ina Fourie to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-43999-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-43979-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-01477-5 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

CONTENTS

List of contributors List of abbreviations Preface and acknowledgements

vii xiii xv

PART I

Introduction to autoethnography as research method for librarians1 1 What is autoethnography?3 Ina Fourie 2 Autoethnography as a tool for critical ref lection on library practice: making the case15 Anne-Marie Deitering PART II

Different types of autoethnography31 3 Evocative autoethnography – evoking is as evoking does33 Lisa P. Spinazola, Carolyn Ellis and Arthur Bochner 4 Analytic autoethnography49 Ina Fourie 5 Collaborative autoethnography as method and praxis: understanding self and others in practice61 Kathy-Ann C. Hernandez

vi  Contents

PART III

Challenges of autoethnography77 6 “How does this move us forward?”: a question of rigour in autoethnography79 Tim Gorichanaz 7 Ethical challenges and protection of privacy92 Anika Meyer and Ina Fourie 8 Supplementary and alternative methods: Dervin’s sense-making methodology112 Christine Urquhart and Louisa Lam PART IV

Autoethnography in contexts129 9 Moments of illumination: a personal experience narrative of cultural competence131 Fiona Blackburn 10 Autoethnography, law enforcement and an opportunity for libraries146 Naailah Parbhoo-Ebrahim and Ina Fourie 11 Caregiving and autoethnography – a librarian perspective reinforced by experience as an academic and researcher161 Olívia Pestana PART V

The way forward175 12 Taking on social challenges, personal growth and keeping momentum as autoethnographic reader and writer177 Ina Fourie 13 Ref lection and concluding remarks187 All contributing authors Glossary198 Appendix A: Bibliography of autoethnography in library and 204 information science Appendix B: Addresses for websites mentioned in the chapters208 Appendix C: Further reading from related fields210 Index212

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Editor: Dr Ina Fourie Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria (South Africa) [email protected] Ina Fourie is a full professor and Head of Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria. She is a rated South African researcher. Her main research focus is on information behaviour, current awareness services, information literacy and autoethnography with special reference to cancer and palliative care and other existential contexts. She is a regular speaker and author in national and international contexts ranging from library and information science and education to healthcare. Ina serves on the editorial advisory boards of Library Hi Tech, Online Information Review, Information Research and The Bottom Up. She was guest editor with Dr Heidi Julien of an Aslib Journal of Information Management special issue on Innovative Methods in Health Information Behaviour Research (vol. 71 [6]: 693–702). Ina is currently Vice Chair of the ISIC (Information Seeking in Context) Steering Committee and part of the ASIS&T (Association of Information Science and Technology) Executive Board as Treasurer. She has published more than 130 published articles, books and conference papers and has presented in more than 16 countries. Fiona Blackburn Senior Archivist, Print and Manuscript Collections Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Studies, Canberra (Australia) [email protected] Fiona Blackburn, Collections Manager, Manuscripts, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), is an Australian with

viii  List of contributors

English and European heritage. She has worked in libraries and archives for thirteen years, beginning at Alice Springs Public Library as Special Collections Manager. This is where she started thinking about the cross-cultural provision, completing a Masters degree in Information Management which included research into cultural competence and libraries. At AIATSIS, she advocated for the endorsement and implementation of the International Council on Archives Tandanya-Adelaide Declaration about decolonising archives, and investigated how to facilitate the right of reply to records. She acknowledges that the willingness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to engage with libraries and archives enabled her to do her job. Dr Arthur (Art) Bochner Distinguished Professor Emerita, Department of Communication, University of South Florida University of South Florida [email protected] Art Bochner is a Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of South Florida. He has published more than 100 articles and book chapters as well as two award winning books, Coming to Narrative: A Personal History of Paradigm Change in the Human Sciences (AltaMira Press, 2014) and (with Carolyn Ellis) Evocative Autoethnography: Writing Lives and Telling Stories (Routledge, 2016). He is a Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication Association (NCA) and served as President of NCA in 2007. He has received lifetime achievement awards from the International Association of Qualitative Inquiry and the Ethnography Division of NCA. His endowed awards for his scholarship and teaching include NCA’s Charles Woolbert Award, Bernard J. Brommel Award for pioneering research in family communication, the Samuel Becker Distinguished Service Award, the McKnight Foundation’s William R. Jones Most Valuable Doctoral Mentor Award for mentoring minority students, and the Goodall and Trujillo Award for Narrative Ethnography. Anne-Marie Deitering Interim University Librarian and Franklin A. McEdward Professor, Oregon State University Libraries and Press, USA [email protected] Anne-Marie Deitering is the Interim University Librarian and the Franklin A. McEdward Professor for Undergraduate Learning Initiatives at Oregon State University Libraries and Press. She thinks broadly about the library’s role as a centre for learning and engagement on campus, and she thinks her best work happens when she collaborates with others. In her research and practice she examines the intersections between curiosity, affect and information literacy and how these intersections affect the choices we make as teachers and learners. She brings

List of contributors ix

these interests to her work as part of the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Immersion Program facilitation team. She is also deeply interested in the connections between reflective practice and professional knowledge. She facilitated a learning community about autoethnography and library practice, which resulted in the 2017 book The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture and Academic Librarianship. She has an MLS from Emporia State University and an M.A. in History from Syracuse University. Dr Carolyn Ellis Distinguished Professor Emerita, Department of Communication, University of South Florida University of South Florida [email protected] Carolyn Ellis is Distinguished University Professor Emerita at the University of South Florida. She has established an international reputation for her contributions to autoethnography and the narrative study of human life. Dr. Ellis has published eight monographs, six edited books, and more than 150 articles, chapters, and essays. She has edited two book series and presented keynote addresses and workshops in sixteen countries. Her most recent books are Final Negotiations: A Story of Love, Loss, and Chronic Illness Expanded and Revised Edition and Revision: Autoethnographic Reflections on Life and Work, Revised Classic Edition. Her awards include the Charles H. Woolbert Research Award and the Distinguished Scholar Award, both from the National Communication Association (NCA), The Legacy Lifetime Award and best book and article awards from NCA’s Ethnography Division, a Lifetime Achievement Award in Qualitative Inquiry, two best book awards from the International Center for Qualitative Inquiry at the University of Illinois, and the Goodall and Trujillo Award for Narrative Ethnography. Dr Tim Gorichanaz Assistant Teaching Professor College of Computing & Informatics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA) [email protected] Tim Gorichanaz is Assistant Teaching Professor at the Drexel University College of Computing & Informatics, where he received his PhD. Before that, he received his Bachelor’s degree from Marquette University and his Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics and Hispanic Cultural Studies from New York University in Madrid, Spain. His research centres on information experience. His book Information Experience in Theory and Design was published by Emerald in 2020.

x  List of contributors

Dr Kathy-Ann C. Hernandez Professor and Co-Chair Eastern University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA) [email protected] Kathy-Ann C. Hernandez, Ph.D. is a professor of leadership and research methods in the College of Business and Leadership and co-chair of the Ph.D. program in Organizational Leadership at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, USA. She is the co-author of Collaborative Autoethnography (2013, with Heewon Chang and Faith Wambura Ngunjiri) as well as the author/presenter on several other autoethnographic related scholarship projects. Her work has appeared in the Handbook of Autoethnography, The International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and The Journal of Research Practice. Her research is focused on the Black Diaspora and the salience of race/ethnicity, gender and social context in identity formation, leadership development, and social and academic outcomes for marginalised populations. She is also committed to interrogating and fostering the leadership development experiences of women and minorities in academic and public settings. Dr Louisa Lam Chief Information Officer and University Librarian, Lingnan University, Hong Kong. [email protected] Louisa Lam is currently the Chief Information Officer and University Librarian at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, leading the development of both the Information Technology Services Centre and the University Library. Prior to joining Lingnan University, she was the Senior Sub-Librarian serving as the Head of Research Support & Digital Initiatives, and Head of Library Information Technology & Systems at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library pioneering the establishment of research support services and leading the transformation of IT infrastructure, network, hardware and software applications. In pursuing her career and doctoral studies, Louisa developed a deep interest in evidence-based medicine, knowledge management and medical librarianship. Her doctoral research focuses on applying Brenda Dervin’s sense-making methodology to study the process of knowledge creation, sharing and utilisation in health care organisations. Her research interests now include sense-making, storytelling, library space, research support, and application of technology. Anika Meyer Lecturer and doctoral candidate Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria (South Africa) [email protected]

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Anika Meyer is a Lecturer in the Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria. She completed her Master studies in 2016, titled: Information behaviour in academic spaces of creativity: a building science pseudo-makerspace. She is currently enrolled for her doctoral studies at the Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria, titled: Information sharing in participatory design of a virtual academic creative space. Her research interests include creativity, collaborative information seeking (CIS), knowledge management, guided inquiry, third space, information literacy, information behaviour and makerspaces - specifically the construction of these creative spaces through universal design, holistic ergonomics and participatory design. She has presented at international conferences (e.g., ISIC and EAHIL [European Association for Health Information and Libraries]) and is a member of ASIS&T and the ASIS&T African Chapter. She is currently working on a book with Preben Hansen (Stockholm University, Sweden) and Ina Fourie focusing on Third Space, Participatory Design and information sharing. Naailah Parbhoo-Ebrahim Lecturer and doctoral candidate Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria (South Africa) [email protected] Naailah is currently working at the University of Pretoria, Department of Information Science as a full-time lecturer. She lectures various modules varying from first year (Introduction to Information Communication Technologies), second year (Social and ethical impacts- information ethics), third year (competitive intelligence) and honours (Organisation, retrieval and seeking of information). From 2014, she was a junior research officer for the African Centre of Excellence for Information Ethics (ACEIE) that is based in the Department of Information Science. In 2017, she became the office manager where she co-ordinated digital wellness workshops at National Health Insurance sites with the South African Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services. She holds a Bachelor’s and Honours Degree in Information Science as well as a Masters in Information Technology (specialising in Library and Information Science). Her mini-dissertation was titled Effective use of value-added features and services of information retrieval systems in an academic environment. She is currently working on her PhD in Information Science. Her thesis is titled Cold case investigators’ need of information retrieval systems: an information behaviour lens. She has been part of the ISIC Information Behaviour community since 2016 where she has presented papers in 2016, 2018 and 2020. She is a member of ASIS&T and the ASIS&T African Chapter. Her research interests include: information behaviour, information retrieval, cold case investigations, information ethics and competitive intelligence.

xii  List of contributors

Dr. Olívia Pestana Assistant Professor; Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto, Portugal. [email protected] Olívia Pestana is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto. She is also a researcher at CITCEM (Transdisciplinary Culture, Space and Memory Research Centre) and CLUP (Centre of Linguistics of the University of Porto). Olívia holds a PhD in Information and Communication in Digital Platforms, a Master in Information Management, and a BA in Modern Languages and Literatures. Her main activity and interests are currently on knowledge organisation systems, content analysis and subject indexing in various domains. Dr Lisa P. Spinazola Independent Scholar/Adjunct; Department of Communication, University of South Florida University of South Florida [email protected] Lisa Spinazola is a Visiting Instructor in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida and an adjunct instructor at Hillsborough Community College. Her research interests include autoethnography, narrative reframing, trauma/ loss, addiction, small groups, writing as inquiry, empathy/compassion, and pedagogy. In addition to this current project, recent publications include a journal article examining lifelong personal struggles with body image and a narrative on facing the after effects of a traumatic car accident. She is also working on a collaborative book project which through individual autoethnographic accounts explores the stigma and shame felt by those who are estranged from their families. In her spare time, Lisa enjoys singing karaoke, cooking for her family, and being an amateur nature photographer. Dr Christine Urquhart Retired from Aberystwyth University [email protected] Christine Urquhart was a full-time member of staff in the Department of Information Studies, Aberystwyth University, United Kingdom (1993–2009). Since retiring from full time teaching, she has continued to pursue her research interests. These include information behaviour and information systems research, the value and impact of information services, and health information management. She is the lead author for two Cochrane systematic reviews (including one on nursing record systems) and has worked with SaraDunn Associates on several social care information projects. For five years she was Director of Research in the Department at Aberystwyth and devised the research training programmes for doctoral research. She was a member of the 2014 QAA subject benchmark panel for the library, archives, records and information management group.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

African Centre of Excellence for Information Ethics Autoethnography American Educational Research Association Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies ARDS Acute respiratory distress syndrome ASIS&T Association of Information Science and Technology ASPL Alice Springs Public Library CAE Collaborative autoethnography CIA Central Intelligence Agency CIS Collaborative information seeking CITCEM Transdisciplinary Culture, Space and Memory Research Centre CLEAR Citizen Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting CLUP Centre of Linguistics of the University of Porto CMR Complete member researcher Co-PI Co-principal CRAR Critical reflective action research EAB Ethics advisory board EAHIL European Association for Health Information and Libraries FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation ILL Interlibrary lending IMLS Institute of Museum and Library Services IRB Institutional review board ISIC Information Seeking in Context IT Information technology LIS Libraries and information services; Library and information science LISA Library and Information Science Abstracts ACEIE AE AERA AIATSIS

xiv  List of abbreviations

LISTA NCA PTSD QAA REB SAE SMM VPSS

Library and Information Science and Technology Abstracts National Communication Association Post-traumatic stress disorder The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education Research ethics board Solo autoethnography Sense-making methodology Vital Pathways Survey Subcommittee

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The essence of autoethnographic research lies in the deeply sensitive nature of free writing, going back and forth, often writing in chunks and without carefully planning and thinking through every word that is put down (Anderson & Fourie 2015), but at the same time meeting the requirements of rigour for qualitative research (Bochner & Ellis 2016; Gorichanaz 2017; Hughes & Pennington 2016). Inspiration can be drawn from the words of James Arthur Baldwin (cited by Denzin 2014; unnumbered table of contents page): You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well you probably can’t but also knowing that the world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it. Autoethnography developed from, and closely relates to ethnography and autobiography (Carless 2018; Ellis, 2004; Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011). Carolyn Ellis, a leader on evocative autoethnography approaches all her writing as ethnographic (Bochner & Ellis 2016: 165). It is not the intention of this book to delve deeply into the differences between autoethnography and ethnography (although Chapter 1 will touch on this). Neither method is superior; each method has strengths and present challenges – similar to all other research methods. A good number of ethnographic studies can be noted in the library and information science literature (Everhart & Escobar 2018; Gillespie, Partridge, Bruce & Howlett 2016; Hartel, 2020). As will be pointed out, this is not the case with autoethnography. Autoethnography holds the potential to serve a dual purpose: (i) therapeutic with very strong self-reflection and a critical view at the challenges of society – and thus the challenges faced by libraries; and (ii) at the same time offering the opportunity to delf very deep into individual’s experiences of challenging situations and contexts. Such individuals

xvi  Preface and acknowledgements

might be the people who can benefit from library and information (LIS) services. Autoethnography is considered here for the value it can bring, but with full recognition of the need not to discard other research methods. This point will be stressed in various chapters, e.g., Chapters 1, 4 and 8. In many aspects, library and information work relates to the caring professions, such as nursing, social work and teaching. Through information, access to information sources and related services such as information literacy training and the capturing and managing of information and knowledge, library services can support people from all sectors of society in dealing with uncertainties and the need to make sense in challenging situations. The right information in the right format at the right time have often succeeded in at least partially addressing such uncertainties – finding help when abused, coping with life-threatening situations and with challenging tasks at work and in academic studies (Westbrook 2008; Westbrook & Gonzalez 2011). Even for pleasure and entertainment such as sport and hobbies (Hartel 2003) libraries and information services can offer support. To design appropriate services and information interventions, libraries and information services require deeper insight of people’s experiences, needs and information behaviour. Librarians require cultural awareness and sensitivity. They should be able to respond to moments of crisis and pandemics (Xie, He, Mercer, Wang, Wu, Fleischmann, Zhang Fleischmann…Lee 2020). Conventional methods, such as questionnaires, interviews and focus groups can only partially reveal the experiences, thoughts and feelings of librarians when they face such challenges. The same applies for the individuals whom they may support through appropriate information services. This has never been truer, than at the time when this manuscript was prepared in 2020 – the time the world globally faced the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19, destroying lives, families and economies, but also getting people to work together and learn new ways of living, working and socialising. The phrase “social distancing” became part of everyday vocabulary (Martin & Schwartz 2020). In an opinion piece, Xie and her co-authors (2020) used the COVID-19 pandemic to argue the need for timely action and the role of libraries and information services. They made a case that global health crises are also information crises, and that information science as discipline should play a leading role in such crises. Their suggestions cover research, education and practice. Current challenges faced by libraries and information services also relate well to the growing interest in affect and emotion that is seen in library and information science literature (Fourie & Julien 2014). Emotional challenges, emotional information needs and affect must be revealed in research in order for librarians and information professionals and information scientists1 to appropriately target their services (Fourie & Julien 2013; Joe 2019; Matteson, Chittock & Mease 2015). Such challenges must be addressed by research methods that are appropriate to deeply personal experiences (Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez 2013; Deitering, Schroeder & Stoddart 2017). Appropriate research methods should also allow librarians the opportunity for reflection on their experiences,

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the work they are doing and the methods they are using (Brock, Borti, Frahm, Howe, Khasilova & Ventura-Kalen 2017; Fister 2017; Grace & Sen 2013; Guzik 2013; Michels 2010; Morrison 2017; Patin 2015; Swanson, Tanaka & Gonzalez-Smith 2018; Town 2018). Needs for information-related support by librarians, the emotionally challenging experiences of librarians, and the value of the work they are doing have been revealed by content rich qualitative research methods such as narratives and storytelling (Calvert & Goulding 2015). Autoethnography can however, reveal much richer information about deeply human experiences including information interactions, information needs and cultural experiences (Bochner & Ellis 2016; Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez 2013; Denzin 2014; Hughes & Pennington 2016; Holman Jones, Adams & Ellis 2013). Autoethnography, is used with great success in research in the caregiving professions – nursing, social work and teaching (Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez 2013). There is however limited work on autoethnography and librarians. The edited monograph by Deitering, Schroeder and Stoddart (2017) is an exception. They present examples of how librarians used autoethnography to reflect on their self-identity. There is also a small number of research articles e.g., Gorichanaz (2017), Guzik (2013), Morrison (2017) and Patin (2015) and a few more listed in “References Cited,” the various chapters and the bibliography on library and information science and autoethnography in Appendix A. With the advent of more and more librarians having backgrounds in critical theory or feminist, queer and black studies or indigenous studies (Drabinski 2013; Dudley 2000; Marzullo, Rault & Cowan 2018; Roy & Scott 2020; Westbrook & Fourie 2015), interest in interpretive research methods such as autoethnography is growing (Deitering, Schroeder & Stoddart 2017). People are better prepared to take a critical, socially responsible look at the challenges faced by societies. This seems the right time to strengthen such interest. The purpose of the book is to raise librarians’ and information scientists’ awareness of autoethnography as a deeply personal and rich qualitative research method that can support understanding of their own work experiences and the design of information supportive library and information services for a variety of target groups. The intention is furthermore to introduce them to different types of autoethnography, the need for rigorous autoethnographic research, challenges to foresee, the combination of autoethnography with other research methods, a strong body of literature for further reading and suggestions on keeping momentum with interest in autoethnography. The book should enable librarians to: •

•

•

recognise the value of autoethnographic research for a variety of contexts of libraries and information services; this will include the value of analysing autoethnographies as well as autoethnographic writing; become familiar with the basics of different types of autoethnography specifically evocative, collaborative and analytic autoethnography and the underlying literature; challenge their beliefs about what counts as valid research;

xviii  Preface and acknowledgements

• • • • •

prepare for challenges such as the need for rigorous research, ethical adherence and respect for personal privacy; learn how to find their own voices as autoethnographic writers; consider alternative and supplementary methods; conceptualise topics for autoethnographic research supportive to libraries and information services; keep momentum with their interest in autoethnography.

Although there are many textbooks on autoethnography per se (cf., References cited), there is only one book explicitly written for librarians (Deitering, Schroeder & Stoddart 2017). Journal articles and conference papers in the field of library and information science are also very limited, as noted in the list of references cited here, in the chapters to follow and the Bibliography in Appendix A. Autoethnography for Librarians and Information Scientists targets practicing librarians from all types of libraries and information services such as academic libraries, special libraries such as health libraries and outreach libraries and information services, including public and community libraries and school libraries. Although many of them might not be actively doing research, this might be the right time to use their extensive experiences to contribute to the field by getting involved in autoethnographic or perhaps collaborative autoethnographic research working with other professionals and faculty members. Autoethnography for Librarians and Information Scientists is not a textbook for library and information science students; it should however, be suitable as recommended reading for library and information science courses in research, service provision, user studies and information behaviour. Autoethnography for Librarians and Information Scientists can be useful for various types of libraries, individuals and library associations with some potential of faculty prescribing it as recommended reading. Although we present a strong theoretical background and references to research literature, we also address many issues of practical importance, but without being a “how-to-book.” Autoethnography for Librarians and Information Scientists should be suitable for any librarian and faculty member who intends to deepen their understanding of their own experiences and awareness of how such understanding can support personal development, the understanding of experiences of user groups served and the design of libraries and information services tailored to the needs of such groups. Managers of libraries and information services and policymakers should also be able to benefit from a book such as Autoethnography for Librarians and Information Scientists introducing them to a research method that can be combined with other methods such as sense-making methodology (cf Chapter 8) and action research (Hughes & Pennington 2016). To strengthen the scope of Autoethnography for Librarians and Information Scientists, I am thus drawing on contributions from librarians and library and information science faculty, as well as faculty from other disciplines who specialise in evocative and collaborative autoethnography to share rich insights and experiences.

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Autoethnography for Librarians and Information Scientists can be read in sequential order, or a reader may prefer to first focus on individual chapters. Part I offers an introduction to autoethnography and why it can be a valuable method for librarians. Part 2 introduces the reader to different types of autoethnography: evocative, analytical and collaborative autoethnography. Readers might have preferences for a type of autoethnography or they might realise that there is scope for combinations and drawing from different types. Autoethnography needs to meet with the requirements for rigor and adherence to ethical research conduct, and respect for the protection of privacy. It can also benefit from knowledge of supplementary and alternative methods. These are addressed in Part 3 where the focus is on the “how to” of autoethnography. Part 4 introduces the reader to a selection of contexts where autoethnography can be applied: library services to indigenous groups, library services in law enforcement and health library services. In the final part (Part 5) suggestions are offered on how librarians can nurture and enhance their skills and knowledge of autoethnography. This part is concluded with a chapter on the authors’ experiences in writing this book – sharing human emotions, concerns and fulfilment, and hopefully stimulating interest in autoethnography. Perhaps the reader would like to start with this chapter. Although we aimed for a uniform style and standardisation, it was for some chapters following a more autoethnographic writing style, necessary to divert a bit to allow authors to fully share the spirit and voice of their chapter. Some chapters are more clinical and more theoretical. Others allow for more reflection and the personal voice and experience of the author. In respecting the style of autoethnographic writing a few chapters (Chapters 2, 3 and 5) end with the final thoughts of the authors and not a formal conclusion. Such words capture the essence of their message in the chapter – thus a conclusion in a different style. Apart from Chapter 1, authors do not all provide a formal definition of autoethnography. They do not all discuss the history, value and shortcomings of autoethnography. This was a deliberate decision. It is, however almost impossible to write about any facet of autoethnography without these issues simmering through. Instead of editing these out, I decided that the “voice” in which each author touches on these issues adds value and reinforces the reader’s understanding and experience of autoethnography. Contributors are from Australia, China, Portugal, and South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States of America. Although many other contexts served by librarians can be noted, the examples for healthcare, law enforcement and services to indigenous groups should give the reader a good indication of the potential of autoethnography. After reading the final chapter, readers might note many more opportunities where autoethnography might shed new light such as on library services for people with autism, or people with disabilities such as deafness, blindness and deaf-blindness, or in the context of palliative care, challenges with mental health, single parentship, coping in the area of the Fourth Industrial revolution or deep poverty and loss of jobs or income.

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I greatly appreciate the time and effort of the authors who contributed to this manuscript, sharing their knowledge and experiences. They come from diverse backgrounds and you will notice the differences in their styles and voices. What I appreciate most was their quick responses in agreeing to contribute – many have never met me before and might not even have been aware of my work. A special word of thanks thus to Anne-Marie Deitering, Lisa P. Spinazola, Carolyn Ellis, Art Bochner, Kathy-Ann Hernandez, Tim Gorichanaz, Louisa Lam and Fiona Blackburn for trusting me to see this manuscript to completion. Thank you also to Christine Urquhart and Olívia Pestana who have only met me on a few occasions and lastly to my colleagues Anika Meyer and Naailah Parbhoo-Ebrahim. I also want to thank Heidi Lowther, the editor from Routledge who encouraged me to put this manuscript together, who guided me through the proposal stage and gave guidelines on the requirements for the manuscript. A special word of appreciation as well to Ella Halstead and Elizabeth (Lizzi) Risch for technical support and the copy editor at Knowledge Works Global Ltd., as well as the anonymous reviewers who spend time working through the proposal and who shared advice, references and insight that enabled us to make this a much richer and meaningful manuscript. Thank you also to my sister, Wilma Singleton, for endless hours and patience in checking and editing references. A final word of thanks to Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson, who introduced me to autoethnography. She showed me how my work on health information behaviour in existential contexts and autoethnography can be combined. We worked on autoethnography and caregiver experiences, (Anderson & Fourie 2015, 2017) and I read the work of Bochner and Ellis (2016), Chang, Ngunjiri and Hernandez (2013), Denzin (2014), Hughes and Pennington (2016), Holman Jones, Adams and Ellis (2013) and many other books and articles that triggered my intrigue with this method of research. As an information behaviour researcher, it sensitised me to my own experiences, information needs, needs for sense-making, and how such experiences differ from what I might reveal when participating in more conventional types of research using questionnaires, interviews and focus groups. Theresa was unfortunately not available to contribute to this manuscript.

Note 1 Although the title of the book refers to both librarians and information scientists, we will streamline discussion by referring to only librarians.

References cited Anderson, T.D. & Fourie, I. 2017. Falling together – a conceptual paper on the complexities of caregiver information interactions and research gaps in empathetic care for the dying. In Proceedings of ISIC, the Information Behaviour Conference, Zadar, Croatia, 20-23 September, 2016: Part 2. Information Research, 22(1):paper isic1622. Available: http:// InformationR.net/ir/22-1/isic/isic1622.html (Archived by WebCite® at http://www. webcitation.org/6oGf3kN6W) [Accessed 07 September 2020]

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Anderson, T.D. & Fourie, I.. 2015. Collaborative autoethnography as a way of seeing the experience of care giving as an information practice. In Proceedings of ISIC, the Information Behaviour Conference, Leeds, 2-5 September, 2014: Part 2. Information Research, 20(1):paper isic33. Available: http://informationr.net/ir/20-1/isic2/ isic33.html (Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/6WxJAP1HL) [Accessed 07 September 2020] Bochner, A.P. & Ellis, C. 2016. Evocative Autoethnography: Writing Lives and Telling Stories. New York, NY: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315545417 Brock, C.H., Borti, A., Frahm, T., Howe, L., Khasilova, D. & Ventura-Kalen, K. 2017. Employing autoethnography to examine our diverse identities: striving towards equitable and socially just stances in literacy teaching and research. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 19(1):105–124. DOI: 10.18251/ijme. v19i1.1258 Calvert, P. & Goulding, A. 2015. Narratives and stories that capture the library’s worth. Performance Measurement and Metrics, 16(3):276–288. DOI: 10.1108/ PMM-05-2015-0016 Carless, D. 2018. “Throughness”: a story about songwriting as auto/ethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(3):227–232. DOI: 10.1177/1077800417704465 Chang, H., Ngunjiri, F.W. & Hernandez, K.-A.C. 2013. Collaborative Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. DOI: 10.4324/9781315432137 Drabinski, E. 2013. Queering the catalog: queer theory and the politics of correction. The Library Quarterly, 83(2):94–111. Deitering, A.-M., Schroeder, R. & Stoddart, R. 2017. The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association. Denzin, N.K. 2014. Interpretive Autoethnography. 2nd edition. Los Angeles: Sage. DOI: 10.4135/9781506374697 Dudley, M. 2020. Exploring worldviews and authorities: library instruction in indigenous studies and gender studies using authority is constructed and contextual. College & Research Libraries News, 81(2):66. Available at: https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/ article/view/24274/32093 [Accessed 13 December 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/ 10.5860/crln.81.1.66. Ellis, C. 2004. The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel About Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Ellis, C., Adams, T.E. & Bochner, A.P. 2011. Autoethnography: an overview. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 12(1):273–290. Everhart, N. & Escobar, K.L. 2018. Conceptualizing the information seeking of college students on the autism spectrum through participant viewpoint ethnography. Library & Information Science Research, 40(3):269–276. Fister, B. 2017. The warp and weft of information literacy: changing contexts, enduring challenges. Journal of Information Literacy, 11(1):68–79. DOI: 10.11645/11.1.2183 Fourie, I. & Julien, H. 2014. Ending the dance: a research agenda for affect and emotion in studies of information behaviour. Information Research, 19(4):108–124. Available: http://informationr.net/ir/19-4/isic/isic09.html (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20191227031347/http://­i nformationr. net/ir/19-4/isic/isic09.html#.Xwmf R0l7nIU) [Accessed 07 September 2020] Fourie, I. & Julien, H. 2013. IRS, information services and LIS research – a reminder about affect and the affective paradigm… and a question. Library Hi Tech, 32(1): 190–201. DOI: 10.1108/LHT-10-2013-0144

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Gillespie, A., Partridge, H., Bruce, C. & Howlett, A. 2016. The experience of evidence-based practice in an Australian public library: an ethnography. Information Research, 21(4):paper 730. Available: http://InformationR.net/ir/21-4/paper730.html (Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/6m5HJfG6K) [Accessed 14 December 2020] Gorichanaz, T. 2017. Auto-hermeneutics: a phenomenological approach to information experience. Library and Information Science Research, 39(1):1–7. DOI: 10.1016/j. lisr.2017.01.001 Grace, D.A.N. & Sen, B. 2013. Community resilience and the role of the public library. Library Trends, 61(3):513–541. DOI: 10.1353/lib.2013.0008 Guzik, E. 2013. Representing ourselves in information science research: a methodological essay on autoethnography. Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 37(4):267–283. DOI: 10.1353/ils.2013.0025 Hartel, J. 2003. The serious leisure frontier in library and information science: hobby domains. Knowledge Organization, 30(3):228–238. Hartel, J. 2020. Writing-up ethnographic research as a thematic narrative: the excerpt-commentary-unit. Library & Information Science Research, 42(3): 101037. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2020.101037 Holman Jones, S., Adams, T.E. & Ellis, C. (eds.) 2013. Handbook of Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, Calif.: Left Coast Press. DOI: 10.4324/9781315427812 Hughes, S.A. & Pennington, J.L. 2016. Autoethnography: Process, Product, and Possibility for Critical Social Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Joe, J. 2019. A perspective on emotional labor in academic libraries. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 45(1):66–67. DOI: 10.1016/j.acalib.2018.11.002 Martin, H.J. & Schwartz, A. 2020. Virtual resident showcase: leveraging an institutional repository during COVID-19 social distancing. Journal of the Medical Library Association, Supplement: 645-646: DOI: 10.5195/jmla.2020.1052 Matteson, M.L., Chittock, S. & Mease, D. 2015. In their own words: stories of emotional labor from the library workforce. The Library Quarterly, 85(1):85–105. DOI: 10.1086/679027 Michels, D.H. 2010. The place of the person in LIS research: an exploration in methodology and representation. The Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 34(2):161–183. DOI: 10.1353/ils.0.0001 Morrison, K.L. 2017. Informed asset-based pedagogy: coming correct, counter-stories from an information literacy classroom. Library Trends, 66(2):176–218. DOI: 10.1353/ lib.2017.0034 Patin, B. 2015. Through hell and high water: a librarian’s autoethnography of community resilience after Hurricane Katrina. Media Tropes, 5(2):58–83. Roy, L. & Scott, K. 2020. Material-mind-method: on the teaching of reference incorporating feminist pedagogies in reference education. The Reference Librarian, 61(1):70–74. Swanson, J., Tanaka, A. & Gonzalez-Smith, I. 2018. Lived experience of academic librarians of color. College and Research Libraries, 79(7):876–894. DOI: 10.5860/ crl.79.7.876 Town, S. 2018. The value scorecard. Information and Learning Science, 119(1-2):25–38. DOI: 10.1108/ILS-10-2017-0098 Westbrook, L. 2008. Understanding crisis information needs in context: the case of intimate partner violence survivors. The Library Quarterly, 78(3):237–261. DOI: 10.1086/588443 Westbrook, L. & Fourie, I. 2015. A feminist information engagement framework for gynecological cancer patients. Journal of Documentation, 71(4):752–774.

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Westbrook, L. & Gonzalez, M.E. 2011. Information support for survivors of intimate partner violence: public librarianship’s role. Public Library Quarterly, 30(2):132–157. DOI: 10.1080/01616846.2011.575709 Xie, B., He, D., Mercer, T., Wang, Y., Wu, D., Fleischmann, K.R., Zhang Fleischmann, K.R., Zhang, Y., Yoder, L.H., Stephens, K.K., Mackert, M. & Lee, M.K. 2020. Global health crises are also information crises: a call to action. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 71(12):1419–1423. DOI: 10.1002/asi.24357

PART I

Introduction to autoethnography as research method for librarians Part I sets the background and context for the rest of the book. In Chapter 1, Ina Fourie explains the development of autoethnography and how it relates to ethnography and especially indigenous studies. There are many interpretations of autoethnography. Although the chapter suggests an operational definition, each author and reader needs to reflect on their own interpretation. The core message of this chapter is to encourage readers to reflect on the meaning and value of autoethnography and the importance to acknowledge the shortcomings of autoethnography and how it might be supplemented by other methods. Sensemaking methodology (SMM) and action research are examples. In Chapter 2, Anne-Marie Deitering makes a case for the value of autoethnography in library and information practice. She encourages librarians to get involved with subjectivity and to acknowledge the need to relate to theory and striving for the kind of situated, personalised, embodied and critical knowledge librarians need to inform their practice. Knowledge can be gained from research methods such as autoethnography. In writing Chapter 2, she draws from the lessons she learned from facilitating a learning community for practicing librarians interested in exploring autoethnography as a research method. She addresses the challenges of positivism and brings in feminist epistemologies.

1 WHAT IS AUTOETHNOGRAPHY? Ina Fourie

Introduction Autoethnography is a qualitative research method (Attard 2017) and a process that relies on expressions of words, feelings, emotions and lived-experiences and inductive reasoning of theoretical insight into researchers’ lived experience. It relates to narrative research methods such as storytelling, journaling, critical reflection and keeping diaries. Apart from being a unique method of data collection and expression, autoethnography has also been used in reflective writing for healing purposes (McMillan & Ramirez 2016; Parke 2018). It is embedded in the work practices and research methods of many disciplines – especially caregiving, education, medicine, nursing, psychology, social work, and to a limited extent, library and information science (Austin & Hickey 2007; Deitering, Schroeder & Stoddart 2017; Foster, McAllister & O’Brien 2005; Gorichanaz 2017; Guzik 2013). There are many autoethnographic examples of reflection on personal trauma and experiences of social injustice by many cultures and groups – Korean, Mexican Tongan and Tibetan to name but a few (Denzin 2014; Holman Jones, Adams & Ellis 2013a,b; McMillan & Ramirez 2016). Autoethnography can focus on an individual’s lived experience or the individual experiences of a group or on the experiences of two or more people working together on writing up their experiences as in the case of collaborative autoethnography (Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez 2013). The process allows the writer – an autoethnographer – to delve deeper than with other, related qualitative methods such as storytelling and narratives. This is done with a purpose – to reveal social and cultural challenges, injustice and imbalances that need to be addressed. The purpose of this chapter is to set the scene for chapters to follow in introducing the concept of autoethnography, its background as a qualitative research method, the strengths of autoethnography and criticism that have been raised, and how it relates to other narrative methods of research. When adopting

4  Ina Fourie

autoethnography as a process, librarians need to understand the uniqueness of the method (Adams, Holman Jones & Ellis 2015) and how it can add value when either writing autoethnography based on their experiences as librarians or trainers or collecting and reading autoethnography to improve services and support to various communities – especially vulnerable communities, or to deepen their own cultural awareness (Blackburn 2017; Deitering, Schroeder & Stoddart 2017; Guzik 2013). The intention is also to encourage librarians and Information Scientists to explore theoretical perspectives and new lenses such as considering the work of Bourdieu in critical autoethnography (Reed-Danahay 2017) or feminism (Ettorre 2017).

The essence of autoethnography and why librarians should take note Denzin (2006:420) citing Holmes Jones offers an apt perspective on the quest to define autoethnography: Autoethnography is a blurred genre … a response to the call … it is setting a scene, telling a story, weaving intricate connections between life and art … making a text present … refusing categorization … believing that words matter and writing toward the moment when the point of creating autoethnographic texts is to change the world. There are many and diverse interpretations of what autoethnography is. Bochner and Ellis (2016) give a good overview of the origin of the term and an explanation on the reasons for different interpretations and shifts in interpretations. The work of Denzin (2014) also offers valuable comments on interpretations of autoethnography. What is important to note are, however, the characteristics of autoethnography that distinguish it from other methods of research and personal writing, the focus on the process, critique, reflection and a cultural perspective and also realising that there is much overlap and similarities with other methods. Rather than offering a single definition, Holman Jones, Adams and Ellis (2013b:22–24) conceptualise autoethnography in terms of required characteristics. A key characteristic is the use of personal experience to examine and/or critique cultural experience and the focus on the self. Fa’avae (2018) refers to “negotiating the vã.” Self-focussed, critical reflection and self-evaluation are at the centre of autoethnographic research. The writer is both the researcher and the research participant. Personal thoughts and actions need to be visible and the writing should be open for investigation by others. Although I will offer a working definition, readers are encouraged to form their own interpretations based on the sources cited here, as well as interpretations offered in other chapters. There can never be just one interpretation meeting with the views of all. In the chapters to follow, you will read more. The following working definition will guide this chapter; autoethnography is

What is autoethnography? 5

… a form of critical reflexive self-study, or critical reflexive action research in which the researcher takes an active, scientific, and systematic view of personal experience in relation to cultural groups identified by the researcher as similar to the self (i.e., them). Hughes and Pennington 2017:el location 687 Readers need to form their own interpretation. Autoethnography is about writing to make a cultural and social contribution; it can include telling the deeply personalised stories of others, especially of marginalised groups whose voices need to be heard (Blackburn 2017; Koot 2016). It can also be about revealing deeply personal lived experiences and as a method of healing (Holman Jones, Adams & Ellis 2013a,b). Autoethnography can manifest as texts, stories, poems, art and dancing and even through technology and social media; many examples can be found in the literature (Adams, Holman Jones & Ellis 2015; Bochner & Ellis 2016; Brown 2019; Carless 2018). Finer detail on applying autoethnography as research method, what the process entails, pitfalls and challenges, potential value and application in different contexts will be explored in subsequent chapters. Although autoethnography is a deeply subjective research method, focusing on the “I” it offers the benefit of allowing for both an insider, personal look (emic) and for embracing an outsider, considering others, perspective (etic) (Anderson & Fourie 2015; Hughes & Pennington 2017). It is about more than crafting a deeply personal story or even a story with a purpose. In fact, autoethnography constitutes an approach “of personally and academically reflecting on lived experiences in ways that reveal the deep connection between the writer and her or his subject” (Goodall 2000:137). In the words of Ngunjiri, Hernandez and Chang (2010), it can be about “Living autoethnography” and “connecting life and research.” The “Self ” is very important (Allen-Collinson 2013), but more importantly moving beyond the “Self ” to the culture of a context and social challenges. It is a mode of being and a mode of knowing (Sparkes 2013). The value of autoethnography has evolved over many years and with the persistence of leading researchers such as Arthur (Art) Bochner, Carolyn Ellis, Tony Adams and Stacy Holman Jones (Adams, Holman Jones & Ellis 2015; Bochner & Ellis 2016). It is now time for libraries and information services facing increased pressure to address social inclusion, social injustice, the needs of marginalised and vulnerable communities and the research opportunities offered by digital and virtual worlds (Brown 2019) to embrace a deeply inquiring method. The depth that can be explored is clear in the voices of especially Spinazola, Ellis and Bochner (Chapter 3), Hernandez (Chapter 4) and Blackburn (Chapter 9). In the words of Ellis in Holman Jones, Adams and Ellis (2013a:10): I have thrived as a result of living the autoethnographic life. In addition to examining my life, this approach has motivated me to love and care for others and equipped me to bear witness to their pain and struggles; as well,

6  Ina Fourie

it has increased by desire to contribute to the betterment of life and act on behalf of the good. Librarians can share this experience (cf Chapter 2). More than any other research method, autoethnography allows people to write about deeply traumatic experiences such as sexual abuse, death of a loved one or the struggles faced in confronting an eating disorder (Tillmann-Healy 1996). The experiences must always be presented truthfully – as traumatic truths. It gives them a voice to write about challenging topics. Often it is not a topic that is considered taboo, but the experience that might be complicated and difficult to express in words, and that might need more time and reflection to find the right words to express and share the experience. Experiences of death is an example. In the words of Birk (2013:390): People in pain live with a largely invisible disability or ‘concealable stigma’ … thus, ‘to truly understand pain, we also need to listen to the unmediated words of those who live in it. Pain sufferers inhabit a world where their strained voices are too easily invalidated and rarely even heard. Personal stories as cautionary tales can assist autoethnographers to move through uncertainty, confusion, pain and anger to promote courageous persistence, self-revelation and therapeutic disclosure. A question that often arises with autoethnographic stories and that does not feature with other methods is whether researchers own their stories (Winkler 2018). Autoethnographic personal stories can offer those who are in the support service environment such as libraries the opportunity to explore needs for information services and support. Inspiration can be gained from the chapters to follow, as well as from examples reported in many other disciplines that are also serviced by libraries. These include politics, organisational management, medical education, mental health caregiving and human resource development (Denzin 2003; Doloriert & Sambrook 2012; Farrell, Bourgeois-Law, Regehr & Ajjawi 2015; Foster, McAllister & O’Brien 2005; Grenier 2015).

How autoethnography developed To understand autoethnography, it is necessary to look at how it developed from personal reflections and as a therapeutic method in traumatic situations to current sophisticated practices of evocative, analytic and collaborative autoethnography as well as the integration of autoethnographic data with data collected through more conventional data collection and research methods such as action research (Bochner & Ellis 2016; Hughes & Pennington 2017). Although many references are made to the origins of autoethnography, there is no comprehensive history (Bochner & Ellis 2016:47). In 1975, Heider used the term when he referred to a group of children’s own understanding of their world and in 1979,

What is autoethnography? 7

Hayano followed by referring to “insider studies.” Their interpretations, however, differ from contemporary work (Bochner & Ellis 2016:47), where contemporary autoethnography developed as a response to what some considered to be artificial, experiential studies. It is thus necessary to consider the link between autoethnography and ethnography as well as indigenous studies. To understand the value of autoethnography, the relationship to ethnography, as the study of a cultural group, should also be considered. Ellis explains how she approaches all her writing as ethnographic: “I observe myself and the world around me as though it is an ethnographic project of immersion into a relationship, an institution, or a culture” (Bochner & Ellis 2016:165). Evocative ethnographers relate to interpretive ethnography; they work between art and science. Ethnography also focuses on the self, the emotional, the personal and the identity (Coffey 1999).

Requirements for autoethnography Autoethnographic writing is much more than first person or autobiographic writing or a personal narrative (Bochner & Ellis 2016). The researcher must be context-conscious (Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez 2013) and aware of the process, and that both the writing and process might be investigated when presented as research. This book will refer to several contexts in more detail: library service to Indigenous communities (cf Chapter 9), law enforcement (cf Chapter 10) and library service to caregiving professionals (cf Chapter 11). With some types of autoethnography, the idea of a plot and story line is stronger such as evocative autoethnography (cf Chapter 3). There are requirements for rigour in autoethnographic writing (cf Chapter 6) and for adherence to ethical research practices (cf Chapter 7). Andrew (2017) devoted a whole book to finding ethics in autoethnographic research. Another characteristic of autoethnography is purposeful commenting or critiquing of culture and cultural practices, making a contribution to existing research, embracing vulnerability with a purpose, and creating reciprocity in order to compel a response. The writer can work from insider knowledge, manoeuvring through pain, confusion, anger and uncertainty to work towards a better life and understanding, breaking silence, (re)claiming voice and writing to make right. For research purposes, autoethnographic work must be accessible. Some argue that it must appeal to a variety of audiences. In striving for deeper revealing of experiences, feelings and thoughts, it is accepted that autoethnographic writing may disrupt traditional norms of research practices and representation, especially with the focus on the self (the “I”), but it is never freed from the need to adhere to research rigour and adherence to ethical research (Ellis 2007) (cf Chapters 6 and 7). Ellis talks about the “ethnographic I”. Ettorre (2017) about “Sensitising the Feminine ‘I’.” Autoethnography is much more than a personal history or an autobiography focusing on personal stories. Autoethnographic writing uses data from a person’s

8  Ina Fourie

own life story where the person is situated in a sociocultural context to gain an understanding of society through the lens of self (Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez 2013). Although it uses autobiographical data and experiences, it includes cultural interpretation of the connection between self and others. How researchers do this varies as will be shown in examples in this book. Autoethnography can be seen as a research method, but also a process and developing into a strong method of reflective writing. There are many types of autoethnographies including evocative autoethnography (cf Chapter 3), analytical autoethnography (cf Chapter 4), collaborative autoethnography (cf Chapter 5), community autoethnography, duoethnography, performance collaborative autoethnography, critical autoethnography (Boylorn & Orbe 2014) and many others. Good examples can be found in the comprehensive work of Adams, Holman Jones and Ellis (2015). Different formats such as computational digital autoethnography (Brown 2019) and song-writing as autoethnography (Carless 2018) are also appearing.

Use of autoethnography as research method and process Autoethnography as qualitative research method Autoethnography developed as a response to concerns about shortcomings with qualitative and quantitative research methods. Art Bochner, a leader in evocative autoethnography, explained how he moved from a background in statistics to autoethnography and, in fact, evocative autoethnography (Bochner & Ellis 2016). As a research method, autoethnography requires the researcher to be comfortable with emotive self-disclosure and personal orientation in conducting research and dealing with criticism of subjectivity. Autoethnography is, however, also more than a research method: “As our stories illustrate, autoethnography creates a space for a turn, a change, a reconsideration of how we think, how we do research and relationships, and how we live” (Holman Jones, Adams and Ellis 2013b:21). Relationships are important. Doloriert and Sambrook (2009) propose a continuum on which the various auto-ethno relationships could be located. On the one end of the continuum, there is the “researcher-and-researched” relationship. Here, the autoethnographer is not the participant in the study, but a complete member researcher using her or his voice to speak for the cultural group (Doloriert & Sambrook 2009). Examples are collaborative autoethnographies and autoethnographic studies where the researcher purposefully decided to include studying others by, for example, using interviews or questionnaires. This type of the auto-ethno relationship is similar to ethnographic research where the ethnographer is an observing participant, and also a member of the cultural group combining their own experiences as well as material and data they gathered from other group members. Regardless of where on a continuum an autoethnography lies, “The text of the self is also, always, simultaneously, a text that brings others into being, too” (Gannon 2013:230). Chang (2008) provides a valuable guide on

What is autoethnography? 9

autoethnography per se as method and on collaborative autoethnography. Chang, Ngunjiri and Hernandez (2013) is also a useful point of departure. In addition, the work by Choi (2016) on creating a multi-vocal self in authoethnographic writing and Denzin (2014) on Interpretive Autoethnography are also useful points of departure.

Autoethnography as process and skill Autoethnography can also be approached as a process where it is about writing and reading autoethnography. The writing process is marked by systematic sociological introspection and emotional recall. It can be a craft. Bochner and Ellis (2016:70) refer to “Crafting evocative autoethnography.” Autoethnography needs to be seen as a qualitative research method (Attard 2017) that requires special and craftily writing in the case of especially evocative autoethnography. For Claxton (2006), success lies in the ability to think at the edge and to develop soft skills of creativity in crafting the story, i.e. in the process. In the world of libraries and the workplaces of librarians, it is not only the actual writing of autoethnographies as explained by the community of practitioners who contributed to the book by Deitering, Schroeder and Stoddart (2017), but it is also about the skill of reading autoethnographies. “People need to be taught how to listen to autoethnography” …. “we need informed readers and audiences” (Bochner & Ellis 2016:70). This is an important issue that needs further work – especially if targeted at librarians and others in service professions where autoethnographies can be used as “data collection” to enrich insight into needs for services and support. Readers should become witnesses to the narrative contexts. They should get involved and they should become compassionate and reflexive readers (Bochner & Ellis 2016:158). If written with care and craft, it should leave the reader with the desire to correct the injustice described.

Link to ethnography and indigenous studies Indigenous studies and methodologies hold much value for autoethnography. Hermes (1998), for example, worked on a culture-based curriculum in a tribal community as both an insider and an outsider. She worked on a curriculum that was relevant to Ojibwe culture and reported with both an academic and a narrative voice. Her methodology was responsive to the community in which she did her research, and in this community, methods took on new meaning as she argued for a situated response in making methodological choices. Kovach (2009) emphasises the value of a prologue, a narrative prelude as essential in Indigenous research. It provides context for readers to make sense of a story; it offers structure and serves as a bridge for readers from a different culture. The work by Smith (2012) focusing on the Maori culture in New Zealand offers a wealth of references to Indigenous literature and the decolonisation of research methods and emphasising the urgency to move away from research as

10  Ina Fourie

an exploitation of Indigenous people. Such work can be consulted to enrich autoethnographic research. It, however, falls outside the scope of this book to cover the link between Indigenous studies and autoethnography in depth. There is a considerable body of literature available for the interested reader, more than noted in the list of references.

Related methods Reflective writing and narrative methods such as storytelling and narratives relate closely to autoethnographic research. Haynes (2011) writes about the tensions in (re)presenting the self in reflexive autoethnographical research and there is related work by Bochner (2001) and Clandinin and Connelly (2000) on narrative inquiry, Hardwig (1997) on autobiographies and biographies and Ellis and Bochner (2000) on explaining links between autoethnography, personal narrative and reflexivity with the researcher as subject in Handbook of Qualitative Research. Haynes’ (2011) work on reflexive autoethnographical research and Humphreys’ (2005) deliberations on reflexivity and autoethnographic also offer valuable insight to autoethnographic researchers.

Scepticism and criticism Although autoethnography has considerable strengths as research method, it has met with extensive scepticism and sometimes very harsh criticism, as will also be noted in other chapters. In fact, Forber-Pratt’s (2015) article titled: “‘You’re going to do what?’ Challenges of autoethnography in the academy,” speaks volumes. Criticism is mostly targeted to the validity of autoethnography – it is considered to be subjective and too personal in nature with a need for rigour (Adams, Holman Jones & Ellis 2015; Bochner & Ellis 2016; Hughes & Pennington 2017; Gorichanaz 2017). As Tim Gorichanaz points out in Chapter 6, rigour is possible if addressed throughout the writing process. In spite of ongoing criticism, the commitment of researchers such as Arthur Bochner (coming from a statistical background) and Caroline Ellis (Bochner & Ellis 2016), and The Association for Qualitative Research to establish and develop autoethnography as a research method with a strong body of literature and its own methodology ensured that it became an increasingly popular method. Apart from the scepticism expressed by non-believers in autoethnography, researchers raise their own questions: “What happens when our culture does not neatly conceptualise the ‘auto’ as an individual, Western self.” And “does autoethnographic writing risk reducing cultural ‘Others’ if we cannot help but see them through ‘imperial eyes’?” (Stanley & Vass 2018:front matter). In his text titled “Autoethnography: self-indulgence or something more?,” Sparkes (2002) writes about the troubles he encountered when the work of one of his students was charged to constitute nothing more than a self-indulgent exercise. He engages in a comprehensive discussion addressing the various critiques

What is autoethnography? 11

scientific autobiographical and autoethnographic accounts may face due to a traditional understanding of the researcher’s role as being outside, objective, neutral, rational and definitely not visible in the text. Citing Atkinson, Doloriert and Sambrook (2009) note critique of autoethnography as constituting a romantic construction of the self, a hyperauthentic exercise and a vulgar realism. Under such circumstances, the advice by Winkler (2018:237) is very valuable: What I do to avoid such a comment is to continuously ask myself to what extent my personal story enables me and the readers to understand culture. Similarly, I asked for accepting autoethnography that is reconstructed from memory as being valid and rigorous. This being said, Winkler (2018) admits that it is challenging for autoethnographers to take a deep look at their personal life and experiences but still stay focused on culture – to decide if they are self-indulged narcissists or if they rather are self-reflexive, vulnerable scholars. To the latter I can add: who wish to make a difference? It is also hard for the autoethnographic researcher to decide whether to focus on hard data or soft impressions and to decide if memory can be considered as data.

Conclusion Although controversial, autoethnography is a rich research method and writing process that can probe much deeper than any other method to reveal challenges faced by people in contemporary society and to address cultural imbalances. It can be used to critically reflect on the past (Fox 2010; Grant 2010), but also to pave the way for the future. As Adams, Holman Jones and Ellis (2013) put it: “Storying our future.” I hope that librarians will embrace the future through autoethnography.

References Adams, T.E, Holman Jones, S. & Ellis, C. 2013. Conclusion: storying our future. In Handbook of Autoethnography, edited by S. Holman Jones, T. Adams & C. Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press:669–678. Adams, T.E., Holman Jones, S. & Ellis, C. (eds.) 2015. Autoethnography: Understanding Qualitative Research. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Allen-Collinson, J. 2013. Autoethnography as the engagement of self/other, self/culture, self/politics, selves/futures. In Handbook of Autoethnography, edited by S. Holman Jones, T. E. Adams & C. Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press:281–299. Anderson, T.D. & Fourie, I. 2015. Collaborative autoethnography as a way of seeing the experience of care giving as an information practice. In Proceedings of ISIC, the Information Behaviour Conference, Leeds, 2–5 September, 2014: Part 2. Information Research, 20(1):paper isic33. Available: http://informationr.net/ir/20-1/isic2/isic33.html (Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/6WxJAP1HL) [Accessed 07 September 2020].

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Andrew, S. 2017. Searching for an Autoethnographic Ethic. New York, NY: Routledge. Attard, R. 2017. Autoethnography: understanding qualitative research. Counselling & Psychotherapy Research, 17(2):125–126. DOI: 10.1002/capr.12111 Austin, J. & Hickey, A. 2007. Autoethnography and teacher development. The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, 2(2):1833–1882. DOI: 10.18848/1833-1882/ CGP/v02i02/52189 Birk, L.B. 2013. Erasure of the credible subject: an autoethnographic account of chronic pain. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 13(5):390–399. DOI: 10.1177/1532708613495799 Blackburn, F. 2017. Community engagement, cultural competence and two Australian public libraries and indigenous communities. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, 43(3):288–301. DOI: 10.1177/0340035217696320 Bochner, A.P. 2001. Narrative’s virtues. Qualitative Inquiry, 7(2):131–157. DOI: 10.1177/107780040100700201 Bochner, A.P. & Ellis, C. 2016. Evocative Autoethnography: Writing Lives and Telling Stories. New York, NY: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315545417 Boylorn, R.M. & Orbe, M.P. (eds.) 2014. Critical Autoethnography: Intersecting Cultural Identities in Everyday Life. London, England: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/ 9781315431253 Brown, N.M. 2019. Methodological cyborg as black feminist technology: constructing the social self using computational digital autoethnography and social media. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 19(1):55–67. DOI: 10.1177/1532708617750178 Carless, D. 2018. “Throughness”: a story about songwriting as auto/ethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(3):227–232. DOI: 10.1177/1077800417704465 Chang, H. 2008. Autoethnography as Method. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. DOI: 10.4324/9781315433370 Chang, H., Ngunjiri, F.W. & Hernandez, K.-A.C. 2013. Collaborative Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. DOI: 10.4324/9781315432137 Choi, J. 2016. Creating a Multivocal Self: Autoethnography as Method. New York, NY: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315641416 Clandinin, D.J. & Connelly, F.M. 2000. Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Claxton, G. 2006. Thinking at the edge: developing soft creativity. Cambridge Journal of Education, 36(3):351–362. DOI: 10.1080/03057640600865876 Coffey, A. 1999. The Ethnographic Self. London, England: SAGE. DOI: 10.4135/9780857020048 Deitering, A.-M., Schroeder, R. & Stoddart, R. (eds.) 2017. The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship. Chicago, IL: Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association. Denzin, N.K. 2003. Performing [auto] ethnography politically. The Review of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies, 25(3):257–278. DOI: 10.1080/10714410390225894 Denzin, N.K. 2006. Analytic autoethnography, or déjà vu all over again. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4):419–428. DOI: 10.1177/0891241606286985 Denzin, N.K. 2014. Interpretive Autoethnography. 2nd edition. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. DOI: 10.4135/9781506374697 Doloriert, C. & Sambrook, S. 2009. Ethical confessions of the “I” of autoethnography: the student’s dilemma. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, 4(1):27–45. DOI: 10.1108/17465640910951435 Doloriert, C. & Sambrook, S. 2012. Organisational autoethnography. Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 1(1):83–95. DOI: 10.1108/20466741211220688 Ellis, C. 2007. Telling secrets, revealing lives: relational ethics in research with intimate others. Qualitative Inquiry, 13(1):3–29. DOI: 10.1177/1077800406294947

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Ellis, C. & Bochner, A.P. 2000. Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: researcher as subject. In Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by N.K. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln. 2nd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage:733–768. Ettorre, E. 2017. Autoethnography as Feminist Method: Sensitising the Feminine “I”. London, England: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315626819 Fa’avae, D. 2018. Negotiating the vã: the ‘self ’ in relation to others and navigating the multiple spaces as a New Zealand-raised Tongan male. In Questions of Culture in Autoethnography, edited by P. Stanley & G. Vass. London, England: Routledge:57–68. DOI: 10.4324/9781315178738-6 Farrell, L., Bourgeois-Law, G., Regehr, G. & Ajjawi, R. 2015. Autoethnography: introducing ‘I’ into medical education research. Medical Education, 49(10):974–982. DOI: 10.1111/medu.12761 Forber-Pratt, A.J. 2015. “You’re going to do what?” Challenges of autoethnography in the academy. Qualitative Inquiry, 21(9):821–835. DOI: 10.1177/1077800415574908 Foster, K., McAllister, M. & O’Brien, L. 2005. Coming to autoethnography: a mental health nurse’s experience. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 4(4):1–13. DOI: 10.1177/160940690500400401 Fox, R. 2010. Re-membering daddy: autoethnographic reflections of my father and Alzheimer’s disease. Text and Performance Quarterly, 30(1):3–20. DOI: 10.1080/ 10462930903366969 Gannon, S. 2013. Sketching subjectivities. In Handbook of Autoethnography, edited by S. Holman Jones, T.E. Adams & C. Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press:228–243. Goodall, H.L. 2000. Writing the New Ethnography. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Gorichanaz, T. 2017. Auto-hermeneutics: a phenomenological approach to information experience. Library and Information Science Research, 39(1):1–7. DOI: 10.1016/j.lisr.2017.01.001 Grant, A. 2010. Autoethnographic ethics and rewriting the fragmented self. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 17(2):111–116. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2850. 2009.01478.x Grenier, R. 2015. Autoethnography as a legitimate approach to HRD research: a methodological conversation at 30,000 feet. Human Resource Development Review, 14(3):332–350. DOI: 10.1177/1534484315595507 Guzik, E. 2013. Representing ourselves in information science research: a methodological essay on autoethnography. Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 37(4):267–283. DOI: 10.1353/ils.2013.0025 Hardwig, J. 1997. Autobiography, biography, and narrative ethics. In Stories and Their Limits: Narrative Approaches to Bioethics, edited by H.L. Nelson. New York, NY: Routledge:50–64. Haynes, K. 2011. Tensions in (re)presenting the self in reflexive autoethnographical research. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, 6(2):134–149. DOI: 10.1108/17465641111159125 Hermes, M. 1998. Research methods as a situated response: towards a first Nations’ methodology. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11(1):155–168. DOI: 10.1080/095183998236944 Holman Jones, S., Adams, T.E. & Ellis, C. (eds.) 2013a. Handbook of Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. DOI: 10.4324/9781315427812 Holman Jones, S., Adams, T.E. & Ellis, C. 2013b. Introduction: coming to know autoethnography as more than a method. In Handbook of Autoethnography, edited by S. Holman Jones, T.E., Adams & C. Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press:17–48. Hughes, S.A. & Pennington, J.L. 2017. Autoethnography: Process, Product and Possibility for Critical Social Research. New York, NY: Routledge.

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Humphreys, M. 2005. Getting personal: reflexivity and autoethnographic vignettes. Qualitative Inquiry, 11(6):840–860. DOI: 10.1177/1077800404269425 Koot, S. 2016. Perpetuating power through autoethnography: my research unawareness and memories of paternalism among the indigenous Hai//om in Namibia. Critical Arts-South-North Cultural and Media Studies, 30(6):840–854. DOI: 10.1080/ 02560046.2016.1263217 Kovach, M. 2009. Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations and Contexts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. McMillan, C. & Ramirez, H.E. 2016. Autoethnography as therapy for trauma. Women & Therapy, 39(3–4):432–458. DOI: 10.1080/02703149.2016.1117278 Ngunjiri, F.W., Hernandez, K.-A.C. & Chang, H. 2010. Living autoethnography: connecting life and research. Journal of Research Practice, 6(1):Article E1. Available: http:// jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/241/186 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200725083125/http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/ article/view/241/186) [Accessed 11 September 2020]. Parke, E. 2018. Writing to heal: viewing teacher identity through the lens of autoethnography. Qualitative Report, 23(12):2953–2972. Reed-Danahay, D. 2017. Bourdieu and critical autoethnography: implications for research, writing, and teaching. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 19(1):144–154. DOI: 10.18251/ijme.v19i1.1368 Smith, L.T. 2012. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. 2nd edition. London, England: Zed Books. Sparkes, A.C. 2002. Autoethnography: self-indulgence or something more? In Ethnographically Speaking: Autoethnography, Literature, and Aesthetics, edited by A.P. Bochner & C. Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press:209–232. Sparkes, A.C. 2013. Introduction: autoethnography as a mode of knowing and a way of being. In Handbook of Autoethnography, edited by S. Holman Jones, T.E Adams & C.S Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press:511–517. Stanley, P. & Vass, G. 2018. Questions of Culture in Autoethnography. London, England: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315178738 Tillmann-Healy, L.M. 1996. A secret life in a culture of thinness: reflections on body, food, and bulimia. In Composing Ethnography: Alternative Forms of Qualitative Writing: Volume 1, edited by C. Ellis & A.P. Bochner. Walnut Creek, CA: Rowman Altamira:76–108. Winkler, I. 2018. Doing autoethnography: facing challenges, taking choices, accepting responsibilities. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(4):236–247. DOI: 10.1177/1077800417728956

2 AUTOETHNOGRAPHY AS A TOOL FOR CRITICAL REFLECTION ON LIBRARY PRACTICE Making the case Anne-Marie Deitering

I started this chapter weeks ago, and then everything changed. I read over what I have, and it all feels inconsequential. The only way I can think to write this chapter is to start again. Crisis. I am writing this from my makeshift home office: a corner of my bedroom with my work laptop hooked up to the oversized monitor that my partner used for film editing back when he was able to shoot and edit films. I am grateful for this monitor. The books I remembered to bring with me from the library are arranged on upsidedown cardboard boxes against the wall. I am an academic librarian in the United States. I hold an academic rank, tenure and an endowed professorship. I teach and I do research. But my primary day-to-day work is running a library. I work in a professional position in an academic setting. My days these days are spent planning with imperfect information, fuzzy guidelines and shifting targets. Librarians aren’t all alike, but I am comfortable saying that librarians hate this. It’s what we do now; we call it “scenario planning.” We plan for what we think might happen. We plan in parallel, for different futures and timelines. Most of the time, it feels like we are making it up as we go along. As soon as I start to feel secure, an email from above changes all of the parameters. The stakes are high. The essential services that are at the core of what libraries do – circulation and connection – are deadly in a pandemic (COVID-19). When to close, when to open, what to do, how much to do, and how to do it – the answers to these questions have real, vivid consequences. I spend more time on social media than I have in years. My friends and family are there. Family in New York talk about the constant sounds of sirens. Friends in New Orleans say everyone they know knows someone taken by this virus. I

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sit in a small college town in Oregon, a state with small cities and lots of space and systems and institutions which even now – two months in – have not been overwhelmed by COVID-19. It is clear that their experience of the pandemic is different than mine. So far, at least, things change so quickly now. It’s almost impossible to care about research methods at a time like this, when everything else in my life feels more urgent. As I return to this chapter, though, I start to find some points of connection and resonance. And those points of connection start with the fact that we are not all living the same pandemic from place to place and from time to time. Things change. Conditions vary. My experience of this pandemic is situated and specific. It is connected to what others are experiencing but it is not the same. The meaning I make from my experience is situated and specific. It is shaped and located within multiple, overlapping contexts. The choices that I make are situated and specific. They have consequences that are local, political, economic, emotional and social. To make them, I need to know concrete things about my context and my community, and I also need to understand the broader dynamics of culture and power that operate within those contexts. I need knowledge that is localised, personal, embodied, affective and critical – that is simultaneously situated and theoretical. From 2015 to 2017, I was the primary editor and project director behind The Self as Subject, an edited collection of autoethnographic essays written by practicing academic librarians in the United States and Canada (Deitering, Stoddart & Schroeder 2017). Because autoethnography was then – and is probably now – relatively unknown in this community of practice, I had to be creative in how I approached this project. Instead of issuing a traditional call for papers, hoping to appeal to researchers with suitable projects in-progress, I decided to create a learning community, a diverse group of practicing librarians who could explore this method and how it might be used to generate and share knowledge from practice. Our experiences demonstrate what we can gain when practitioners have the space and the support to theorise from practice. They also revealed the many reasons why this is so difficult, and so important.

Compartmentalisation Now, work meetings happen online, using breakout rooms and whip-arounds to mimic the informal moments of pre-pandemic meetings. This one started with “What karaoke song would you sing?” I didn’t go because my real answer would be that, despite my near-constant internal soundtrack, I am too self-conscious to do karaoke. One of my colleagues answered Closer to Fine and now that song has been stuck in my head for two days. It’s not bad company – in these days of uncertainty and scenario planning, the less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine. A long time ago, I saw the Indigo Girls sing this song live (Closer to Fine Indigo Girls - Official Video 1989). The audience was what’d you’d expect for a mid-90’s Portland crowd gathered to see a proudly political, lyrically poetic,

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openly lesbian indie-folk-rock duo: mostly white, economically comfortable, well-educated, heavily female, noticeably queer. I was in graduate school at the time. When Amy and Emily hit the line, “I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper, and I was free,” that crowd exploded in raptures. It’s a moment I’ve never forgotten. That idea – that formal education and theory are inevitably disconnected from the visceral, the real and the meaningful – is so deeply entrenched. And as an academic librarian, it is an ever-present tension in my life. In the United States, becoming a librarian means earning a professional degree accredited by the American Library Association, a professional association in an academic environment. Librarianship is not alone in this, colleges and universities award professional degrees in a variety of fields – business, education, librarianship and social work – housed within units that also grant PhDs. The curricula in these programs all reflect some deeply embedded assumptions about how knowledge is created and how it is used: research is conducted, theory is generated and knowledge is created by experts in the academy and applied by professionals in the field, the classroom and the library (Schön 1984:35–36). In my library school program, theory courses were taught by academic faculty, and elective courses were primarily taught by practicing librarians hired as adjunct faculty. In her deep, discursive examination of teacher education, ethnographer Deborah Britzman (2003) describes this model as part of a larger picture of fragmentation. In her analysis, this fragmentation works in many ways. Knowledge is fragmented into disciplines and subjects. Theoretical knowledge is fragmented from experiential knowledge. And experience itself is fragmented into pieces that are separated from the conditions and structures that shape it: In this fragmented world, each subject is an island, supposedly unaffected by all that surrounds it. Thus, curriculum organisation is fragmented into instructional activities reduced to discrete blocks of time, thereby isolating subject areas and teachers, abstracting knowledge from its sociocultural roots and political consequences, and decontextualizing knowledge and skills from their practical existence. Britzman 2003:52 This matters, because the different islands, blocks and pieces are not equal. Academic knowledge, generated and held by the academic unit and academic faculty, is elevated above other forms of knowledge. The fragments are sorted and put into compartments. The power to define is the power to exclude. The compartments define what is relevant: what is sociology, what is physics, and what isn’t. The compartments define what is credible, and they do so self-referentially: what is in the credible-knowledge compartment is credible because it is in the compartment. In this framework, knowledge “appears to speak for itself and supposedly possesses a fixed meaning” (Britzman 2003:52). The knowledge compartment is guarded by metrics that exist apart

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from context, like universality, generalisability and replicability. Knowledge from practice is devalued because it cannot speak for itself. It is “contingent, situated and resistant to unitary truths, immutable laws, or universal generalization” (55). Britzman locates the problem here very carefully. Practice knowledge is suspect not because it complicates or disrupts the models, theories and universal laws that make up academic knowledge, it is a problem because it threatens the idea that those models, theories and universal laws transcend context, existing above agendas, biases and special interests (55). These are epistemological assumptions embedded in curricular decisions and research practice. For most of the 20th century, research across the social sciences has been shaped by positivist epistemology, even as these assumptions have been widely criticised (Code 1993; Drabinski & Walter 2016; Steinmetz 20051). This enduring influence means that it is worth taking some time to describe what I mean by positivism. Positivism privileges “sensory observation in ideal observation conditions” above all other sources of knowledge (Code 1993:17). It rests on the assumption that the methods and practices of the natural sciences can (and should) be applied to the social world. Findings should be presented in such a way that they can be tested, verified and replicated by others. The researcher is dispassionate, neutral and objective; he is accountable only to the evidence. The aim of research is instrumental – describing the world as it is – to make predictions, or to manipulate and control. It is not to evaluate or to imagine the world as it could be (Code 1993; Giddens 1974). One would be hard-pressed to find a researcher who uncritically embraces all of these assumptions, but it is important to understand them because they persist. They continue, in many ways, to define what real knowledge, or real research, is. We see them when we read articles about the “replicability crisis” in psychology, or when we value statistical significance over all other research metrics. We see them when journals require a findings-methods-originality structure for all articles (Reference Services Review 2020). We see them very clearly when journal editors assume that any author who does not follow such norms – like crafting an appropriate problem statement – is simply not aware that real research is harder than they think (Hernon & Schwartz 2016). And as we began to work on the project that became the The Self as Subject, we saw these assumptions driving quick and wholesale rejections of autoethnography as a method. The first editors we approached were definitive, they had no interest in “rewriting the rules of what research is,” for clearly, “[i]f analytics don’t play a role, and the final product is intended to be self-reflective and subjective, then the final product is not research.” (Schroeder 2017:316–317).1 Thought pieces on how to encourage, support or improve research by professional librarians are easy to find. Most define “real” or “rigourous” research narrowly, and name the variables – time, resources and skills – keeping practicing librarians from doing research that meets this definition (Luo 2011). Think about the assumption at the heart of this. Practicing librarians who want to do

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research do so in a field where the rules are defined by others, from the library and information science faculty who have developed a professional curriculum that is distinct from its academic counterpart, to journal editors who serve as gatekeepers to the publication process. These pieces do not question those rules, they simply look for reasons why it might be difficult for practicing librarians to follow them. Luo (2011) is far from alone in her conclusions that researchers should “provide research information to practitioners in forms consistent with their communication practices,” and that research methods courses should be included in practitioner-focused library and information science programs (192). Solutions like these are incomplete and one-way. They assume that it is enough to invite practitioners into an existing conversation, but they do not extend far enough for knowledge from practice to change that conversation. It will not be an easy conversation to change. It was immediately clear from our early experiences launching The Self as Subject that for librarians, the choice to use a research method like autoethnography is a risky one. All research requires time and effort; using a method like autoethnography requires the researcher to do additional work convincing others to take it seriously. It does not surprise me to learn that librarians in the practice-dominated field of reference and information services are far more likely to publish quantitative, survey-based, articles than anything else (VanScoy & Fontana 2016). It does not surprise me that almost none of the studies using narrative methods in library and information science were published by practicing librarians (Ford 2020). For those who are required to do research to earn promotions, tenure or other professional rewards, quantitative methods – methods that follow the rules – represent the path of least resistance. This reality is not unique to practicing librarians. However, as practicing librarians, I think we lose something particular when this happens. Too often, the safe, traditional path leads away from the kind of research we need. It leads us away from finding knowledge and theorising meaning in our practice. The safety and structure of the Self as Subject learning community had many benefits, but one of the most important was this: we shared the labour of changing the conversation. No one in the community had to take on, by themselves, the work of convincing gatekeepers to consider the method. No one had to struggle alone with questions of epistemology and value. We were able to skip the fight about “should we do research differently,” and start, as a community, to ask, what could research look like if we did do it differently? Feminist philosopher Lorraine Code points out that when the positivist model is taken to its logical conclusion there is no room, none at all, for knowledge that is grounded in the “particularities of experience” (1993:19). When knowledge is, by definition, that which transcends subjectivity, the question of how or why to engage with subjectivities cannot even arise. When it comes to changing the conversation about research, this matters. It is not just journal editors or book publishers who need to change their thinking – it is all of us. We all need to learn how to engage with subjectivity. The process of learning how to theorise from practice

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means challenging the positivist norms we have all internalised as students and as librarians working in academia. Maura Smale put it this way: This speaks, I think, to many of the “is this really research?” concerns we as librarians have when we research and write for publication. I think there’s definitely value in the more traditional forms of library and information science research and scholarship, but it is a sometimes-limiting box that we’ve drawn around ourselves, and I’m glad to be thinking on other ways to work. Smale 2017:el Learning to theorise from practice doesn’t just mean reading about methods, acquiring skills and carving out time. As we engaged with shared readings and talked to experienced autoethnographers in our learning community, we also helped each other to surface, challenge and dismantle those lingering assumptions.

Complexity I have to buy a new chair. My body can’t take full work days in this old, repurposed dining chair. The Centers for Disease Control say to choose delivery where I can. I place an order on a corporate office supply chain, and it arrives the next day from our local store. It feels weird to bring in something from outside. Should I sterilise the chair? The packaging? I decide the chair has been in the box for a while; it’s probably safe. I unpack it outside, get rid of the cardboard, and wash my hands. Then I wash my hands again. For a few weeks early in this pandemic, there was a study making the rounds: “Aerosol and Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2 as Compared with SARSCoV-1,” published as a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine. At that point, it was one of the few things we thought we knew about the virus, and the researchers had asked a question that librarians were worried about: how long does this new virus live on different surfaces? Applying these findings to practice, however, wasn’t straightforward. The researchers looked at five “environmental conditions”: aerosols, plastic, stainless steel, copper and cardboard. How close is cardboard to paper? What about library binding? We now knew that the virus might survive on surfaces, but how to translate that into a workflow that makes us safer? The guarded and precise language of scientific communication got in the way. The cardboard finding had the “noisiest” data, and the researchers advised “caution in interpreting this result” (van Doremalen, Bushmaker, Morris, Holbrook, Gamble, Williamson… Munster 2020:1566). And as news outlets started to ask the question “do these results mean we should panic?” they pointed out another issue. The researchers created conditions in the laboratory that were designed to optimise their research, not to replicate real-world conditions (Mandavilli 2020). Both parts of this observation matter – that researchers can create controlled environments, and that they do so to promote their own

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professional agendas. Sometimes, the best research conditions are practice conditions. More often, they are adjacent or related, as was the case here. A lot of the lingering assumptions we had to grapple with in the learning community had to do with objectivity and generalisability, two of the cornerstones of positivism. Talking about these ideas in the abstract while reading articles or engaging with experienced autoethnographers was one thing, but a lot of us found it challenging to write in new and different ways. Sometimes we found ourselves stacking citations on top of stories to add credibility, or focusing more on rigorous data collection than on experience and story (HartmanCaverly 2017). And while some of these may have been necessary steps in the thinking and revising process, they could also reflect some deep-seated thoughts about what makes research, or knowledge, valuable and valued. Benjamin Harris, who wrote one of the most overtly process-oriented narratives in the collection, illustrates this with these ideas about generalisability: “As a writer, I did not want to let the reader feel that the experience was so specific to me and my context that it would not relate beyond my experience” (Harris 2017:62). At this point in his process, Harris was intentionally creating distance between himself and the reader, trying to avoid those details that were too specific to his experience, believing that they would make his work less useful to others. By the end of his process, Harris located the value in autoethnographic research in the very specificity he initially tried to avoid: … it would be difficult for me to add on to the literature on burnout by offering yet another generalized and generalizing theory. Instead, I would contend that it is more instructive for us to acknowledge and understand that burnout is a highly distinctive experience from one professional to another, and far more complicated than generalized theories might suggest. The genre and process of autoethnographic research may be one way to encourage explorations and analysis of varied professional experience that enhance our knowledge and discussions, rather than reducing them to checklists of causes and symptoms. Harris 2017:64 As a practitioner and as a researcher, I agree; the power and the promise of autoethnography lies in the rich, thick and specific description of particular, situated moments in time. When I have to make choices for my library, I don’t have the luxury of objectivity or generalisability. Even if I generally believe that, “all things being equal, all libraries should…,” well, all things are never equal. Real-world situations are never as clear as they appear in the models. To make plans that have any chance of working means knowing my context: where the power is, who the allies, and coalitions, and agendas are. It means understanding where the resources are, who has them and who needs them. It means knowing what happened last time, and who was hurt and who was helped by the choices we made back then. To effect real, meaningful, change

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means understanding the culture, what people do, what assumptions they make, what they value and what they fear. This is hard, frequently emotional, work and when I have to do it I seek out – I crave – stories from others in similar positions. These stories become lifelines. They’re not useful because they give me standardised rules or recipes, generalisable across contexts. Instead, they are useful precisely because they are subjective – and they are more useful when the researcher is open, vulnerable and honest about those subjectivities and their effect on the work. I am not alone in this. Scratch the surface of a discourse focused on practice, and you will see case studies, small studies, local studies emerge, even alongside (and in potential opposition to) demands for more rigour, science or significance. In the field of composition studies, where theory is developed by academic faculty while courses are frequently taught by instructors, Lisa Ede argues that when researchers use theory to develop critiques of teaching practice that are not deeply situated, they will inevitably create knowledge that is incomplete (Ede 2004:118–119). There is an expansive interdisciplinary literature examining teaching practice, frequently described by the umbrella term the “Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.” While there are certainly plenty who call for more rigour, replicability and generalisability in this work, in practice, teaching faculty find “as much to learn from the situated experience of other faculty” as from anything else (Huber & Hutchings 2005:98). This insight is not new. Almost forty years ago, Lee Cronbach urged his colleagues in psychology to re-examine their positivistic commitments (Cronbach 1975). Thirty years ago, feminist thinkers such as Lorraine Code and Donna Haraway were reimagining objectivity and generalisability, and making the case for an epistemology that centers the situated, subjective and specific (Haraway 1988; Code 1993). There is far too much in this discourse to get into here, but I do want to highlight one theme that clarifies the importance of the situated and the specific for practitioners: simplicity and control. In short, those are two things rarely available in real-world, practice contexts. When we emphasise replicability, generalisability and empirical knowledge over all other values, we choose methods designed to create results that are replicable and generalisable. That limits the research we do and the questions we can ask. Positivism’s emphasis on disinterested, decontextualised observation breaks experience down into its simplest and most observable forms. Research methods that reflect these assumptions work by isolating variables, removing confounding factors and controlling the environment – by making things simple. This type of research isn’t easy or simplistic, but when we remove the complexities of the social, living world we: “cannot, on this model, know anything well enough to do very much with it” (Code 1993:19). Cronbach suggests a useful reframing: these generalisations, models and laws should not be the end goal of research and inquiry, but a starting point. Instead of trusting research norms to produce results that will generalise, they should be tried and observed and analysed in lots of local conditions and situations. When we give local conditions

Using autoethnography 23

and complexities their “proper weight,” he says, “any generalization is a working hypothesis, not a conclusion” (Cronbach 1975:125). To borrow a wonderful phrase from Code, positivism’s “norms of formal sameness” smooth away all of the differences located in experience and practice (1993:20). So, what do norms of difference look like? What does it look like to give complexity its proper weight? Objectivity, as theorised by feminist thinkers Donna Haraway and Lorraine Code, takes on a different meaning when we shift our thinking in these ways. In “Situated Knowledges,” Donna Haraway (1988) presents an argument for a feminist objectivity, one that avoids the reductionism of positivism without falling into uncritical relativism. In her view, the researchers we should listen to are not those who claim an all-knowing, universal point of view. Instead, it is the researcher who understands their own partial perspective – who is transparent and honest about their positioning and its effect on the research – who should be heard. Code (1993) agrees. Her articulation of feminist epistemology rejects the idea of the dispassionate, neutral observer accountable only to the evidence. She argues that when we create knowledge, we must be accountable to our communities – to each other — as well. I think this is essential. If knowledge can only be understood relative to specific circumstances, then to act we must do everything possible to understand those circumstances. Knowing that our perspectives are partial means we must do everything possible to notice, understand and account for that partiality. When we do research that is accountable, “[i]nquiry grows out of and turns back to practice.” It is practice – trying to do something with what we know – that determines, “not once and for all, but case by case,” what knowledge is worth knowing (Code 1993: 40–41). What makes autoethnography useful, or autoethnographic generalisability, starts with the self – with self-examination and self-awareness. This is one of the most powerful and the most difficult aspects of thinking autoethnographically about practice. Autoethnography is a reflexive method. The work starts with the self, and with story, but it does not end there. As autoethnographers we study ourselves, and also share as our selves. We choose the self that we will share. Autoethnographic narratives are performative, creative pieces. Berry (2013) distilled a lengthy list of the multiple, overlapping, embodied selves the autoethnographer considers. The “historical self ” is shaped by our unique experiences and autobiography. The “processing self ” engages in honest self-questioning. This is deep, difficult and vulnerable work, and it can be particularly threatening to apply this level of honesty to practice, and to the workplace. La Loria Konata (2017) expresses this well: The hardest part of doing this type of writing is that you have to make yourself vulnerable. That wasn’t always easy, but it was necessary. Even after my final draft was submitted, I still had moments of wondering if there was something I should or should not have said. Konata 2017

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In this fear, she was far from alone. This level of vulnerability can also threaten identity. We can find out things about ourselves that we would rather not know. Benjamin Harris (2017:63) phrased it this way: In the end, ‘vulnerable writing’ had less to do with making myself vulnerable to others; instead, I was forced to be more honest and vulnerable with myself. In all of these ways, the learning community provided authors with a valuable source of support. As Michelle Santamaria put it, “I remember clearly saying that I had realized that I was scared to write what I needed to write; months later, someone else said how much it had helped her to hear that someone else had been this scared” (Santamaria 20182). Berry’s list continues. The last three autoethnographic selves interact more broadly with context and culture. The “breaching self ” is not afraid to disrupt norms and to challenge the status quo, while the “contested self ” reveals and challenges oppression and injustice. The “unapologetic self ” takes risks and chances. The “hopeful” self embodies the idea that things can change (Berry 2013:222–223). Autoethnography starts with the self, but it doesn’t end there. The autoethnographer moves back and forth between the self and the culture – most often, with theory.

Criticality I’m sewing masks. I hate this. I’ve been sewing a lot during this period of sheltering in place. I learned to sew when I was nine years old; I made a patchwork quilt. I never liked sewing clothes. I like the fabrics; I enjoy the sewing. But when the final result doesn’t fit – which happens a lot – I tend to blame myself and my body. Sewing clothes makes me feel bad about myself. But now, I’m taking the time to read about fitting. My brain is starting to adjust; all bodies are different. I am making dozens of tiny adjustments, perfecting the fit. It’s fiddly and repetitive, but satisfying. This work occupies my mind for hours. When I’m sewing masks my mind races. It’s stressful. I’m doing this to protect myself and the people that I love and I don’t know if these masks will work. I feel angry. I shouldn’t be doing this. We shouldn’t be relying on my skills, my stockpile of supplies. The richest country in the world should be able to provide us with what we need. It shouldn’t be this way. Librarians have a complicated relationship with theory. The members of the learning community did as well. Some came to the project well-versed in critical theory; others treated it with suspicion. Stacy Holman-Jones describes the relationship between theory and experience in autoethnographic writing as “reciprocal” and “interanimating” (Holman-Jones 2016:228). Theory is not

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added on to the narrative after the fact; it is woven throughout. Experience is both reflective and generative. It illuminates and illustrates theory, and it provides the basis for the researcher to theorise. Talking to a group of students, Holman-Jones was asked outright, “Why not just tell the stories? Why include all that theory?” Her reply was crucial – that theory tells the story “of how things are and helps us discover the possibilities in how things might be” (228–229). Theory helps us notice things that are so deeply entrenched in our practice that we don’t think about them, and once we’ve done that, it lets us reimagine the way things are. But this idea, that theory illuminates what is possible and helps us reimagine the world, is also complicated. As David James Hudson (2017) notes, the activities generally associated with theorising – asking messy questions, criticising without offering actionable solutions, playing with complicated prose – can be used to reinforce existing hierarchies just as easily as they can be used to disrupt them. Theory, like research, is frequently assumed to “belong” to the academy, and can be used to perpetuate the idea that only those with institutional standing to do theory can really understand it. Sara Ahmed (2017) points out that definitions of what is “really” theory function much like definitions of research do to enforce boundaries between academic knowledge and practice knowledge: “Within the academy, the word theory has a lot of capital” and is guarded very carefully. She describes the citational chains that create these definitional boundaries, “you become a theorist by citing other theorists that cite other theorists” (Ahmed 2017:8). This kind of theory is defined very narrowly, abstracted from the personal and the experiential. Britzman’s 2003 study of pre-service teachers includes an observation that I think has relevance to librarianship. She argues that the fragmentation of theory and practice within the academy reinforces an active disdain for theory among teachers. It makes sense. Excluded from the process of generating knowledge, they struggle when they have to apply that knowledge, which takes the form of abstract generalisations and universal laws, in their deeply contextualised classrooms. I think this happens in librarianship as well. Hudson (2017) describes a “practicality imperative” in librarianship that “shapes our intellectual work” as well as our services and workflows (207). We emphasise speed, efficiency and productivity. We are solutions-oriented. The end result of this? “Work understood to be theoretical – work concerned chiefly with foundational critique, work that does not focus on delivering measurable improvements in performance – is of little relevance to the library world” (Hudson 2017:209). In other words, this emphasis on practicality accepts and embraces the academic boundaries that separate theory from practice, and in so doing turns away from research that critiques or reimagines the status quo. Britzman (2003) suggests, and I think this is true, that the process of theorising from practice can be transformative, affecting not only the practice but also the researcher. To imagine the way things could be required, a different relationship to knowledge creation, one that rejects neutral objectivity and universal laws. In this sense, theorising from the experience of practice means taking ownership of

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that experience, making meaning from it, and creating the conditions to change it. (Britzman 2003:64). Writing about rhetoric and composition, Lisa Ede argues that theory and practice should be integrated; theory should be situated within practice. When we theorise from practice, we can create a type of knowledge that reflects power, relationships and context (Ede 2004:118–119), and we can imagine new possibilities. Theory helps us notice things in our practice that were invisible before. We raise questions about experience, we add texture and pattern that suggest meaning. With story, we embody our experiences, adding heft and materiality to theory. When theory and practice are fragmented, both lack something essential. When theory and practice are fragmented, we, as practicing librarians, lose something essential too. There’s a line in Sara Ahmed’s Living a Feminist Life that I think about a lot: “when we are being accommodating, when we are busy, we might not notice certain things” (Ahmed 2017:62) Ahmed is not writing about libraries, but she could be. I cannot help but notice that busyness and accommodation aren’t just the things that keep us from noticing things – they are themselves norms that are deeply embedded in library practice. Ahmed takes her time to make sure we understand the power of norms like these. We live our lives, every day, guided by norms like these. Living without norms is not a choice we can make. However, that does not mean we cannot notice, question and trouble them. Noticing is one of the things that the autoethnographer does, or should do. There are many ways I could demonstrate this and why it matters, but I am going to focus on one that had particular resonance for me, and The Self as Subject learning community: the different experiences librarians have with structures and practices that reinforce white supremacy in the United States. Librarianship in the United States is an overwhelmingly white profession, and despite any number of diversity initiatives sponsored by individual institutions and by professional associations, that fact has not changed (Hathcock 2015). Our context matters. As Derrick Jefferson (2017:106) asked in The Self as Subject, “when you’re not white and you’re not female and you are working in a profession that is overwhelmingly so and you look as I do, what does that feel like?” In her examination of bullying and abuse experienced by faculty members of colour within academia, Nicole Cooke (2019) shows how autoethnography creates space for the researcher to analyse and criticise dominant narratives by noticing where the things we do – as a culture, as a community or as a profession – do not live up to the things we say. As she tells her stories in this piece, she also highlights some of the specific ways that autoethnographers can resist those dominant norms: by naming the injustices they experience, and by putting counter-stories and counter-narratives out into the world (Cooke 2019). Ahmed (2017:8) explains it this way: Think of this: how we learn about worlds when they do not accommodate us. Think of the kinds of experiences you have when you are not expected to be here. These experiences are a resource to generate knowledge … We use our particulars to challenge the universal.

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Autoethnography provides a space for researchers whose experiences will never be captured by large-scale quantitative studies to be heard. The dominant narratives in librarianship reflect the whiteness of the profession and reinforce white supremacy, intentionally and unintentionally (Ettarh 2018; Hudson 2017). It is therefore just as important that those who benefit from dominant narratives and structures – those whose particulars do not challenge the universal – engage in this kind of critical reflexivity. Theorising from practice requires both the space and the will to notice uncomfortable things about ideas, practices and assumptions that are deeply ingrained and closely tied to identity. Britzman (2003) points out that in her work with pre-service teachers, very few individuals talked about their own race. She goes on to suggest that white teachers, living and working in predominantly white environments, were not able to analyse their own experience as raced. Their whiteness was so neutral and normal to them that they did not notice it a situated, subjective experience. I believe the same thing happened in the Self as Subject learning community. Every participant in the learning community agreed to read and review for others. Because of the trust and relationships built during the year and a half we worked together, these reviewing experiences were often intense; we regularly pushed each other to uncomfortable levels of analysis. Despite this, with only one exception, the only librarians to examine their experience through a racial lens were the librarians of colour. Having noticed this now, it is clear that we should have noticed it then. Having noticed this now, it is clear that my chapter would have been stronger, deeper and more situated if I had examined how my whiteness shaped and shapes my experience and perspectives. Having noticed it now, it is clear that for too many of us, our whiteness was subjectivity we did not notice – it follows that we were also unable to effectively critique the norms tied to it. Hudson (2017:213) notes that white supremacy is maintained because its very situatedness – the beliefs, practices and values that support whiteness in this time and place – are treated as if they were neutral, generalisable and universal. For too many of us, these beliefs, practices and values are the way things are, not norms to be noticed. Hudson shows how these norms – service-orientation, neutrality, proving our value, the practicality imperative – serve to reinforce white supremacy within our predominantly white profession. When we notice that these norms, practices and values are situated, we can also notice that they can be dismantled and changed. When we do not notice (or choose not to notice) these norms, we are complicit in the oppression that they create. In other words, when white librarians do not notice the ways that their racial identity shapes their experiences, their work cannot and does not challenge the ways that whiteness is reinforced and rewarded in the profession. Positivist research methods keep the focus of inquiry on what is. They push the researcher to stay within the boundaries created by our universalising norms. These methods limit the questions that can be asked, and the answers that can be generated. When we allow the assumptions that drive those methods to limit what we can ask,

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we are missing valuable opportunities to criticise, understand and reimagine our practice. Autoethnography provides space for this difficult work to happen, but space alone is not enough. We must also hold each other accountable, to do research that is accountable. We need a community of practice – of practitioner-researchers – to help us honestly engage with subjectivity, notice the things we don’t notice and imagine what could be. It is getting hot outside. My makeshift office is stifling. My bedroom is a converted attic, badly insulated and with no shade. It heats up fast. By the afternoon, it’s too much for me. I have to find another space. I think I thought I would be back in my real office by now, but now that now is here it feels way too soon. We’re planning for budget cuts. We’re planning for reopening. I make an iced Americano, and get back to work.

Notes 1 Steinmetz (2005) is very helpful to understand the impact of positivist assumptions across the social sciences, as well as within specific disciplinary communities. Code’s (1993) analysis connects these assumptions to the way that certain knowledge claims are centered in the academy, while Drabinski and Walter (2016) critique positivism’s hold on library and information science (LIS). 2 I am extremely grateful to learning community participant, Michele Santamaria, for her many observations and thoughts on this dynamic, on the learning community, and on the importance of critically theorising from practice. She includes some of those thoughts in: Santamaria, Michele R. 2020. “Concealing White supremacy through fantasies of the library: Economies of affect at work.” Library Trends 68 (3): 431–449.

References Ahmed, S. 2017. Living a Feminist Life. Durham: Duke University Press. DOI: 10.1215/ 9780822373377 Berry, K. 2013. Spinning autoethnographic reflexivity, cultural critique, and negotiating selves. In Handbook of Autoethnography, edited by S. Holman Jones, T.E. Adams & C.S. Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press:209–227. Britzman, D.P. 2003. Practice Makes Practice a Critical Study of Learning to Teach. Rev. ed. SUNY Series, Teacher Empowerment and School Reform. Albany: State University of New York Press. Closer to Fine - Indigo Girls - Official Video. 1989. Available: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=HUgwM1Ky228 [Accessed 14 September 2020] Code, L. 1993. Taking subjectivity into account. In Feminist Epistemologies, edited by L. Alcoff & E. Potter. Thinking Gender. New York, NY: Routledge:15–48. Cooke, N.A. 2019. Impolite hostilities and vague sympathies: academia as a site of cyclical abuse. Journal of Education for Library & Information Science, 60(3):223–230. DOI: 10.3138/jelis.2019-0005 Cronbach, L.J. 1975. Beyond the two disciplines of scientific psychology. American Psychologist, 30(2):116–127. DOI: 10.1037/h0076829 Deitering, A.M., Stoddart, R.A. & Schroeder, R. 2017. The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association.

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Drabinski, E. & Walter, S. 2016. Asking questions that matter. College & Research Libraries, 77(3):264–268. DOI: 10.5860/crl.77.3.264 Ede, L.S. 2004. Situating Composition: Composition Studies and the Politics of Location. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Ettarh, F. 2018. Vocational awe and librarianship: The lies we tell ourselves. In The Library with the Lead Pipe (blog), January 10, 2018. Available: http:// www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/ (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200908194414/http://www. inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/) [Accessed 14 September 2020] Ford, E. 2020. Tell me your story: narrative inquiry in LIS research. College & Research Libraries, 81(2):235–247. DOI: 10.5860/crl.81.2.235 Giddens, A. 1974. Positivism and Sociology. London: Heinemann. Haraway, D. 1988. Situated knowledges: the science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3):575–599. DOI: 10.2307/3178066 Harris, B.R. 2017. Avoiding autoethnography: writing toward burnout. In The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship, edited by A-M Deitering, R. Schroeder & R. Stoddart. Chicago, Illinois: Association of College and Research Libraries:49–65. Hartman-Caverly, S. 2017. How an analytic autoethnography became speculative fiction. In Exploring Autoethnography (blog), February 27, 2017. Available: https:// ex plor i ng autoeth nog raphy.wordpress.com /2 017/02/27/how-a n-a na ly t icautoethnography-became-speculative-fiction/ (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200916115802/https://exploringautoethnography. wordpre s s.com /2 017/02/27/ how- a n- a n a ly t ic- autoet h nog r aphy-beca me speculative-fiction/) [Accessed 14 September 2020] Hathcock, A. 2015. White librarianship in Blackface: Diversity initiatives in LIS. In The Library with the Lead Pipe (blog), October 07, 2015. Available: http:// www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2015/lis-diversity/ (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200822222134/http://www. inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2015/lis-diversity/) [Accessed 14 September 2020] Hernon, P. & Schwartz, C. 2016. Research may be harder to conduct than some realize. Library & Information Science Research, 38(2):91–92. DOI: 10.1016/j.lisr.2016.05.003 Holman-Jones, S. 2016. Living bodies of thought: the ‘critical’ in critical autoethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 22(4):228–237. DOI: 10.1177/1077800415622509 Huber, M.T. & Hutchings, P. 2005. The advancement of learning: building the teaching commons. Carnegie Foundation Special Report. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Hudson, D.J. 2017. The whiteness of practicality. In Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science, edited by G. Schlesselman-Tarango. Critical Race Studies and Multiculturalism in LIS 2. Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press:203–234. Jefferson, D. 2017. When worlds collide. In The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship, edited by A.M. Deitering, R.A. Stoddart & R. Schroeder. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association:105–114. Konata, L.L. 2017. Looking through a colored lens: a black librarian’s narrative. In The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship, edited by A-M. Deitering, R.A. Stoddart & R. Schroeder. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association:115–128.

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Luo, L. 2011. Fusing research into practice: the role of research methods education. Library & Information Science Research, 33(3):191–201. DOI: 10.1016/j.lisr.2010.12.001 Mandavilli, A. 2020. How long will Coronavirus live on surfaces or in the air around you? The New York Times, March 17, 2020, sec. Health. Available: https://www. nytimes.com/2020/03/17/health/coronavirus-surfaces-aerosols.html (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200914210643/https://www. nytimes.com/2020/03/17/health/coronavirus-surfaces-aerosols.html) [Accessed 14 September 2020] Reference Services Review. 2020. Author Guidelines. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Available: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/rsr#author-guidelines (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200711163654/ https://w w w.emera ldg rouppubl ishing.com/jour na l/rsr#author-g uidelines) [Accessed 14 September 2020] Santamaria, M. 2018. Embracing the value of sharing ‘rough work’. In The Librarian Parlor (blog), May 16, 2018. Available: https://libparlor.com/2018/05/16/embracingthe-value-of-sharing-rough-work/ (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web. archive.org/web/20200916121009/https://libparlor.com/2018/05/16/embracingthe-value-of-sharing-rough-work/) [Accessed 14 September 2020] Santamaria, M.R. 2020. Concealing White supremacy through fantasies of the library: economies of affect at work. Library Trends, 68(3):431–449. DOI: 10.1353/ lib.2020.0000 Schroeder, R. 2017. Evaluative criteria for autoethnographic research: who’s to judge? In The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture and Academic Librarianship, edited by A.M. Deitering, R. Schroeder & R.A. Stoddart. Chicago, Illinois: Association of College and Research Libraries:315–346. Schön, D.A. 1984. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. 1st edition edition. New York: Basic Books. Smale, M. 2017. Behind the scenes reflections. In Exploring Autoethnography (blog), February 27, 2017. Available: https://exploringautoethnography.wordpress.com/2017/ 02/27/smale_process/ (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive. org/web/20200916115841/https://exploringautoethnography.wordpress.com/ 2017/02/27/smale_process/) [Accessed 14 September 2020] Steinmetz, G. 2005. The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences: Positivism and Its Epistemological Others. Politics, History, and Culture. Durham: Duke University Press. DOI: 10.1215/9780822386889 van Doremalen, N., Bushmaker, T., Morris, D.H., Holbrook, M.G., Gamble, A., Williamson, B.N., Tamin, A., Harcourt, J.L., Thornburg, N.J., Gerber, S.I., Lloyd-Smith, J.O., de Wit, E. & Munster, V.J. 2020. Aerosol and surface stability of SARS-CoV-2 as compared with SARS-CoV-1. New England Journal of Medicine, 382(16):1564–1567. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc2004973 VanScoy, A. & Fontana, C. 2016. How reference and information service is studied: research approaches and methods. Library & Information Science Research, 38(2):94–100. DOI: 10.1016/j.lisr.2016.04.002

PART II

Different types of autoethnography

A wide variety of types and terminology for autoethnography has been noted. In deciding on a type of autoethnography, people might be influenced by their personalities, knowledge, skills, lived experience, the story they wish to tell or the message they want to convey. In fact, their beliefs in their ability to address a social challenge and make a difference influence the style of autoethnographic research they adopt. Although many arguments can be traced on the shortcomings of specific methods, the purpose of this part is to introduce the reader to three key types of autoethnography. Our message is, that one type does not exclude the other, and that none of the types or styles of autoethnography is inferior. There is a time and place for each and all. In Chapter 3 Lisa P. Spinazola and her co-authors, Carolyn Ellis and Arthur (Art) Bochner, introduce us to evocative autoethnography. Lisa takes the lead and she writes in the style and with the passion of evocative autoethnography. The reader will note that the structure and style of this chapter is different from other chapters – but for a reason. This is also an example of evocative autoethnographic writing where a very specific style of writing and skill is required. The autoethnographic writer needs freedom of style and tone to express their self. Lisa presents this chapter with the support and input of her co-authors – two iconic names in evocative autoethnography: Carolyn Ellis and Arthur Bochner. In Chapter 4, Ina Fourie continues with a review of analytic autoethnography and how analytic autoethnography developed and differs from evocative autoethnography. The reader is reminded of the choices that need to be made when deciding on a method and how analytic autoethnography can draw on evocative autoethnographies. Unlike many arguments that have been raised in the literature, this chapter does not promote analytical autoethnography as a

superior, less subjective style of autoethnography. It is merely presented as a style that might be more suitable for some contexts and for some personality types. Chapter 5 focuses on collaborative autoethnography as method and praxis. Kathy-Ann Hernandez introduces the reader to the concept of collaborative autoethnography and how it differs from solo or single-authored autoethnography. She writes about the need for self-reflexivity, sociocultural understanding, the tenets, benefits and challenges of collaborative autoethnography and the designs, processes and procedures, writing styles, and ethical issues. Her earlier work with Heewon Chang and Faifth Wambura Ngunjiri, as well as her personal involvement in collaborative autoethnography, prepared her well for this task. She often draws on examples from her own experience as well as the experience of others. A key point in her argument is that collaborative autoethnography can be applied across disciplines and that it has a future in both scholarship and practice.

3 EVOCATIVE AUTOETHNOGRAPHY – EVOKING IS AS EVOKING DOES Lisa P. Spinazola, Carolyn Ellis and Arthur Bochner

An invitation to sit with me I (Lisa) twist the ring on my finger and stretch out my left hand to admire the large amber-coloured stone set in the centre of gold-plated flower petals. It’s not my typical style, but I wear it anyway. The vintage, costume ring was a gift from Ariane, a best friend who is no longer here. She inherited it from her mother a few years earlier, and gave it to me a year before she passed away. I remember wondering what she might be hinting at as she deftly removed her ring, gingerly placed it in my palm, and said, “It was my mother’s and it’s yours now.” I thanked her and smiled, raising my glass to toast her and her mom, swallowing the question about what her gift might mean along with a deep gulp of a frothy Guinness beer. A few months after that dinner date, my beloved friend was gone – metastatic breast cancer. She had been in remission for ten years when she felt the first telltale signs of pain in her hip and lungs. Slowly new aches and lumps and wounds appeared. I watched as this kind and gentle soul showed her fierce warrior side. She fought with everything she had and continued to work towards earning her doctoral degree, presenting research at international conferences, teaching interpersonal communication to undergraduates, mentoring department colleagues, and remaining a loving presence in the lives of her family and friends. *** Ariane and I first met during orientation for the Master’s program in communication at the University of South Florida. We instantly became friends. Both of us were non-traditional students and mothers of adult children. We enjoyed dancing, singing karaoke, and smoking an occasional cigar. Sharing an office for seven years, we covered each other’s classes, became travel companions to conferences, and made sure to meet up for meals off campus once or twice a month.

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Our time together was slowly invaded by the effects of her cancer. Breathlessness made singing karaoke a chore so Ariane would hang back and watch, cheering us on from the sidelines. Hip and rib pain made dancing uncomfortable so we’d shimmy in our seats and watch as others kicked up their heels. Exhaustion crept in, at first unnoticed and easily ignored, but eventually overwhelming her. Instead of meeting up at Gators or Sake House, our regular favourites, I’d stop by Panera’s and grab a broccoli cheddar soup for her and a Fuji apple salad for myself and we’d chat and laugh in her living room with CSI or Law & Order playing in the background. My breath catches in my chest when I walk into our once shared office space; some of her remaining possessions on the desk are scattered and picked through and her name has been removed from the door. No one has taken her place in the office though; no one could. I sigh and the walls close in on me as I feel her absence and remember our time together. I have not gone back to Gators for wings. Dancing and singing karaoke do not hold the allure they once did. I am in mourning, probably depressed, but I have tasks I need to accomplish, commitments to fill, students to teach, papers to write – life moves forwards. *** You may wonder why you’re reading a story about a friendship immersed in cancer, death, loss, and grief, instead of research on autoethnography. Why should my story matter to you? Why am I writing about personal experiences in an academic book usually reserved exclusively for distanced scholarly work? I start with a story because I want you to feel the power of autoethnography and to help highlight the purpose and process of writing autoethnographically. I write about my life in an effort to understand, cope with, give order to, make sense of, find meaning in, and work my way through events that have potential to leave me feeling derailed or traumatised. Image-laden, vivid, and detailed writing that works to connect the past and the present helps foster resilience, gives direction to chaos, and assists us in learning about and accepting ourselves (DeSalvo 1999). Once I have processed a moment and made some sense of it, I research and write, rewrite, hone and shape my story incorporating others’ stories about similar experiences to gain deeper understanding. I interrogate overarching cultural values and norms to address questions of how and why I am feeling the way I do. Finally, I revise and edit knowing (hoping) others will read, interpret, dissect, challenge, understand, and identify with my autoethnographic story and what it means.

Introduction In this chapter, we (Lisa, Carolyn, and Art) discuss and illustrate the work associated with producing (creating/writing) an evocative autoethnography. An evocative autoethnography often begins with the researcher’s lived experience; takes into account the researcher’s feelings, thoughts and emotions; and uses sociological introspection and emotional recall in an effort to better understand and

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contextualise a particular event the researcher has lived through (Ellis 2004). We use a multi-voiced approach to discuss the value and impact of understanding, reading, writing, and using evocative autoethnography as a research method in the fields of library and information science (LIS), and we demonstrate how to determine whether an autoethnography is, in fact, evocative. We begin with a brief history, definition, and purpose of autoethnography, move to the role and place of story in LIS, review current autoethnographies by librarians, and give an example of what it means to write evocatively. Using Lisa’s experience of grieving the loss of a best friend to cancer as an entry and case in point, we weave story and theory together to show how one can go from living through a moment to producing an evocative autoethnographic story with the potential to connect the personal to the cultural. We write to engage with readers dealing with similar situations, offering the potential to heal ourselves and our readers. Our chapter was inspired by two questions. What value can autoethnographic writing hold as a research method and sense-making tool in LIS? How can autoethnography be incorporated into the life of librarians – personally, academically, and professionally? So, for our readers, we ask you to contemplate, how you came to this work? Why your work should be valued? How meaningful is this life and what makes it meaningful? What is burnout in the life of a librarian? What contradictions and conflicts manifest or evolve? Autoethnography is a way for those in the fields of LIS to tell personal stories of their lived experiences as they explore these questions and more.

Autoethnography: history, definition, and purpose In their review of the history of autoethnography, Ellis, Adams and Bochner (2011) trace how it became evident that complete objectivity was not possible. What the researcher brings to the research – biography, experience, beliefs – inevitably influences the research. Once the myth of complete objectivity was debunked, scholars began to understand the need to acknowledge the researcher’s place in the research and reporting of any research project in the human sciences. This shift in perspective opened new opportunities for using personal stories and personal narrative in academic research. Ellis and Bochner (2000) reconceived and refined autoethnography, combining characteristics of ethnography and autobiography as a method of “writing lives” to produce “aesthetic and evocative thick descriptions of personal and interpersonal experience” (Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011:277), transcending “mere narration of self to engage in cultural analysis and interpretation” (Chang 2008:43). The cultural context in which the project of autoethnography was developed involved breaking away from some of the most venerable notions about scientific truth and knowledge (Denzin 1997; Lyotard 1984). In the 1980s, poststructuralists and postmodernists were waging an unrelenting attack on post-positivists’

36  Lisa P. Spinazola, Carolyn Ellis and Arthur Bochner

presumptions about the authority of a humanly constructed text, casting serious doubt on the sanctified scientific doctrine of truth through method. The traditional ideas of an objectively accessible reality and a scientific method turned out to be, in Rorty’s (1982:195) words, “neither clear nor useful.” What was needed, argued Rorty, was an approach to social science “which emphasizes the utility of narratives and vocabularies rather than the objectivity of laws and theories.” Sensing that this was one of those rare “experimental moments” (Marcus & Fischer 1986) akin to a Kuhnian paradigm clash (Kuhn 1962), Ellis and Bochner (1996, 2000) decided to seize the opportunity to try out something new and different – autoethnography.1 Autoethnography is an autobiographical genre of writing and research that displays multiple layers of consciousness, connecting the personal to the cultural. Back and forth, autoethnographers gaze, first, through an ethnographic wide-angle lens, focusing outwards on social and cultural aspects of their personal experience; then, they look inwards, exposing a vulnerable self that is moved by and may move through, refract, and resist cultural interpretations. As they zoom backwards and forwards, inwards and outwards, distinctions between the personal and cultural become blurred, sometimes beyond recognition. Usually written in the first-person voice, autoethnographic texts appear in a variety of forms – short stories, poetry, fiction, novels, photographic essays, personal essays, journals, fragmented and layered writing, and social science prose. In these texts, concrete action, dialogue, emotion, embodiment, spirituality, and self-consciousness are featured in relational, family, institutional, and community stories affected by history, social structure, and culture, which themselves are revealed through action, feeling, thought, and language (Ellis & Bochner 2000:739).2 Autoethnography moves beyond simple storytelling or self-narrative and instead works generatively to produce data and new knowledge (Andrew & Le Rossignol 2017). Because autoethnographers place differing emphases on each prong (self, culture, and the research process) within their writing, autoethnography can take many forms and has become an increasingly broad and diverse field. Winkler (2018) suggests that while this flexibility and variety might create confusion or difficulties in understanding what constitutes “autoethnography,” it is also what makes autoethnographic research rich and interesting. Autoethnography is an evolving, diversified, and pluralistic research method. The rise of autoethnography has been amplified by the ways in which it touched people where they lived. Autoethnography struck a chord in students and seasoned scholars whose personal connection to research (and the people they studied) had been stifled and inhibited – if not crushed – by discredited methodological directives and inhibiting writing conventions. These people wanted to tell stories that invited others to think and to feel. Eager to depart the safe and comfortable space of conventional academic writing in order to engage in non-alienating research practices, the new breed of qualitative researchers wanted to read and write texts that would make hearts skip a beat (Bochner 2012;

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Hyde 2010). They also understood that doing research focused on human longing, pleasure, pain, loss, grief, suffering, or joy ought to require holding authors to some standard of vulnerability (Bochner & Ellis 2016b:212).3

Telling stories in the library Librarians have long understood the importance of stories in the form of oral history and made space for in-person storytelling, recognising that doing so connects young listeners to language and literature, builds vocabularies, facilitates visualisation, stimulates imagination, teaches empathy, and acts as a tool for social and interpersonal development (Chancellor & Lee 2016). As a research method, oral history is an interdisciplinary approach, inspiring scholars from multiple academic disciplines. Since oral history is variable and transient, subject to change upon recall, and influenced by both the teller’s perspective/ memory as well as the listener’s positionality, Chancellor and Lee (2016) argue its validity is sometimes questioned by the very librarians who support and make space for it. Readily accepted ways to produce knowledge in librarianship involve standardised approaches, generalisable findings, and replicated results – concepts synonymous with scientific studies, research, and validity (Clarke 2018). How then can autoethnography which relies heavily on storytelling qualify as “research” where librarianship is concerned? What value does autoethnography, and more specifically evocative autoethnography, provide as a research method for those in the fields of LIS?

Currently accepted research methods in library and information science Chu and Ke (2017) argue that (a) research methods are composed of two components: data collection and analysis techniques; (b) research methods should be categorised according to the data collection methods used; and (c) the manner of data collection dictates whether or not to use quantitative or qualitative analysis techniques. In an effort to clarify LIS scholars’ confusion and the hindrance of having a multitude of understandings and interpretations of what constitutes a “research method,” Chu and Ke (2017) list valid and acceptable data collection methods in LIS, including drawing, diary entries, and photo surveys. Autoethnography, narrative, and storytelling are absent from their list. Autoethnography is also absent from the “wide variety” of appropriate methodologies evaluated in a current comprehensive review showing the methods that qualify as reliable and valid research in LIS (Ullah & Ameen 2018). Librarians are organisers, gatekeepers, and caretakers of knowledge but are not necessarily regarded as creators or producers of knowledge. They are tasked with facilitating research for others while simultaneously viewed as unqualified to understand the intricate complexities of any one research field enough to be

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considered experts (Klain-Gabbay & Shoham 2016). Whether or not that is the case, librarians are most certainly experts of their own experiences. Why then are we not hearing more about librarians’ lived experience from the perspective of librarians themselves?

Library and information science needs autoethnography While social scientists were working towards accepting the inherent subjectivity of both the process and product of research, the fields of LIS were shifting and challenging librarians to view information seekers as informed cultural authorities instead of unwitting users (Michels 2010). Denzin and Lincoln (2000) argued that “a narrative turn has been taken” (p. 3). Among others, Bochner (2014:12) continued making that case, arguing in 2014 that the “turn towards narrative and storytelling research had swept across the human sciences, producing a host of new fields dedicated to narrative inquiry and narrative practices.” The narrative turn encouraged academics to incorporate their own lives, meanings, and culture into their writings in addition to searching out scholarship and literature written by others. Research as a field and the library and information service systems – where research is catalogued, sorted, and made available for use – were gradually changing and taking into account the personal experiences, emotional situations, and individual perspectives of researchers, participants, and information seekers. But librarians themselves seem to be left out and not afforded the same access to these revolutionary changes. Guzik (2013:278) recognises the promise of autoethnography in library and information science but worries it has been relegated to the margins, positing that “autoethnography could also be applied in future studies of public libraries; archival reference and documentation practices; human-computer interaction; games research; access to corporate, non-profit, and government records’ centres; and information policy development.” She further contends that while time and effort is spent understanding the range of discrete practices of information seekers, literature dedicated to understanding the unique experiences of librarians is scarce.

Autoethnographies in library and information science A few librarians do write autoethnographic stories, however. For example, Patin (2015) describes her efforts to rebuild school and community libraries after two hurricanes levelled homes and neighbourhoods in New Orleans; Esty (2017) writes about teaching others how to use the library for research; Hendrigan (2017) verifies that autoethnography in library and information science is rare and writes an autoethnography of what it was like to do an oral history project; and Morrison (2017), a teacher/researcher/librarian, incorporates the voices of her students and their lived experiences as well as her own experience, as she brings cultural knowledge and racialised context to studies of rap and hip-hop.

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These studies are insightful. So why aren’t there more autoethnographic writings from the viewpoint of librarians? Might it be because autoethnography remains a contested research method? Or because librarians have been defined less like experts in their fields and more like facilitators for others’ work? Or because there is a scarcity of mentoring, encouragement, and publication outlets for librarians who might want to write their personal experience stories? Perhaps the absence is a result of all these factors.

Seeking to make sense of our experiences Statistics and probabilities provide facts about cancer and a context within which individual experience occurs. According to the American Cancer Society (2019:3), “approximately 1 in 8 women (13%) will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in their lifetime and 1 in 39 women (3%) will die from breast cancer.” My friend was one of the more than 3.8 million women in the United States with a history of breast cancer who was still alive on January 1, 2019 (Miller, Nogueira, Mariotto, Rowland, Yabroff…Siegel 2019). Until her death in September 2019, Ariane was one of the 150,000 breast cancer survivors living with metastatic disease while undergoing treatment (Mariotto, Etzioni, Hurlbert, Penberthy & Mayer 2017). Metastatic breast cancer accounted for almost 41,000 deaths and 266,120 new diagnoses in the United States during 2018 (Li, Karantza, Aktan & Lala 2019). When I read those statistics, I immediately feel deep sadness and empathise with the friends and family members of the lives counted, measured, quantified, and filtered down into data and numbers – individuals whose stories are not told, whose experiences and feelings are left out, and whose lived circumstances remain unknown. Cancer disrupts hundreds of thousands of lives annually. Wanting more, I (Lisa) research the key words “grief,” “loss,” and “cancer” online and sift through the search results. I read through titles related to medical professionals (Conte 2014), hospice care workers (Ghesquiere & Bagaajav 2020), children who have lost a parent (Werner-Lin & Biank 2009), parents who have lost a child (Pohlkamp, Kreicbergs & Sveen 2019), and sibling loss (Sveen, Eilegård, Steineck & Kreicbergs 2014). When I add “friendship” to the search terms, I get additional results including young adult friendships (Stein, Petrowski, Gonzales, Mattei, Majcher…Benoit 2018), emerging adults (Schwartz, Howell & Jamison 2018), religious solutions (Lichtenthal, Burke & Neimeyer 2011) and loss of a same-sex spouse (Curtin & Garrison 2018). While facts, statistics, and generalisable findings are important in understanding cancer, they do not show what the lived experience is like, or what it can and does mean for the individual or their families and loved ones. They do not tell me about Ariane’s experience or my own, as one of her best friends. To better understand Ariane’s experience, I turn to autoethnographic cancer stories, such as Cancer in Two Voices (Butler & Rosenblum 1991) and Cancer and Death: A Love Story in Two Voices (Berg & Trujillo 2008). It is in these stories

40  Lisa P. Spinazola, Carolyn Ellis and Arthur Bochner

that I learn about romantic couples who have struggled to make sense of life and living as they faced the turmoil and devastation of a cancer diagnosis. Here, I absorb how the person who survives finds ways to move forwards after the illness and early death of a partner. Through being invited into these stories, I begin to get an inkling of how to think about the feelings of love I had for Ariane, the helplessness I experienced when she deteriorated, the hopelessness I felt when her illness worsened, and the devastation and loss that overwhelmed me when she passed away. I long for more and know I need to explore stories closer to my own experience as a friend rather than as a partner or family member to a loved one who dies. I am an unmarried, middle-aged, white, heterosexual woman and Ariane’s death is my first close loss. I seek something – anything – that will help me see my intense grief as normal, and help me believe that my responses of anguish and despair to Ariane’s death are “natural” and manageable. As I write, I recognise my need for validation and normalisation becomes the rationale for using stories and narrative as vehicles for sensemaking and as opportunities to connect with others experiencing similar feelings.

To show and to tell in autoethnography There is a difference between showing and telling. The anthropologist, Clifford Geertz (1973), applied Gilbert Ryle’s notions of “thick descriptions” to ethnographic research where a scholar formulates cultural understandings about social and collective life through writing that encourages densely textured facts and complex specifics. Often “thick” descriptions work to “show” rather than “tell.” Telling informs while showing seeks to evoke and connect (Bochner & Ellis 2016a). Including details to show what is happening reminds me of Billig’s (2013) call to disrupt social scientific writing. He laments the overuse of jargon and the absence of people on the pages of social scientific journals. In autoethnographic work, we write ourselves into our text in everyday language, sharing stories that include our own voices and subjectivity. When we write autoethnographically, we consider not only “what is” but also “what could be.” We employ reflexivity and imagination to create deeper understandings and find meaning in moments we’ve faced and lived through. Reflexivity turns the lens with which we look at the world back upon ourselves (Goodall 2000). It is a way for us to make connections between ourselves and the participants of our projects, between our lived experiences and the data we are collecting, and between the what we know and the how we know it.

What does it mean to write evocatively? The focus of evocative and critical autoethnography is less about knowing and more about living; less about controlling and more about caring; less about reaching immutable truths and more about opening dialogues among different points

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of view; less about resolving differences and more about learning how to live and cope with them; less about covering life experience with disembodied concepts and more about finding ways to personify the “untamed wilderness” of lived experience ( Jackson 1995). These texts and performances aim to be used by and to be useful to other people and communities. If they do not “apply” to other people, if they cannot be used to evoke identification, to make others care, to affect social change, to call people to action, or to make lives better, then they fail to live up to their promise or achieve their principle goals.4 Because our stories include stories with and about others, we autoethnographers must consider ethics as we write. Ellis (2017) argues for a relational ethics of care by which she means we should always consider the others in our story and our relationships with them. Relational ethics requires us to engage in a continuous self-examination to ensure we are doing research as ethically as possible, and to care for self as we care for those within our stories as well as those who will read our stories. Writing autoethnographically about self and other also requires a level of vulnerability as we reveal ourselves and the relational world we live in. While this can be painful and problematic, most autoethnographers are able to navigate the ethical considerations and use the pain that vulnerability might engender to navigate and alleviate negative emotions, events, and identities, and in the process reach deeper understandings and consider alternative interpretations (Bochner & Ellis 2016b). As autoethnographers, we tell literary stories about specific events, using scene setting, character development, dialogue and dramatic action to bring readers into the story with us. We hope that they might identify with what we feel, or think about how they have felt or would feel in similar circumstances, and that their lives might be better as a result.

An evocative showing I (Lisa) return to my story about losing my dear friend, Ariane. I linger for a moment in the experience of trepidation that I had when I had to leave her in the unsteady hands of hospice nurses. I recall the fear I had for Ariane’s family as imminent loss threatened to crumble and fracture their bonds. I am overcome with emotions when I close my eyes and still see the contorted, drained body that once held my friend’s vibrant, beautiful, soul. Those stories are yet to be told, but for now I move to what I most need to write: the experience of my grief a few nights after Ariane’s death. I am wide awake and the time, 2:38 a.m., projects from my bedside clock through a red beam onto the ceiling, piercing the dark hazy blanket enveloping me. I turn on my side and flip the tear-drenched pillow in search of a dry spot to rest my head. I force my eyes to close and convince myself I can still get four and a half hours of sleep if I’m able to drift off now. “Stop thinking,” I command through clenched teeth.

42  Lisa P. Spinazola, Carolyn Ellis and Arthur Bochner

After lying still for what feels like ten minutes, I glance up and see 3:56 a.m. taunting from above. Now there are only three hours left to get any rest before having to enter our office, my office, the space she will never again occupy. The last words I heard her whisper, punctuated with the deep breaths she struggled to take, echo in my ears, “I…don’t…know…where…I’m…going.” Hearing a faithful, practicing Christian’s vocalised fears and doubts about departing this life unnerved me. I, a lapsed Roman Catholic now mostly agnostic, tried my best to respond. “I, I know where you’re going. You’ve blazed a trail to heaven, my friend. I am sure of it. Put in a good word to God for me when you get there.” She continued to gasp, eyes closed, face contorted with worry, unfazed by my attempts to reassure. I don’t think she believed me. And my humour that she once welcomed fell flat. I lie in bed haunted by my inability to provide comfort to Ariane in our final moments together. My stomach churns and seizes as though reeling from a punch to the gut. Heat radiates from my chest through my neck, penetrating my face. My heart is heavy, aching, pumping hard as though struggling to catch the rhythm of its normal beat. My swollen, stinging eyes refuse my demands to close so I can settle into sleep. They instead remain open, searching the dark for answers. Anger gnaws at me. Ariane did not deserve to go out like this. My tall, strong, graceful friend was reduced to skin and bones and could barely lift herself out of bed and move to the couch without assistance. I imagined and hoped she would find a way to keep the cancer that ravaged her body at bay until a cure was possible. She had rallied back from the brink before. Over the last five years she endured chemo, hormone therapy, and bone biopsies; but when they told her she’d need an external assembly to drain bile from her liver, I saw the fire in her eyes fizzle out. She was too tired to continue the fight. Guilt churns up moments for me to ruminate upon – inviting her out to our favourite wing joint even though she told me eating was no longer pleasurable or asking her to meet up for dancing and karaoke even though she’d be exhausted within a half hour of arriving. She’d still show up, though, fashionably late of course, dressed in some brilliantly coloured ensemble, short straight silver hair spiked with the help of pomade, purple and teal dangling earrings, scarf billowing about as though she was carried through doors on a gust of wind. I am reassured in this moment of remembering. I know she’d rather be included than left out and would have hated it if I treated her as fragile or unable to participate. Inviting her along gave her the option to decide whether or not to join in and helped her regain some semblance of control as so much of everyday life now was out of her control. I did not realise this as I asked her to participate in adventures we’d always shared and before cancer took the joy out of eating, dancing, and singing. But thinking back, I’m glad for the seemingly selfish impetus to cling to our ways of being in the world together. I flip onto my back and 5:18 a.m. glares at me from the ceiling. Less than two hours before the alarm will signal the start of my day. I took two days off to

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mourn but feel like I’ve been absent for weeks. She died four days ago and I feel raw, on edge, empty. How can I teach when I’m feeling this way? Do I tell my students that I’m wracked with grief or do I pretend I am okay? How will I enter our shared office space knowing she’ll never again be waiting behind the door to greet me? The next time I hear keys clanging and clicking as they unlock our four-person office door, I will want it to be her bustling into the room, dropping everything to run up and hug me. But Ariane will not be there. There will be no banana-flavoured Laffy Taffy or check-ins on Post-it notes waiting for me at my desk. No smell of nail polish from quick touch-ups mingled with the pumpkin scented candle she blew out before heading off to teach… I am wrenched from my thoughts by a howling moan and quickly realise my own throat is the source of this tormented wail. I fold into the pillow and sob. I am exhausted, sweaty, and drained but sleep is not coming and I cannot lie here any longer. I roll to the edge, push myself up, and drop my legs over the side of the bed. I feel weak when I stand and steady myself against the wall as I make my way towards the bathroom.

Auto + ethno + graphy = research method (way of knowing) My brief autoethnographic episode is an evocative showing of a moment in my life. To be considered an evocative autoethnography, this story must be rooted in cultural knowledge, contexts, and settings. I might call upon research about the stages of grief to discuss the emotions of guilt and anger I’m experiencing (Kübler-Ross & Kessler 2005); or Christianity and ideas of the afterlife to reflect on each of our positionality (Maxwell & Perrine 2016); or using humour to cope with grief (Booth-Butterfield, Wanzer, Weil & Krezmien 2014), or delve deeper into what Becker (1973:283–284) called “the terror of creation” and “the rumble of panic underneath everything” associated with the denial of the creaturely side of the human condition. As I continue to write, I would work towards incorporating aspects of self and culture, reflecting on both the “auto” and the “ethno,” examining how they stand apart from each other, and how they intersect or act upon one another. Writing in itself is a process of inquiry (Richardson & St. Pierre 2008; Bochner 2016), a way of knowing, a research method or “graphy,” thus completing the trio of requirements for an authored piece to be considered autoethnographic. At the beginning of this chapter, we discussed how research can never be truly objective; we cannot help but be part of the subjects we research, how we go about researching, and why we make the choices we make. Additionally, to imagine research as a selfless endeavour is naïve. In the process of using evocative autoethnography to express and explore my grief in this paper, I have directly confronted some of the feelings I experienced in the aftermath of Ariane’s death and gained a fresh and more balanced perspective on my actions and our deep friendship. Before writing, I had been feeling like I might have behaved selfishly and could have done more to be helpful. Hindsight can work for or against us

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(Freeman 2009) helping or hindering as we write and rewrite, connecting the past to the present. My guilt for dragging Ariane along to events and restaurants knowing she was not really up to participating dissipated as I recognised that by continuing to extend an invitation, she got to choose whether or not to participate giving her a sense of normalcy and agency. By writing about my grief and processing a few key moments, I found my way to the realisation I was helpful, attentive, inclusionary, respectful, and a good friend. We (Carolyn and Art) are inspired by reading Lisa’s story. Ariane was our close friend as well. Lisa’s story has allowed us to grieve her loss and to think through our relationship with her. We were not able to be with her during her dying, since we were at our second home in North Carolina. Both of us have felt that absence deeply. We wanted to be there, to help in any way we could. Lisa’s story enabled us to feel as if we had been there in a sense. We also now are able to think more clearly about how we WERE there for her in so many ways – assisting her with her dissertation, phone calls and texts, visits to and dinners in our home in Tampa and our second home in North Carolina. We have indelible memories of many deep talks about life and death with Ariane and feel as if Lisa’s brief recounting of her experience is a meaningful testimony to the strength, character, and goodness of Ariane’s life. Lisa’s story lets us re-experience the loss of Ariane, remember the good times we had together, feel love for each other, and go on living. We also feel a closeness to Lisa in our love and missing of Ariane together. Thus, her story adds to our memory of Ariane and strengthens our communal ties to each other. Lisa’s story also encourages us to reflect on other dear friends and family we have lost as well as those who remain part of our community of love, compassion, and caring. We believe that ideally autoethnography can provide guidance as we consider how to live better, more just and meaningful lives. Now we call upon you in the field of library and information science to add your autoethnographic voices to the conversation. Take a chance and incorporate personal, vulnerable, embodied writing as you address issues of social justice and social inclusion; as you decide how best to reach out to and guide those in turmoil and fear, such as refugees; and as you are called upon to offer resources to those who have suffered trauma, abuse, or loss and are struggling to find ways to make sense of who they are and their place in the world.

Notes 1 Paragraph was adapted with author’s permission from “On first-person narrative scholarship: autoethnography as acts of meaning,” by A.P. Bochner, 2012, Narrative Inquiry, 22(1), p. 155–164. (10.1075/ni.22.1.10boc). Copyright 2012 by John Benjamins Publishing Company. 2 Paragraph was adapted with authors’ permission from “Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: researcher as subject,” by C. Ellis and A.P. Bochner, 2000. In N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd ed., p. 733–768). Copyright 2000 by Sage Publishing.

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3 Paragraph was adapted with authors’ permission from “The ICQI and the rise of autoethnography: solidarity through community,” by A.P. Bochner and C. Ellis, 2016, International Review of Qualitative Research, 9(2), p. 208-217. (10.1525/ irqr.2016.9.2.208). Copyright 2016 by Sage Publishing. 4 Paragraph was adapted with authors’ permission from “Autoethnography as applied communication,” by A. Bochner and T. Adams, 2020, The Handbook of Applied Communication Research, Volume 2, (1st ed., p. 709-729). Copyright 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

References American Cancer Society 2019. Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2019-2020. Atlanta: American Cancer Society, Inc. Andrew, M.B. & Le Rossignol, R. 2017. Autoethnographic writing inside and outside the academy and ethics. Writing & Pedagogy, 9(2):225–249. DOI: 10.1558/wap.27739 Becker, E. 1973. The Denial of Death. New York, NY: The Free Press. Berg, L.V. & Trujillo, N. 2008. Cancer and Death: A Love Story in Two Voices. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Billig, M. 2013. Learn to Write Badly: How to Succeed in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139208833 Bochner, A.P. 2012. On first-person narrative scholarship: autoethnography as acts of meaning. Narrative Inquiry, 22(1):155–164. DOI: 10.1075/ni.22.1.10boc Bochner, A.P. 2014. Coming to Narrative: A Personal History of Paradigm Change in the Human Sciences. New York, NY: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315432090 Bochner, A.P. 2016. Coming to Narrative: a Personal History of Paradigm Change in the Human Sciences. London: Routledge. Bochner, A. & Adams, T. 2020. Autoethnography as applied communication. In The Handbook of Applied Communication Research: Volume 2, edited by H.D. O’Hair, M.J. O’Hair, E.B. Hester & S. Geegan. 1st edition. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.:709–729. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781119399926 Bochner, A.P. & Ellis, C. 2016a. Evocative Autoethnography: Writing Lives and Telling Stories. New York, NY: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315545417 Bochner, A.P. & Ellis, C. 2016b. The ICQI and the rise of autoethnography: solidarity through community. International Review of Qualitative Research, 9(2):208–217. DOI: 10.1525/irqr.2016.9.2.208 Booth-Butterfield, M., Wanzer, M.B., Weil, N. & Krezmien, E. 2014. Communication of humour during bereavement: intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion management strategies. Communication Quarterly, 62(4):436–454. DOI: 10.1080/01463373. 2014.922487 Butler, S. & Rosenblum, B. 1991. Cancer in Two Voices. Duluth, MN: Brill. Chancellor, R. & Lee, S. 2016. Storytelling, oral history, and building the library community. Storytelling, Self, Society, 12(1):39–54. DOI: 10.13110/storselfsoci.12.1.0039 Chang, H. 2008. Autoethnography as Method. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. DOI: 10.4324/9781315433370 Chu, H. & Ke, Q. 2017. Research methods: what’s in the name? Library & Information Science Research, 39(4):284–294. DOI: 10.1016/j.lisr.2017.11.001 Clarke, R.I. 2018. How we done it good: research through design as a legitimate methodology for librarianship. Library & Information Science Research, 40(3–4):255–261. DOI: 10.1016/j.lisr.2018.09.007

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Conte, T.M. 2014. The lived experience of work-related loss and grief among paediatric oncology nurses. Journal of Hospice & Palliative Nursing, 16(1):40–46. DOI: 10.1097/ NJH.0000000000000019 Curtin, N. & Garrison, M. 2018. “She was more than a friend”: clinical intervention strategies for effectively addressing disenfranchised grief issues for same-sex couples. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, 30(3):261–281. DOI: 10.1080/10538720.2018.1463885 Denzin, N.K. 1997. Interpretive Ethnography: Ethnographic Practices for the 21st Century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. DOI: 10.4135/9781452243672 Denzin, N. & Lincoln, Y.S. (eds.) 2000. The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. 2nd edition edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. DeSalvo, L.A. 1999. Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives. Boston, Mass: Beacon Press. Ellis, C. 2004. The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel About Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Ellis, C. 2017. Compassionate research: interviewing and storytelling from a relational ethics of care. In The Routledge International Handbook on Narrative and Life History, edited by I. Goodson, A. Antikainen, P. Sikes & M. Andrews. London, England: Routledge:431–445. Ellis, C., Adams, T.E. & Bochner, A.P. 2011. Autoethnography: an overview. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 12(1):273–290. Ellis, C. & Bochner, A.P. (eds.) 1996. Talking over ethnography. In Composing Ethnography: Alternative Forms of Qualitative Writing. Lanham, MD: Rowman Altamira:13–45. Ellis, C. & Bochner, A.P. 2000. Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: researcher as subject. In Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by N.K. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln. 2nd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage:733–768. Esty, A. 2017. Admitting what I don’t know: an autoethnographic study of teaching, fear, and uncertainty. In The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship, edited by A.M. Deitering, R. Stoddart & R. Schroeder. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association:23–47. Freeman, M. 2009. Hindsight: The Promise and Peril of Looking Backward. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Geertz, C. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Ghesquiere, A. & Bagaajav, A. 2020. “We take care of people; What happens to us afterwards?”: Home health aides and bereavement care in hospice. OMEGA-Journal of Death and Dying, 80(4):615–628. DOI: 10.1177/0030222818754668 Goodall, H.L. 2000. Writing the New Ethnography. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Guzik, E. 2013. Representing ourselves in information science research: a methodological essay on autoethnography. Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 37(4):267–283. DOI: 10.1353/ils.2013.0025 Hendrigan, H. 2017. Naturals with a microphone: oral history and the librarian skillset. In ACRL 2017 Conference Proceedings. Baltimore: ALA:453–460. Hyde, M.J. 2010. Perfection: Coming to Terms With Being Human. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press. Jackson, M. 1995. At Home in the World. Durham: Duke University Press. DOI: 10.1215/9780822396123 Klain-Gabbay, L. & Shoham, S. 2016. Scholarly communication and academic librarians. Library & Information Science Research, 38(2):170–179. DOI: 10.1016/j.lisr.2016.04.004 Kübler-Ross, E. & Kessler, D. 2005. On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

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Kuhn, T. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Li, C.H., Karantza, V., Aktan, G. & Lala, M. 2019. Current treatment landscape for patients with locally recurrent inoperable or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer: a systematic literature review. Breast Cancer Research, 21(1):Article 143. DOI: 10.1186/ s13058-019-1210-1214. Lichtenthal, W.G., Burke, L.A. & Neimeyer, R.A. 2011. Religious coping and meaningmaking following the loss of a loved one. Counseling and Spirituality, 30(2):113–135. Lyotard, J.F., 1984. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Translated by G. Bennington & B. Massumi). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Marcus, G. & Fischer, M. 1986. Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Mariotto, A.B., Etzioni, R., Hurlbert, M., Penberthy, L. & Mayer, M. 2017. Estimation of the number of women living with metastatic breast cancer in the United States. Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention Biomarkers, 26(6):809–815. DOI: 10.1158/10559965.EPI-16-0889 Maxwell, P. & Perrine, J. 2016. The problem of god in the presence of grief: exchanging “stages” of healing for “trajectories” of recovery. Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care, 9(2):176–193. DOI: 10.1177/193979091600900204 Michels, D.H. 2010. The place of the person in LIS research: an exploration in methodology and representation. The Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 34(2):161–183. DOI: 10.1353/ils.0.0001 Miller, K.D., Nogueira, L., Mariotto, A.B., Rowland, J.H., Yabroff, K.R., Alfano, C.M., Jemal, A., Kramer, J.L. & Siegel, R.L. 2019. Cancer treatment and survivorship statistics, 2019. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, 69(5):363–385. DOI: 10.3322/ caac.21565 Morrison, K.L. 2017. Informed asset-based pedagogy: coming correct, counter-stories from an information literacy classroom. Library Trends, 66(2):176–218. DOI: 10.1353/ lib.2017.0034 Patin, B. 2015. Through hell and high water: a librarian’s autoethnography of community resilience after Hurricane Katrina. MediaTropes, 5(2):58–83. Pohlkamp, L., Kreicbergs, U. & Sveen, J. 2019. Bereaved mothers’ and fathers’ prolonged grief and psychological health 1 to 5 years after loss—A nationwide study. PsychoOncology, 28(7):1530–1536. DOI: 10.1002/pon.5112 Richardson, L. & St. Pierre, E.A. 2008. Writing: a method of inquiry. In Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials: Volume 3, edited by N.K. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln. London: Sage Publications:473–499. Rorty, R. 1982. Consequences of Pragmatism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Schwartz, L.E., Howell, K.H. & Jamison, L.E. 2018. Effect of time since loss on grief, resilience, and depression among bereaved emerging adults. Death Studies, 42(9):537–547. DOI: 10.1080/07481187.2018.1430082 Stein, C.H., Petrowski, C.E., Gonzales, S.M., Mattei, G.M., Majcher, J.H., Froemming, M.W., Greenberg, S.C., Dulek, E.B. & Benoit, M.F. 2018. A matter of life and death: understanding continuing bonds and post-traumatic growth when young adults experience the loss of a close friend. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 27(3):725–738. DOI: 10.1007/s10826-017-0943-x Sveen, J., Eilegård, A., Steineck, G. & Kreicbergs, U. 2014. They still grieve—A nationwide follow‐up of young adults 2–9 years after losing a sibling to cancer. Psycho‐ Oncology, 23(6):658–664. DOI: 10.1002/pon.3463

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Ullah, A. & Ameen, K. 2018. Account of methodologies and methods applied in LIS research: a systematic review. Library & Information Science Research, 40(1):53–60. DOI: 10.1016/j.lisr.2018.03.002 Werner-Lin, A. & Biank, N.M. 2009. Along the cancer continuum: integrating therapeutic support and bereavement groups for children and teens of terminally ill cancer patients. Journal of Family Social Work, 12(4):359–370. DOI: 10.1080/ 10522150903321314 Winkler, I. 2018. Doing autoethnography: facing challenges, taking choices, accepting responsibilities. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(4):236–247. DOI: 10.1177/1077800417728956

4 ANALYTIC AUTOETHNOGRAPHY Ina Fourie

Introduction Following the initial move towards autoethnographic research and growing interest in evocative autoethnography, the sociologist, Leon Anderson (2006a,b), became concerned about the growing popularity of evocative autoethnography and that its strong focus on emotion might overshadow other possibilities to benefit from deeply personal research involvement. He introduced a new interpretation in 2006 which he labelled “analytic autoethnography.” Since 2006 analytic autoethnography has developed into a popular qualitative research method, albeit a method that has also often been subject to criticism. Although analytic autoethnography developed as a counter approach to the criticism raised against evocative autoethnography, it faced challenges of its own. This chapter will cover Anderson’s rationale and initial arguments and how analytic autoethnography has found its way into autoethnographic research and its potential for libraries and information science. It will note the debate on analytic versus evocative autoethnography, but without arguing for one method over the other, or repeating discussion from Chapter 3. Both autoethnographic methods hold value and should be used appropriately. The characteristics of analytic autoethnography and how it can be aligned to other methods of qualitative data analysis and theories and especially critical reflexive action research are also sketched in this chapter.

Background to the approach by Anderson When introducing analytic autoethnography in 2006, Anderson (2006a:373) first argued for a sub-genre of ethnography, namely reality ethnography that is more closely related to qualitative research methods and that falls in the analytic

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ethnographic paradigm: “… autoethnographic inquiry, which has been advocated primarily in recent years as a radically nontraditional, poststructuralist form of research, actually fits well with traditional symbolic interactionist ethnography” (Anderson 2006a:391). Although he acknowledged the work done with evocative autoethnography and how scholars positioned and argued for evocative autoethnography, he felt that there is also a need for an interpretation of autoethnography that is closer to work that is done in ethnography and more traditional research approaches. Although Anderson’s suggestion met with much debate and criticism, analytic autoethnography is now fully part of the autoethnography spectrum that is also acknowledged by others such as Hughes and Pennington (2016). In his initial argument Anderson (2006a:373) explained: The current discourse on this genre of research [autoethnography] refers almost exclusively to “evocative autoethnography” that draws upon postmodern sensibilities and whose advocates distance themselves from realist and analytic ethnographic traditions. The dominance of evocative autoethnography has obscured recognition of the compatibility of autoethnographic research with more traditional ethnographic practices. Anderson was concerned that evocative autoethnography due to its more emotional appeal will leave no room for other ways of autoethnography. A strong divide between analytic and evocative autoethnography and fear that it will encompass other forms of autoethnography can thus be noted in the initial arguments of Anderson (2006a,b), Burnier (2006) and Ellis and Bochner (2006) – the latter being leading advocates for evocative autoethnography. The debate gradually developed into more tolerant viewpoints. As will be shown, both analytic and evocative autoethnography as well as collaborative autoethnography (cf Chapter 5) are in fact needed and a choice between these will depend on the context and purpose of a study (Bell 2011; Borders & Giordano 2016; Fleming & Nicholson 2013; Williams & bin Zaini 2016) as well as the personal style, preferences and skills of the researcher. Not everybody can write evocative autoethnography; this does not mean that they cannot do analytic autoethnographic research. Evocative autoethnography requires considerable narrative and expressive skills—exemplified in carefully crafted prose, poetry and performances (Anderson 2006a:377). Sometimes, however, one method can supplement the other when combined.

What is analytic autoethnography? Initially, Anderson (2006a:373) explained analytic autoethnography by focusing on its characteristics, namely: the researcher must be a full member in the research group or research setting; the researcher’s visibility must be clear in

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published texts (unlike evocative autoethnography analytic autoethnography is not presented in art forms such as dancing or singing); and the researcher must commit to developing theoretical understandings of broader social phenomena. In further explanations, it became clear that there must also be clear evidence of considering the voices of others such as other people in the research setting or the literature – work by other autoethnographers or findings from studies applying other methodologies. Five features, closely related to the three characteristics, distinguish analytic autoethnography from other types of autoethnography (Anderson 2006a): a. Complete member researcher (CMR) status (similar to the first characteristic): as a complete member, the autoethnographic researcher is part of the group or subculture in the social community under study at least for significant periods of time in order to enable the researcher to document and analyse findings, observations and interpretations and to purposively engage with this. Such a members’ orientations and interpretations can be influenced by role expectations in the setting. When emerged or partially emerged in the setting, there might be more interest and incentive to complete the research, but at the same time, it might become more difficult to stay focused and not to be side tracked by “insider meanings” from others who are part of the community being studied. It is the researcher’s task and responsibility to consider the values, beliefs, attitudes, interpretations and feelings of other members of the community. This should lead to broader social understandings and enriched self-understanding. A further requirement would be to also draw from the literature and to compare with findings and experiences reported by others. b. Analytic reflectivity (i.e., showing awareness of connection to the research situation and effect on the situation) is an important feature. It applies to the mutual informativity of autoethnographic work. The researcher is expected to engage in reflexive social analysis and self-analysis and to ensure that the researcher is seen as visible, active and reflexively engaged in the text. Analytic autoethnography is thus about more than self-analysis, but requires critical engagement, reflection, analytic reflectivity and reflexive analysis of the social setting under study and a wider body of literature. c. Narrative visibility of the researcher’s self (similar to the second characteristic): it is an absolute requirement for the researcher to be seen as visible and active in the text. The researcher must clearly and explicitly acknowledge the ways in which he/she participated and made sense of the experiences and findings. The researcher should not be seen as more than a detached observer in ethnographic texts, but as a central and highly visible social actor within the written text. The researcher must be seen by a reader as somebody who reflexively assess their way of participation. d. Dialogue with informants to go beyond the self to show how social understandings are reproduced and relations transformed. As the researcher is confronted

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with self-related issues at every part of the research project, it is potentially possible to fall into self-absorption and too much focus on the self. Selfabsorbed digression must be avoided at all cost. It is therefore essential for researchers to share dialogue that goes beyond themself, such as dialogue with others in the setting. e. Commitment to theoretical analysis and an analytic agenda (similar to the third characteristic): not all observation and ethnographic writing is explicitly or self-consciously analytic or committed to addressing general theoretical issues. Analytic autoethnography must intentionally commit to draw from theoretical insight and analysis and to work towards theoretical development. In later work such as Maydell, it is observed (2010) how analytic autoethnography can be aligned with theories such as social constructionism, psychoanalytic theory and positioning theory and qualitative techniques of analysis such as thematic analysis. Awareness of context relevant theories would also be essential for librarians embarking on analytic autoethnography. The most definitive feature of analytic autoethnography is the value-added quality of truthfully rendering the social world under investigation and transcending from the specific situation under discussion to broader generalisation of findings and interpretations (Anderson 2006a) without committing to find “undebatable conclusions” (Ellis & Bochner 2000:744). Articles reporting on analytic autoethnographic work make a point to clearly address the three characteristics and five features. A good example is Thompson (2015:429) who used culturally responsive pedagogies as conceptual research framework to explore a journey as a culturally responsive music teacher within the context of a correctional facility: I was certainly curious about Dwayne’s compositional process, but I became more interested in learning what Dwayne’s sampling choices uncovered about the multiple aspects of his identity and musical preferences. Sampling, in this sense, served not only as an important technique for music composition, but also as a means to better understand… Throughout the article the literature is cited, voices of the youth are included and observations are compared with the findings from other studies to move beyond the experiences of an individual teacher. Although much has been learned by Thompson (2015) about cultural competence in reaching out to youth in the contexts of correctional services, it is admitted that there is much more to learn. Thus, opening the door for other autoethnographic researchers to follow.

Debate on analytic autoethnography Anderson’s (2006a,b) arguments for analytic autoethnography, met with positive reaction as well as deep criticism and ongoing argumentation on the extent to

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which autoethnographers should embrace post-structural sensibilities or whether they should create emotional resonance and avoid the notion “to abstract and explain” (Ellis & Bochner 2000:744) and even whether analytic autoethnography is really offering anything different. For some, similar to Anderson (2006a,b), the debate was about the right way to conduct autoethnography. Atkinson (2006:403) warns against the assumption that self-transformation is the main outcome of autoethnographic research and that researchers should remember that “others” should always remain more significant than the researchers documenting their own experiences. The warning is again that the connection with others and incorporating research with a larger group should be evident in all research reports. On entering the debate, Denzin (2006:420) aptly captured the confusion between the different lines of arguments raised at the time: Apples and oranges—are we dealing with two different things? Leon wants to use analytic reflexivity to improve theoretical understandings. Stacy wants to change the world. Carolyn wants to embed the personal in the social. Tami Spry’s self-narratives critique the social situatedness of identity. Mark wants to “democratize the representational sphere of culture” by writing outward from the self to the social. Are we in parallel or separate universes? Who is talking to whom? It’s déjà vu all over again. Initially, some experts on evocative autoethnography had strong reactions such as Ellis and Bochner (2006:431): The fact is that when I read Leon’s article, I become a detached spectator. I become only a head, cut off from my body and emotions. There’s no personal story to engage me. Knowledge and theory become disembodied words on the page and I lose connection. I want to linger in the world of experience, you know, feel it, taste it, sense it, live in it; but Leon wants to use the world of experience primarily as a vehicle for exercising his head. Anderson’s initial arguments did receive more acknowledgement from collaborative autoethnographers (Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez 2013:20) and gradually even strong opponents of either type of autoethnography became more open to different points of few – even Anderson. In later work (Anderson & Glass-Coffin 2013:67), he admitted how he over time became more nuanced in his understanding of autoethnography and learned to respect other points of view: “I do so today with a greater sense of blurred boundaries as opposed to clear distinctions.” There are also some who do not regard analytic and evocative autoethnography as conflicting and competing approaches. Tullis (2013) argues for a continuum ranging from evocative to analytic and Colyar (2013) and Learmonth and Humphreys (2012) make a case for both the use of evocative more emotionally focused autoethnography and analytic autoethnography more

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focused on analysis and theorising. Hughes and Pennington (2016) also give credit to different types of autoethnography. This does not mean that evocative autoethnography does not allow analysis or consider theories and it also does not mean that analytic autoethnography does not address emotions. Evocative and analytic autoethnography do not need to be mutually exclusive and can actually be combined (Learmonth & Humphreys 2012). This is a point of view that I support. Analytic autoethnography can include elements of evocative writing – even a full story or just glimpses such as “An invitation to sit with me [Lisa Spinazola]” (Chapter 3) – but the five features should also be explicitly addressed. Debates are ongoing and there are always new suggestions for both evocative and analytic autoethnography. Gariglio (2019) even add images as fantasy and visual moments to the spectrum of autoethnography. In addition to the debate arguments, it must be admitted that the difference in how the two types of autoethnography are portrayed, the application and the support available might influence researchers’ choices. Analytic ethnography is (merely) presented as a different type of research methodology which Anderson (2006a) originally presented as a specialised sub-genre of analytic ethnography. Reading arguments on analytic autoethnography reminds me more of the arguments typically found for methods of qualitative research such as narratives and storytelling … and ethnography. A methodology with very specific requirements as set out in the characteristics and features. It is a research method with no explicit link to emotion and therapeutic value. (Although these in my opinion are not excluded, they are not driving points.) Evocative autoethnography on the other hand is presented with passion and extensive experience in writing and especially on how to apply the skilful art of writing. It appeals to many researchers, partially because of its very nature to allow for intense emotional expression, creativity as well as for the therapeutic value. Chapter 3 offers an excellent example – “Evoking is as evoking does” by Lisa Spinazola, Carolyn Ellis and Arthur (Art) Bochner. There is also a wealth of excellent books and other material on how to write evocative autoethnography. The passion of leading evocative researchers is strongly visible in their work and especially their books and the craftily writing that draws the reader into the story. Good examples are Bochner and Ellis (2016). For me it is fascinating and deeply rewarding to read evocative autoethnographic work, but by nature, it is also easy for me to see the value of analytic autoethnography and how personal experience and the stories, words and experiences of others can be combined with systematised reviews of the literature, Brenda Dervin’s sense-making methodology as described by Christine Urquhart and Louise Lam in Chapter 8 as well as critical reflexive action research (CRAR) as discussed by Hughes and Pennington (2016). All methodological approaches have their strengths and limitations, and researchers need knowledge of the research method as well as self-knowledge of their strengths and abilities and they must be able to find a fit for the context and purpose of their research. Researchers must acquaint themselves with research

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skills in general and the requirements for the method. Regardless of choices between different types of autoethnographic types, all researchers can be very productive in producing work with impact. Researchers should be competent in using more than one method; their strength will be in finding the best fit. Analytic autoethnography might be less prominent in the literature on autoethnography since output is very often limited to a single project or maybe two or three. A search on Amazon.com did not show a single title with the words “analytic autoethnography.” In contrast, prominent evocative autoethnographers often present many examples of their work – books and articles. Ellis, Bochner, Rambo, Berry, Shakespeare, Gingrich-Philbrook, Adams…Bolen (2018), for example, offer an excellent example of different evocative voices in revisiting experiences in their paper titled “Coming unhinged: a twice-told multivoiced autoethnography.”

Contexts where analytic autoethnography has been used Due to limited availability of literature from a library and information science perspective, this chapter will draw on examples of analytic autoethnography from other fields and applications such as postgraduate supervision (Henderson 2018), strategies for finding a balance in work (Cohen, Duberley & Musson 2009), family and serious leisure life (Anderson 2011), self, identity and truly becoming a member of a chosen society (Bell 2011), prison officers (Gariglio 2019), subsistence markets and the conception of third space, blending, resistance and negotiation (DeBerry-Spence 2010), social anxieties (Pheko 2018), chronic illness (Willis 2011), value in teaching (Woolf 2017) and motherhood (GeistMartin, Gates, Wiering, Kirby, Houston, Lilly, Moreno 2010). In his example of an analytic autoethnographic project on balancing work, life and leisure, Anderson (2011:154) makes the following remark: But nuances and limitations of my personal experience notwithstanding, the analysis here does speak to social phenomena broader than just my own life. First, I have drawn significantly on the experiences and comments of other skydivers to demonstrate that my experience is not unique… In short, I believe the challenges in pursuing skydiving that I have described here are widespread in other serious leisure pursuits as well. Borders and Giordano (2016:462) report on an analytic autoethnography using co-constructed narrative studies. They argue that “cross-cultural supervision dyads and triads are needed to identify the cultural elements that influence beginning supervisors’ work, the epiphanies that propel them to action around multicultural issues, and the supervisory interventions that support their development.” DeBerry-Spence (2010:608) argues for the need for academics to write and live theory, and to examine both the orientation of a scholar and the social world. In doing this, additional platforms are opened up for giving voice to the

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marginalised, while also doing more comprehensive theorising and taking on more responsibility as citizens. Authors doing analytic autoethnography always or almost always explain how the characteristics and features stated by Anderson (2006a) apply and how their research meets with the requirements of analytic autoethnography. Struthers (2014:183) wrote from a background as a lecturer and mental health nurse and argues the value of analytic autoethnography as self-study that can both assist self-development through cognitive reflective skills that allows for the review of values and beliefs that are found in memories, but that is also embedded in theory and sound research practices and methodology. In the context of the research topic, a parallel is drawn with mental health cognitive therapies: “The potential for cathartic insights increases the researcher’s empathy to shape appropriate responses to assist others to learn.” An analytic autoethnographic study allowed Willis (2011) to examine the impact of panic discourses on the experience of living with a highly feared HIV infection – a chronic disease. He touches on the aspects of the medicalisation of HIV, surveillance and governance of HIV-positive people and how self-care is affected by panic and whether what he refers to as emancipatory resistance, as well as hope and public health citizenship might have an impact on experiences of those who are chronically ill. It appeared that many other people experience similar lack of support from the wider society. “Support is an issue for all of us, and many of us have no one that gives us a lot of support. We get some support from our partners or spouses, from our pets, and from close friends” (Willis 2011:274).

Combination with other methods Due to the criticism raised against analytic autoethnography and the focus on critical analysis of data, analytic autoethnography lends itself well to combination with other methods such as critical reflexive action research (CRAR) (Hughes & Pennington 2016). Analytic autoethnography combined with action research can support the reflexivity, awareness and agency of practitioners involved with action research, as well as reflection on the complexities of self, and the other (i.e., experiencing self from another’s perspective) and context. Examples of such research include the work done by Acosta, Goltz and Goodson (2015) and Hughes and Pennington (2016). Acosta, Goltz and Goodson (2015:414) propose a methodological framework based on collaborative and analytic autoethnography in action research inquiry. They belief that this increases the rigour and trustworthiness of autoethnographic studies and opportunity for reflection, awareness, and agency: “Analytic autoethnography offers methodological transparency via ethnographic protocols (e.g., field notes, memoing). Coupled with this explicit methodology, collaborative autoethnography supports a dialogic— interactive—process where research team members discuss, reflect on, and interpret their findings.” Memoing refers to the recording of reflective notes about

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what the researcher is learning from the data – the written ideas about concepts and their relationships. In another example of analytic autoethnographic work, Maydell (2010) used social constructionism as the main theoretical foundation, as well as thematic analysis and positioning theory. Hughes and Pennington (2016) wrote an extensive chapter, citing many examples, in which they argue for the combination of autoethnography and also analytic autoethnography, with critically reflective action research. They explain: Consequently, the hybrid term autoethnography has come to be the favored name for a form of critical reflexive narrative inquiry, critical reflexive self-study, or critical reflexive action research in which the researcher takes an active, scientific, and systematic view of personal experience in relation to cultural groups identified by the researcher as similar to the self (i.e., us) or as others who differ from the self (i.e., them). It is precisely the hybridity of the genre that allows it to be applied as a stand-alone methodology as well as a complementary method for assembling data from the five traditional empirical approaches to qualitative research: phenomenology, ethnography, narrative inquiry, case study, and grounded theory. Hughes and Pennington 2016:el The detail of their arguments falls outside the scope of this chapter. Considering the different points of view, I can concur with the words of Winkler (2018:240): …I do not believe that disputing about the right way of conducting autoethnographic research and thereby campaigning for a paradigmatic battle does bring autoethnography anywhere. I favor multiple voices, hence, various approaches to autoethnography because they all have value and, of course, limitations. I can truly say: this is also my point of view.

Potential for libraries Analytic autoethnography might work well in libraries (both physical and digital) as spaces where services are offered to a very wide spectrum of people including highly sophisticated professionals, students and people in very vulnerable positions. It can also add great value to research in the academic discipline of information science (and also library science) to inform librarians’ work with immigrants and refugees, vulnerable communities requiring protection and support in rehabilitation and adaptation to society and the scope of research methods with which information scientists will experiment. Currently,

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the communities noted here are mostly studied through an information behaviour or information practice lens. Adding analytic autoethnographic approaches combined with other methods should enable librarians and information scientists to make a bigger difference in their commitment to social inclusion.

Conclusion Librarians and information scientists have many choices when opting for autoethnographic research. Analytic autoethnography might in particular be suitable if combined with elements of evocative autoethnography, systematic reviewing and action research – specifically critical reflective action research (Hughes & Pennington 2016).

References Acosta, S., Goltz, H.H. & Goodson, P. 2015. Autoethnography in action research for health education practitioners. Action Research, 13(4):411–430. DOI: 10.1177/ 1476750315573589 Anderson, L. 2006a. Analytic autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4):373–395. DOI: 10.1177/0891241605280449 Anderson, L. 2006b. On apples, oranges, and autopsies: a response to commentators. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4):450–465. DOI: 10.1177/0891241606287395 Anderson, L. 2011. Time is of the essence: an analytic autoethnography of family, work, and serious leisure. Symbolic Interaction, 34(2):133–157. DOI: 10.1525/si.2011.34.2.133 Anderson, L. & Glass-Coffin, B. 2013. I learn by going: autoethnographic modes of inquiry. In Handbook of Autoethnography, edited by S. Holman Jones, T.E. Adams & C. Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press:57–83. Atkinson, P. 2006. Rescuing autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4):400–404. DOI: 10.1177/0891241606286980 Bell, S. 2011. Illness metaphors, Japan’s “gaijin” race philosophy, and the formation of the self. Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 37:163–193. DOI: 10.1108/S01632396(2011)0000037010 Bochner, A.P. & Ellis, C. 2016. Evocative Autoethnography: Writing Lives and Telling Stories. New York, NY: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315545417 Borders, L.D. & Giordano, A.L. 2016. Confronting confrontation in clinical supervision: an analytical autoethnography. Journal of Counseling and Development, 94(4):454–463. DOI: 10.1002/jcad.12104 Burnier, D. 2006. Encounters with the self in social science research: a political scientist looks at autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4):410–418. DOI: 10.1177/0891241606286982 Chang, H., Ngunjiri, F. & Hernandez, K.-A.C. 2013. Collaborative Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. DOI: 10.4324/9781315432137 Cohen, L., Duberley, J. & Musson, G. 2009. Work – life balance? Journal of Management Inquiry, 18(3):229–241. DOI: 10.1177/1056492609332316 Colyar, J.E. 2013. Reflections on writing and autoethnography. In Handbook of Autoethnography, edited by S. Holman Jones, T.E. Adams & C. Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press:123–142.

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DeBerry-Spence, B. 2010. Making theory and practice in subsistence markets: an analytic autoethnography of MASAZI in Accra, Ghana. Journal of Business Research, 63(6):608–616. DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.02.024 Denzin, N.K. 2006. Analytic autoethnography, or déjà vu all over again. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4):419–428. DOI: 10.1177/0891241606286985 Ellis, C. & Bochner, A.P. 2000. Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: researcher as subject. In Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by N.K. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln. 2nd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage:733–768. Ellis, C.S. & Bochner, A.P. 2006. Analyzing analytic autoethnography - an autopsy. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4):429–449. DOI: 10.1177/0891241606286979 Ellis, C., Bochner, A.P., Rambo, C., Berry, K., Shakespeare, H., Gingrich-Philbrook, C., Adams, T.E., Rinehart, R.E. & Bolen, D.M. 2018. Coming unhinged: a twice-told multivoiced autoethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(2):119–133. DOI: 10.1177/1077800416684874 Fleming, D. & Nicholson, S. 2013. The contact sheet: combining evocative and analytic modes into visual autoethnography of the moment. Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 40:43–67. DOI: 10.1108/S0163-2396(2013)0000040006 Gariglio, L. 2019. Challenging prison officers’ discretion: “good reasons” to treat courteously mafiosi in custody in Italy. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 48(1):80–102. DOI: 10.1177/0891241617749012 Geist-Martin, P., Gates, L., Wiering, L., Kirby, E., Houston, R., Lilly, A. & Moreno, J. 2010. Exemplifying collaborative autoethnographic practice via shared stories of mothering. Journal of Research Practice, 6(1):Article M8. Available: http://jrp.icaap.org/ index.php/jrp/article/view/209/187 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https:// web.archive.org//web/20200711200130/http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/ view/209/187) [Accessed 02 November 2020] Henderson, E.F. 2018. Anticipating doctoral supervision: (not) bridging the transition from supervisee to supervisor. Teaching in Higher Education, 23(4):403–418. DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2017.1382466 Hughes, S.A. & Pennington, J.L. 2016. Autoethnography: Process, Product, and Possibility for Critical Social Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Learmonth, M. & Humphreys, M. 2012. Autoethnography and academic identity: glimpsing business school doppelgängers. Organization, 19(1):99–117. DOI: 10.1177/1350508411398056 Maydell, E. 2010. Methodological and analytical dilemmas in autoethnographic research. Journal of Research Practice, 6(1): Article M5. Available: http://jrp.icaap.org/ index.php/jrp/article/view/223/190 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https:// web.archive.org//web/20200715062818/http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/ view/223/190) [Accessed 02 November 2020] Pheko, M.M. 2018. Rumors and gossip as tools of social undermining and social dominance in workplace bullying and mobbing practices: a closer look at perceived perpetrator motives. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 28(4):449–465. DOI: 10.1080/10911359.2017.1421111 Struthers, J. 2014. Analytic autoethnography: one story of the method. International Perspectives on Higher Education Research, 10:183–202. DOI: 10.1108/S14793628(2014)0000010015 Thompson, J.D. 2015. Towards cultural responsiveness in music instruction with black detained youth: an analytic autoethnography. Music Education Research, 17(4):421–436. DOI: 10.1080/14613808.2014.930117

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Tullis, J.A. 2013. Self and others: ethics in autoethnographic research. In Handbook of Autoethnography, edited by S. Holman Jones, T.E. Adams & C. Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press:244–261. Williams, J.P. & bin Zaini, M.K.J. 2016. Rude boy subculture, critical pedagogy, and the collaborative construction of an analytic and evocative autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 45(1):34–59. DOI: 10.1177/0891241614549835 Willis, J. 2011. Panic at the discourse: episodes from an analytic autoethnography about living with HIV. Illness, Crisis, and Loss, 19(3):259–275. DOI: 10.2190/IL.19.3.e Winkler, I. 2018. Doing autoethnography: facing challenges, taking choices, accepting responsibilities. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(4):236–247. DOI: 10.1177/1077800417728956 Woolf, J. 2017. An analytical autoethnographical account of using inquiry-based learning in a graduate research methods course. Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 8(1):Article 5. DOI: 10.5206/cjsotl-rcacea.2017.1.5

5 COLLABORATIVE AUTOETHNOGRAPHY AS METHOD AND PRAXIS Understanding self and others in practice Kathy-Ann C. Hernandez

Introduction When I first began my sojourn in autoethnographic writing several years ago, I had no understanding of the path that I would travel. As a professor of research methods, I was primarily interested in understanding this evolving methodology and how it was positioned within the qualitative-quantitative continuum. Over the years, that primary function has been superseded by the ever-widening circle of possibilities for how autoethnographic work especially when it is done in community, as in collaborative autoethnography (CAE), is being used not only to advance understanding around sociocultural phenomenon but for the myriad ways in which this research method contributes to scholarship and practice. These include the following: creating supportive communities for personal and professional learning and development (Blalock & Akehi 2018; Longman, Chang & Loyd-Paige 2015), giving authentic and credible voice to intimate issues (Norwood 2018; TillmannHealy 2009), positioning multivocality as a critical part of social inquiry to advance theory (Ngunjiri, Chang & Hernandez 2017), challenging positivistic notions of what is truth and what is worth studying (Holman Jones, Adams & Ellis 2016), and building bridges across different disciplines. As a result of the seemingly endless possibilities of CAE as part research methods, part creative non-fiction writing and part strategy for learning and development, it is increasingly difficult to pinpoint where it fits as a genre in relation to the placement in library categories. In this chapter, I elaborate on the genesis of collaborative autoethnography (CAE) as a variant of solo autoethnographic approaches (SAE) in the field of qualitative research methods. I explain critical tenets, benefits and challenges of this approach to scholarly investigation and analysis as well as the possibilities

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it holds for the various fields of study and as a tool for community building, self-exploration and pedagogy.

AE/CAE tenets and positionality As has been already discussed in this book, autoethnographic work defies neat categorisation. As a response to positivistic approaches to social inquiry, qualitative research approaches have been embraced by scholars since the 1980s. However, the term autoethnography as an emerging and specific sub-category of qualitative approaches was first coined by the anthropologist, Hayano, in 1979 (Hayano, 1979). This way of knowing was grounded in the simple yet potent proposition that a deep understanding of social phenomenon resides in the individuals who are able to make sense of their own experiences. In the Handbook of Autoethnography, one of the most comprehensive sources on autoethnography as a research method (AE), the co-editors, identify three key characteristics of AE work namely: it is self-originated – based on insider self-knowledge; it is dialogical as researchers make sense of experiences with others and their various selves; and it is contextual in that the experiences of the researcher is understood as being embedded in a particular context (Holman Jones, Adams & Ellis 2016). SAE centres the work of a single individual as both researcher and participant in an interrogation of their “self-and/with others” or “self-in relation-to others” (Hernandez & Ngunjiri 2013). From its earliest beginnings, autoethnographic work was synonymous with solo work. AE merges three aspects of inquiry into self-study. Namely, autoethnographers place varying levels of emphasis on the self (auto), the research and writing process (graphy) and culture (ethno). The emphasis taken often reflects what is valued in the researcher’s disciplinary field. In addition, critical to the researcher’s positionality with these three areas of foci is the political stance that is embodied in the research method to disrupt “norms of research practice and representation” and “to work ‘from insider knowledge’” to explicate social phenomenon, and to situate these ways of knowing as valuable and legitimate approaches to inquiry (Holman Jones, Adams & Ellis 2016:32). The variant of SAE, CAE attempts to do the same in the company of others. CAE is autoethnographic work done in community. In the literature, a variety of terms have been used to describe this kind of multi-researcher AE. These include the term “duoethnography” (Norris & Sawyer 2016; Norris, Sawyer & Lund 2012), co-ethnography (McPhail-Bell & Redman-MacLaren 2019) and joint-autoethnography (Adamson & Muller 2018). In the published book of the self-same name, we (Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez 2013:24) use the term “collaborative autoethnography” and define it as “a qualitative research method in which researchers work in community to collect their autobiographical materials and to analyse and interpret these data collectively to gain a meaningful understanding of sociocultural phenomena reflective in

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their autobiographical data.” We also note several distinctions between SAE and CAE. SAE and CAE share common characteristics of being self-focused, context conscious, researcher visible and critically dialogic. In addition, in either an SAE or CAE approach, researchers can position their work along the evocativeanalytic continuum with implications for key features associated with such an alignment and how it will ultimately apply to practice. As an autoethnographer, I have appreciation for both evocative and analytical approaches, but I position my work as intentionally on the narrative interpretation (analytical) end. My work emphasises the research and writing process (graphy) of the autoethnography triad because it aligns itself with my disciplinary focus as a research methodologist in the field of leadership studies in the context of higher education.

CAE benefits and ethical challenges An analytical approach to SAE/CAE situates this research method as a useful and legitimate addition to qualitative approaches to social inquiry with potential benefits to various disciplinary fields. Whereas, both SAE and CAE afford an up-close and personal account of an issue under investigation, they are also susceptible to methodological challenges. First, an autoethnographic lens has often been critiqued as offering a too narrowed and myopic research focus that holds limited value for others outside the researcher’s experience. SAE or CAE that is aligned to more evocative perspectives have often been labelled as mere “navel-gazing,” the “academic selfie” (Campbell 2017) and the “millennial methodology”; as such, the work has often been dismissed by some as a self-serving solipsistic approach to social inquiry (Griffin & Griffin 2019). One of the advantages of CAE with an analytical focus is that it is responsive to such critiques due to its malleability to normative practices of credibility and dependability in research practice. In our own work (Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez 2013), we have been advocates for the use of CAE with a distinctive analytical focus across disciplines because of the unique and rich contribution that self-study can make to various fields of study, while at the same time fiercely guarding the epistemological base of this unique design. The clear analytical focus gives room for the methodology to be transferred with greater ease across various disciplines with attention to methodological rigour. For example, in 2012, the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the largest and most prestigious professional group in the field of education in the United States, provided guidelines for assessing autoethnographic research in line with AERA standards of methodological rigour across the field of education studies. The stated purpose of the article was “to move readers towards a deeper understanding of and widened respect for autoethnography’s capacity as an empirical endeavor.” To present an argument for “autoethnographic scholarship as credible and defensible empirical research” (Hughes, Pennington &

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Makris 2012:209). This was a critical move in providing a framework for scholars considering use of this methodology and for also extending the impact of autoethnographic work. CAE approaches also benefit from a deeper level of critical interpersonal dialogue and engagement that is absent from SAE. As researchers work in community to interrogate their shared experiences, a deeper level of engagement is engendered among participants and a deeper level of probing is experienced. For example, we used CAE to explore the phenomenon of sponsorship on the leadership development among sixteen emerging leaders of colour in higher education (Hernandez & Longman 2020). Over the course of the nine-month study, a variety of data were collected in the form of autoethnographic writings, monthly virtual focus groups and discussion boards. These data collection points provided opportunities for discussion and deeper elaboration on study themes. What was particularly interesting in these sessions was that participants were able to learn from the stories shared by others in the group, to find areas of commonality and difference in their experiences and to also challenge each other to engage in deep internal reflection about analysis (see for example Longman, Chang & Loyd-Paige 2015). The communal interrogation process was potent in yielding rich data for the study. However, in the study cited above and others referenced in this chapter, one of the persistent challenges to autoethnographic work is how best to tell our stories while protecting our intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships. As discussed in a later chapter on ethics in autoethnographic work (cf Chapter 7), there are some unique ethical challenges that attend AE work. However, there are some particular nuances to ethical issues in the context of CAE work. First, the issue of interrogating difficult personal struggles within a group context has the potential to magnify trauma for participants. This was the case in a CAE study conducted by Priddis (2015) in which she investigated the physical and emotional experiences of women who experience perineal trauma (third and fourth degree tears) during child birth. As the author and lead autoethnographer, she explained that during the study, she confronted “feelings of vulnerability, sadness, and emotional pain” (Priddis 2015:1). In effect, she experienced a reliving of her own trauma in the company of other women with similar experiences. It is important in such cases that researchers take intentional action to protect themselves and others by implementing best practice strategies for dealing with potential harm to participants (cf Ellis 2007; Hernandez & Ngunjiri 2013; Tolich 2010). The issue of relational ethics presents particular challenges. Relational ethics refer to “our obligations and responsibilities in protecting the identities and vulnerabilities of those involved or implicated in our studies” (Hernandez & Ngunjiri 2013:270). In my own work, I have grappled with these issues and used a variety of strategies to be attentive to these ethical dilemmas by choosing to omit details, and even create amalgam of individuals so that they are not easily identifiable. A few years ago, when I was co-editor of a special issue on CAE for

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the Journal of Research Practice, along with my co-editors, we worked closely with authors who struggled with relational ethics issues in their CAE piece of mothering. Through the study they were confronted with the reality that collaborating with others on this personal topic meant the “exposure of significant others as pivotal characters in [our] accounts” (as cited in Hernandez & Ngunjiri 2013). They questioned whether it was “ethical to share these stories that implicate them [participants], to an extent, without their consent” (as cited in Hernandez & Ngunjiri 2013). In the end, they made decisions about what to omit and how to reframe the article so that they could be mindful of the potential relationship cost to the work they were doing. In choosing to conduct and report on our autoethnographic work, we (Hernandez & Ngunjiri 2013:279) suggest that “the cost of our autoethnographic narratives must never be higher than the benefits to ourselves, others and the communities we represent.”

Analytical approaches to CAE Analytical approaches to AE/CAE align themselves with normative expectations of what constitutes rigour in social inquiry. As mentioned previously, the 2012 guidelines set forth by the American Educational Research Associations for assessing AE/CAE work provided some useful parameters for researchers interested in aligning their work with clear disciplinary rigour. They included four-set criteria. Firstly, that researchers were able to ground the research problem in the research literature relevant to the topic of study and with a view to making contributions to “either established or new knowledge and/or practical concerns” (Hughes, Pennington & Makris 2012:212). Secondly, that researchers provide a clear, critical and thoughtful discussion of “methodological choices and claims” with attention to issues of variety and type of data sources used, data collection and analysis strategies and ethical considerations relevant to research (Hughes, Pennington & Makris 2012:213). Thirdly, that such research employs many levels of critique and clear presentation around aspects of the conceptualisation of the study and analysis of the results. And fourthly, that findings are discussed relevant to the existent conversations around the topic, and in adherence to the ethical standards of the field. In the co-authored book Collaborative Autoethnography, we have also outlined different typologies for an analytical approach to CAE that relates to the extent of collaboration and the modes of collaboration. In full collaboration models, researchers contribute to all stages of the research process; in partial ­collaboration models, researchers may contribute to various but not all stages of the research process. In some cases of partial collaboration, one or more members of the CAE team may not share in the collective experience of the group, but may serve the team as lead methodologists facilitating the CAE study design, data collection and analysis. One of the earliest examples of this kind of collaboration model is the study by Ellis, Kiesinger and Tillmann-Healy (1997). In this study, Ellis served as lead autoethnographer, lending her methodological

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expertise to help the research participants investigate their experiences with bulimia which she herself had not experienced. Similarly, in a forthcoming publication, which investigated the role of sponsorship in the leadership development of 16 emerging leaders of colour (Hernandez & Longman 2020), I along with the 16 other participants contributed to the autobiographical data pool as emerging minority leaders. My co-principal (co-PI) was not an emerging leader, neither was she a person of colour. However, she was the lead organiser for the leadership development institute in which the study was embedded and worked alongside me to facilitate the process and provide resources to participants. While participants did contribute AE pieces from this study to another publication (Longman, Ash, Jun, Hernandez, Hernandez, Lloyd-Paige & Menjares 2017), only the co-PI and I worked together on the final report about the overall study. CAE studies also differ in the modes of collaboration. Researchers may opt to collect the data concurrently. In this approach, researchers write their autobiographic recollections independently and then share with other members of the group for further probing or group meaning making (cf, Cohen, Duberley & Musson 2009; Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez 2013). Concurrent modes of collaboration have the advantage of centring the voice and experience of individual researchers early in the research process without undue influence from the rest of the team. In sequential modes of collaboration, participants are given opportunities to contribute to the data pool one person at a time using, for example, a threaded discussion with a starting prompt. A benefit of this approach is that the combined voices of members create a group synergy and depth of thinking that may not be present in individual reflection (Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez 2013:45). In many cases, researchers may use a combination of both concurrent and sequential processes to collect the data capitalising on the strengths of both approaches (cf, Chang, Longman & Franco 2014).

CAE research and application Since its emergence in the field of qualitative research methods several years ago, CAE studies have been used in various fields of study taking on nuances specific to particular disciplinary foci. As a result, this amorphous, discipline boundary crossing approach to inquiry presents ongoing challenges as well as also opportunities for the investigation of relationships with a primary focus on self (intrapersonal) and/or others (interpersonal).

Intrapersonal focus Autoethnography offers researchers from various academic disciplines an opportunity to engage in critical inquiry into intrapersonal issues. These kinds of investigations involve intimate accounts of the relationship the individual (SAE) or group of individuals (CAE) have with their various selves. Whereas, those in

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the humanities have had space to explore these kinds of issues in artistic ways through narratives, poems and memoirs, for example, in the field of the social sciences, no such scholarly space existed for inquiry that involved relationships with our various selves. For disciplinary fields aligned with more positivistic paradigms, analytical approaches to SAE/CAE have added greatly to a deeper understanding of a systematic pathway to such investigations that continues to gain credibility across disciplines. The researcher/s follow specific protocols in line with best practices for credibility and dependability in research as well as attempts to hold the issue up for deeper scrutiny and insight. However, SAE/CAE that addresses the relationships we have with our various selves, spans the spectrum from evocative to analytical with combinations of both sometimes evident in a particular study. For example, Chatham-Carpenter’s presented a very intimate and evocative inquiry into how she was living with an eating disorder (Chatham-Carpenter 2010), and Norwood (2018) account of how the rebirth process from internalised racism to embrace her Blackness during her journey to embrace her naturally curly hair is both evocative and analytical. Norwood (2018) described her SAE as consistent with Spry’s approach to AE: “a critical-reflexive discourse that articulates the intersections of peoples, culture, and identity” (Norwood 2018:70). My own approach to understanding an emerging construction of Blackness after migrating to the United States from the Caribbean uses a similar approach as Norwood (Hernandez & Murray-Johnson 2015). In her piece, Norwood (2018) describes her journey as a movement from an old self that was “subjugated…., to a rebirth into a new, unknown self” (Norwood 2018:70). This study then celebrates her liberation or rebirth to the new self – it is a transformation. In explicating the journey towards transformation or understanding of the various selves, autoethnographers invite readers along for the journey of selfstudy. Depending on the orientation of the writer, whether analytical or evocative, these pieces give voice to internal human struggles with which readers can identify. It can be argued that the end result of evocative autoethnography to elicit an emotional response in the reader that complements cognitive understanding is a goal in and of itself in autoethnographic writing. However, for those aligned with more analytical approaches, deeply personal investigations are incomplete without a deeper grounding of the issue in a larger scholarly conversation within the specific disciplinary community, as well as, an adherence to best practices for social science research. Norwood’s (2018) piece blends narrative and analytical interpretation. Not only does she explicate her own journey, but she situates the discussion within existent discourse on internalised and institutional racism among the writings of Black feminist epistemologies such as Patricia Hill Collins (2010) and bell hooks (2000). This is very much the kind of analytical CAE work that I have done with colleagues in examining the relationships we have with our various selves (cf Hernandez & Murray-Johnson 2015; Hernandez, Ngunjiri & Chang 2015).

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Interpersonal focus In as much as autoethnographic inquiry celebrates the self, this kind of inquiry is inextricably linked to others. Our experiences are in relation to others; this is the intersubjective aspect of human relationships. As Prus (1996:2) notes, human life is the “product of community” life. Even attempts to focus on the intrapersonal relationships we have with our various selves inevitably include others. Therefore, it is more accurate to describe an AE as has having a primary focus – the prominence of an interpersonal focus relative to an intrapersonal focus as existing along a continuum. In some works, the primary focus of the autoethnography is the interrogation of a relationship in which the author/s are investigating a relationship with another. Carolyn Ellis’ seminal evocative piece, Maternal Connections (Ellis 1996), for example, looks at her changing relationship with her aging mother. Richardson (2007) wrote about her experiences coming to terms with the death of her friend; Geist-Martin, Gates, Wiering, Kirby, Houston, Lilly and Moreno (2010) conducted a CAE in which they reflected on their own individual relationships with their mothers and mothering looking for areas of convergence and divergence in their shared experiences. In the communal context of CAE, the exploration of a selected topic with a focus on the relationships we have with others also adds different methodological and ethical dimensions to the study. From a methodological perspective, whether we intend to or not our stories implicate others with whom we are connected as willing or unwilling participants in our study. Our decision to tell the story of our relationship with them in itself privileges our perspective above theirs, and they are not present to refute or confront it. Similarly, in the context of group sharing and data collection, we risk exposing our relationship with intimate others to members of the research team and to the public. At the same time, the willingness to be vulnerable and to share with others intimate details of our private lives can be remarkably liberating to others, thus freeing them to be just as open and honest. In this way, we are able to extract the essence of lived experiences. However, from an ethical perspective, decisions must be made about how much to share or not share when it involves our relational ties to others. Moreover, we might face negative repercussion for “truth telling” from our perspective when it portrays others with whom we are connected in unflattering ways. This was the case for Lisa William-White as she later reported (William-White 2011) when her co-authored publication (Brown & William-White 2010) on her experiences with institutional racism in her university context was published. She described the animosity with which she was treated within her institutional context as a kind of public heading. Without a doubt, AE/CAE positions researchers to share their own experiences in relation to others balancing the requirements of truth against fidelity to relational ties and ethics to protect themselves and those who might be implicated in their study.

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Practical utility of CAE across disciplines The scope of applications of SAE/CAE in practice is limitless. It is practically impossible to provide an exhaustive list of the scope here, so I will limit my discussion to three areas: a tool for community building, professional leader and follower development in community, and pedagogical applications.

CAE and community building As might be expected, CAE lends itself well to community building. What is interesting is that often community building has emerged as one of the salient findings of a CAE investigation even though it was often not a purpose of the study at the outset. My own initial beginnings with CAE were with a team of two other autoethnographers (Heewon Chang and Faith Ngunjiri). Through the process of learning together, we have come to understand more about our individual selves as well as the communal self that evolved through our many autoethnographic explorations (Hernandez, Chang & Ngunjiri 2017). With respect to the latter, we have developed a community identity as researchers committed to advancing autoethnographic inquiry into the leadership experiences of people of colour like us who are often situated in institutional paces where they are in the minority (Hernandez, Ngunjiri, & Chang 2015). In community, we have learned to speak and write with a CAE voice that simultaneously celebrates our commonalities as well as the multivocal range of our individual identities (Hernandez, Chang & Ngunjiri 2017). Many examples of the community building aspect of CAE exist in the literature. Lapadat, Black, Clark, Gremm, Karanja, Mieke and Quinlan (2010) experienced this kind of synergy when they first started to do collaborative research as part of a class project. This beginning resulted in the cultivation of a community of practice that continued to work together beyond the class to produce several articles (Lapadat 2009; Lapadat, Bryant, Burrows, Greenlees, Alexander, Marcil, Nelson …Hill 2009; Lapadat, Black, Clark, Gremm, Karanja, Mieke & Quinlan 2010). Similarly, when I began an almost year-long CAE study with a colleague several years ago to explore the influence of mentorship and “sponsorship” (Hewlett 2013) as potentially important relationships in leadership development, we found that the CAE process of shared community building that had taken place over the course of the study had evolved as a catalyst for creating a relational dynamic as potent as the targeted areas of mentorship and sponsorship. Thus, in keeping with the emergent nature of qualitative inquiry, we reframed our research questions to explore both the value of engaging in a sponsorship relationship as well as discussing the tremendous benefits that these leadership practitioners experienced in their personal and professional development through the collaborative autoethnographic process itself (Longman, Hernandez & Robalino 2016). Now, several years out from that study, group members continue to stay connected and supportive of each other and their professional development journeys.

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CAE and leadership and followership development In the field of leadership studies, CAE is emerging as a praxis tool specifically for the professional development of leaders and followers. As with the previous studies cited above, in a collaborative autoethnography designed to explore how 14 academic and administrative leaders of colour working together experienced personal and professional mentoring for leadership development, the researchers found that the collaborative autoethnography process also unexpectedly provided professional mentoring opportunities for these leaders of colour (Chang, Longman & Franco 2014). It is no surprise that in their review of autoethnographic studies in leadership over the last several years, including the one mentioned above, Chang, the author of Autoethnography as Method, and her co-author Bilgen (Chang & Bilgen, 2020) argue the following: Autoethnographic process does not need to lead to the production of a publishable research article. Instead, the self-initiated, dialogical, and contextual process may be utilized to help current and aspiring leaders analyze and interpret their leader identity and leadership development paths; their relationship with followers, peers, and superiors in the workplace; and the influence and impact of organizational contexts of their leadership effectiveness. As such, CAE has great potential for use in leadership development programs. The number of leadership studies employing autoethnographic methods continues to grow. Chang and Bilgen (2020) provide a useful heuristic for categorising this growing collection of studies into three broad areas. Several of these studies have focused on the intrapersonal dynamics of the researchers’ own leadership experiences and/or identity development (cf Carroll & Levy 2010; Haslam & Reicher 2016; Ibarra, Ely & Kolb 2013). Other studies have focused on the interpersonal dynamics of leadership, namely, the leader-follower relationship (cf Kempster & Gregory 2017; Malin & Hackmann 2016). A third category of studies turns the autoethnographic lens on the organisational contexts in which the leader exists and how it is implicated in their self-identity and/or leadership practice (cf Doloriert & Sambrook 2011; Learmonth & Humphreys 2012). What all these studies have in common is “a rigorous application of critical self-reflexivity, narrative construction and meaning-making with respect to leaders’ experiences across disciplines, organizations, cultural contexts and identity categories” (Chang & Bilgen 2020).

CAE as a pedagogical tool CAE is well-suited to be employed as a pedagogical tool aligned to course objectives. It is especially relevant in fields of practice where self-reflection is critical. Coia and Taylor (2009) used it as a strategy in helping pre-service teachers

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become reflective practitioners in the community with others. They described the process of sharing their stories and the stories of the pre-service teachers in their course to be able to collectively navigate crises that occur with teaching in practice. They suggest that a full apprehension of the meaning of reflective teaching practice is best done in community. Certainly, CAE is able to offer both a systematic process for self-reflection and to situate such reflections in community. CAE has also been used as a very accessible research method to immerse graduate students in the study of qualitative methods. My colleague, Heewon Chang, uses it every semester to involve students in a collaborative research project where the collection of data is readily available to students from their own memory bank. Students write personal memory pieces, they interview each other in pairs or small groups, form research teams of three or four members around similar interests or background, then each team further extends their research project by interviewing other participants who meet the sample criteria. The pool of autobiographic data which the team collects is then used to teach students about qualitative data analysis and interpretation. Based on this CAE immersion experience, Chang has noted that “the pedagogical model of CAE combined with the interview method, not only give students hands on experience with the qualitative research process but also valuable lessons on ethical considerations regarding both participants and researchers” (Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez 2013:138). Students from this class have gone on to present their work at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (cf, Asenavage-Loptes 2012). Lapadat (2009) has also used CAE in a similar way to teach a qualitative research methods class. She, along with her former students, went on to publish some of this work (Lapadat, Black, Clark, Gremm, Karanja, Mieke & Quinlan 2010). In reflecting on the efficacy of CAE to teach qualitative research methods, she wrote “Learning by doing is an immediate, powerful way to learn and it demystifies processes of qualitative research” (Lapadat 2009:975).

CAE past and future directions Solo autoethnographic and collaborative authoethnographic work are useful and valuable additions to the field of social inquiry with significant implications for scholarship and practice both inside and outside the academy. Within the academy, autoethnographic methods have given researchers opportunities through scholarship to “out” themselves – to unapologetically bring to the forefront the stories and motivations behind their work. My own early research, emerged out of my observations as a community college professor, of the ways in which my gendered pedagogy was unconsciously privileging female students’ ways of knowing in the classroom. Yet, there was no space in my scholarship for me to tell this story. Later, as I was introduced to AE, I could finally share this important starting point in my journey as a scholar and

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detail the progression from this early research desire to an ongoing quest to more fully understand how the intersection of gender and race/ethnicity is implicated in pedagogy, and policies and practices in the context of higher education. I am not alone. Certainly, “scholarship is inextricably connected to self-personal interest experience and familiarity” (Ngunjiri, Hernandez & Chang 2010). SAE/CAE provides opportunities for social science scholars to situate themselves firmly in their work at the intersection of their various socio-identities and articulate the positionalities in which their work is grounded. Indeed, the salience of SAE/CAE in its application to social science research is that it provides a path to exploring “the micro and situated elements of our lives” from a first-person perspective (Holman Jones, Adams & Ellis 2016:26). An autoethnographic approach also advances a powerful political affront to the prevalent view in social science inquiry that the legitimate ways of knowing and understanding social phenomenon is through the etic lens of scholars who are themselves often outside the experience under investigation. As others have asked, “How could a person study speech anxiety without ever having embodied such anxiety?” (Pelias 1997, as cited in Holman Jones, Adams & Ellis 2016:29). When researchers situate themselves both as participants of and investigators in their own experiences in a CAE research community, they are provided with the tools and the context that are needed to uncover emic perspectives with clarity and depth. As a praxis tool, AE/CAE continues to challenge the way in which we do and define scholarship. Perhaps its usage, as a tool for self-development in community with particular applications to the field of leadership studies, is a fitting application of Boyer’s model of scholarship. In Scholarship Reconsidered (Boyer 1990:16), Boyer described the work of professors as having “four separate yet overlapping, functions. These are: the scholarship of discovery; the scholarship of integration; the scholarship of application; and the scholarship of teaching.” CAE provides a tool that allows scholars to fulfil these functions in authentic ways. I have no doubt that this approach to the study of social phenomenon will continue to evolve even further over the years in useful ways that can benefit both scholarship and practice. One of the future directions I will be spearheading is to lean into the praxis aspect of CAE for community building and for transformational change at the individual, group and organisational level. The utility of this method for bringing together individuals with differing perspectives and to challenge each other to talk and think reflectively about some of the hard questions of our time including issues around social justice, racism, leadership development of marginalised groups in my mind make it more of a responsibility than a preference for those of us who are advocates of CAE methodologies. The opening up of digital spaces in the era of the COVID-19 global pandemic has also presented new opportunities and spaces for collaborative research approaches. I think wistfully of a group of women leaders from various countries

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participating in a live group discussion in which they discuss commonalities and differences in issues around the leadership development of women and even involving the audience in the data collection exercise. The possibilities for collecting rich data with greater ease and sensitivity to diverse perspectives are very appealing. For all the above reasons, I look towards the future of CAE and the potential it has for democratising social inquiry and for adding to our understanding of social phenomena with great anticipation. Through the application of CAE to interrogate social phenomena, libraries will no doubt continue to benefit from this malleable sub-category of qualitative research methods that continue to cross disciplinary boundaries and expand our knowledge base and understanding of human experiences.

References Adamson, J. & Muller, T. 2018. Joint autoethnography of teacher experience in the academy: exploring methods for collaborative inquiry. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 41(2):207–219. DOI: 10.1080/1743727X.2017.1279139 Asenavage-Loptes, K. 2012. Developing Cross-Cultural Higher Education Leaders Through Mentoring, paper presented at the Mid-Atlantic Leadership Conference (24 March 2012): Newport News: Virginia. Blalock, A.E. & Akehi, M. 2018. Collaborative autoethnography as a pathway for transformative learning. Journal of Transformative Education, 16(2):89–107. DOI: 10.1177/1541344617715711 Boyer, E.L. 1990. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Brown, A.F. & William-White, L. 2010. We are not the same minority: the narratives of two sisters navigating identity and discourse at public and private White institutions. In Tedious Journeys: Autoethnography by Women of Color in Academe, edited by R.C. Cole & C. Pauline. New York, NY: Peter Lang:149–175. Campbell, E. 2017. “Apparently being a self-obsessed c**t is now academically lauded”: experiencing twitter trolling of autoethnographers. Forum: Qualitative Sozialforschung/ Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 18(3):Article 16. DOI: 10.17169/fqs-18.3.2819 Carroll, B. & Levy, L. 2010. Leadership development as identity construction. Management Communication Quarterly, 24(2):211–231. DOI: 10.1177/0893318909358725 Chang, H. & Bilgen, W. 2020. Autoethnography in leadership studies past, present, and future. Journal of Autoethnography, 1(1):93–98. DOI: 10.1525/joae.2020.1.1.93 Chang, H., Longman, K.A. & Franco, M.A. 2014. Leadership development through mentoring in higher education: a collaborative autoethnography of leaders of color. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 22(4):373–389. DOI: 10.1080/ 13611267.2014.945734 Chang, H., Ngunjiri, F. & Hernandez, K.-A.C. 2013. Collaborative Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. DOI: 10.4324/9781315432137 Chatham-Carpenter, A. 2010. ‘Do thyself no harm’: Protecting ourselves as autoethnographers. Journal of Research Practice, 6(1):Article M1. Available: http://jrp.icaap.org/ index.php/jrp/article/view/213/183 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https:// web.archive.org/web/20200715062739/http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/ view/213/183) [Accessed 03 November 2020]

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Cohen, L., Duberley, J. & Musson, G. 2009. Work—life balance? An autoethnographic exploration of everyday home—work dynamics. Journal of Management Inquiry, 18(3):229–241. DOI: 10.1177/1056492609332316 Coia, L. & Taylor, M. 2009. Co/autoethnography: exploring our teaching selves collaboratively. In Research Methods for the Self-Study of Practice: Volume 9, edited by L. Fitzgerald, M. Heston, & D. Tidwell. Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Springer:3–16. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4020-9514-6_1 Collins, P.H. 2010. The new politics of community. American Sociological Review, 75(1):7– 30. DOI: 10.1177/0003122410363293 Doloriert, C. & Sambrook, S. 2011. Accommodating an autoethnographic PhD: the tale of the thesis, the viva voce, and the traditional business school. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 40(5):582–615. DOI: 10.1177/0891241610387135 Ellis, C. 1996. Maternal connections. In Composing Ethnography, edited by C. Ellis & A. Bochner. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press:240–243. Ellis, C. 2007. Telling secrets, revealing lives: relational ethics in research with intimate others. Qualitative Inquiry, 13(1):3–29. DOI: 10.1177/1077800406294947 Ellis, C., Kiesinger, C.E. & Tillmann-Healy, L.M. 1997. Interactive interviewing: talking about emotional experience. In Reflexivity & Voice, edited by R. Hertz. Thousand Oaks: Sage:119–149. Geist-Martin, P., Gates, L., Wiering, L., Kirby, E., Houston, R., Lilly, A. & Moreno, J. 2010. Exemplifying collaborative autoethnographic practice via shared stories of mothering. Journal of Research Practice, 6(1):Article M8. Available: http://jrp.icaap.org/ index.php/jrp/article/view/209/187 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https:// web.archive.org//web/20200711200130/http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/ view/209/187) [Accessed 02 November 2020] Griffin, N.D.S. & Griffin, N.C. 2019. A millennial methodology? Autoethnographic research in do-it-yourself (diy) punk and activist communities. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 20(3):Article 3. DOI: 10.17169/fqs-20.3.3206 Haslam, S.A. & Reicher, S.D. 2016. Rethinking the psychology of leadership: from personal identity to social identity. Daedalus, 145(3):21–34. DOI: 10.1162/DAED_a_00394 Hayano, D. 1979. Auto-ethnography: paradigms, problems, and prospects. Human Organization, 38(1):99–104. DOI: 10.17730/humo.38.1.u761n5601t4g318v Hernandez, K.C., Chang, H. & Ngunjiri, F. 2017. Collaborative autoethnography as multivocal, relational, and democratic research: opportunities, challenges, and aspirations. Auto/Biography Studies, 32(2):251–254. DOI: 10.1080/08989575.2017.1288892 Hernandez, K.C. & Longman, K.A. 2020. Changing the face of leadership in higher education: “sponsorship” as a strategy to prepare emerging leaders of color. Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research, 38(1):99-104. Hernandez, K.C. & Murray-Johnson, K. 2015. Towards a different construction of blackness: black immigrant scholars on racial identity development in the United States. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 17(2):53–72. DOI: 10.18251/ijme. v17i2.1050 Hernandez, K.C. & Ngunjiri, F.W. 2013. Relationships and communities. In Handbook of Autoethnography, edited by S. Holman Jones, T.E. Adams & C. Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press:262–280. Hernandez, K.C., Ngunjiri, F.W. & Chang, H. 2015. Exploiting the margins in higher education: a collaborative autoethnography of three foreign-born female faculty of color. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 28(5):533–551. DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2014.933910

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Hewlett, S. 2013. (Forget a Mentor) Find a Sponsor: The New Way to Fast-Track Your Career. Boston: Mass: Harvard Business Review Press. Holman Jones, S., Adams, T.E. & Ellis, C. 2016. Handbook of Autoethnography. New York, NY: Routledge. hooks, b. 2000. Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. London: Pluto Press. Hughes, S., Pennington, J.L. & Makris, S. 2012. Translating autoethnography across the AERA standards: toward understanding autoethnographic scholarship as empirical research. Educational Researcher, 41(6):209–219. DOI: 10.3102/0013189X12442983 Ibarra, H., Ely, R.J. & Kolb, D.M.. 2013. Women rising: the unseen barriers. Harvard Business Review, 91(Sept):60–66. Available: https://hbr.org/2013/09/women-risingthe-unseen-barriers (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/ web/20200802221922/https://hbr.org/2013/09/women-rising-the-unseen-barriers) [Accessed 13 September 2020] Kempster, S. & Gregory, S.H. 2017. ‘Should I stay or should I go?’ exploring leadership-as- practice in the middle management role. Leadership, 13(4):496–515. DOI: 10.1177/1742715015611205 Lapadat, J.C. 2009. Writing our way into shared understanding: collaborative autobiographical writing in the qualitative methods class. Qualitative Inquiry, 15(6):955–979. DOI: 10.1177/1077800409334185 Lapadat, J.C., Black, N.E., Clark, P.G., Gremm, R.M., Karanja, L.W., Mieke, M. & Quinlan, L. 2010. Life challenge memory work: using collaborative autobiography to understand ourselves. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 9(1):77–104. DOI: 10.1177/160940691000900108 Lapadat, J.C., Bryant, L., Burrows, M., Greenlees, S., Alexander, J., Marcil, N., Nelson, L.J., Ormerod, L., Rendell, D., Schmidt, L., Viveiros, S.E., Hansen, N., Sousa, C. & Spitzer Hill, A. 2009. An identity montage using collaborative autobiography: eighteen ways to bend the light. International Review of Qualitative Research, 1(4):515–539. Learmonth, M. & Humphreys, M. 2012. Autoethnography and academic identity: glimpsing business school doppelgängers. Organization, 19(1):99–117. DOI: 10.1177/ 1350508411398056 Longman, K.A., Ash, A., Jun, A., Hernandez, K.C., Hernandez, R., Lloyd-Paige, M. & Menjares, P.C. 2017. Diversity Matters: The Future of Christian Higher Education. Abilene, Texas: Abilene Christian University Press. Longman, K.A., Chang, H. & Loyd-Paige, M. 2015. Self-analytical, communitybuilding, and empowering: collaborative autoethnography of leaders of color in higher education. Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research, 9(4):268–285. Longman, K.A., Hernandez, K.C. & Robalino, G. 2016. How a Collaborative Autoethnography of Sponsorship Enhanced Ethnic-Minority Participants’ Leader Identity, paper presented at the International Leadership Association Annual Meeting (2-5 November 2016: Atlanta, Georgia). Malin, J.R. & Hackmann, D.G. 2016. Mentoring as socialization for the educational leadership professoriate: a collaborative autoethnography. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 24(2):158–178. DOI: 10.1080/13611267.2016.1170561 McPhail-Bell, K. & Redman-MacLaren, M.L. 2019. A co/autoethnography of peer support and PhDs: being, doing, and sharing in academia. The Qualitative Report, 24(5):1087–1105. Available: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol24/iss5/12 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200825163502/https:// nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol24/iss5/12/) [Accessed 10 September 2020]

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Ngunjiri, F.W., Chang, H. & Hernandez, K.C. 2017. Multivocal meaning making: using collaborative autoethnography to advance theory on women and leadership. In Theorizing Women and Leadership: New Insights and Contributions from Multiple Perspectives, edited by P. Haber-Curran & J. Stroberg-Walker. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Press:103–119. Ngunjiri, F.W., Hernandez, K.-A.C. & Chang, H. 2010. Living autoethnography: connecting life and research. Journal of Research Practice, 6(1):Article E1. Available: http:// jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/241/186 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200725083125/http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/ article/view/241/186) [Accessed 10 September 2020] Norris, J. & Sawyer, R. 2016. Interdisciplinary Reflective Practice Through Duoethnography: Examples for Educators, edited by R.D. Sawyer. 1st edition. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Norris, J., Sawyer, R.D. & Lund, D.E. (eds.) 2012. Duoethnography. 1st edition. New York, NY: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315430058 Norwood, C.R. 2018. Decolonizing my hair, unshackling my curls: an autoethnography on what makes my natural hair journey a Black feminist statement. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 20(1):69–84. DOI: 10.1080/14616742.2017.1369890 Pelias, R.J. (1997). Confessions of apprehensive performer. Text and Performance Quarterly, 17, 25–32. Priddis, H.S. 2015. Autoethnography and severe perineal trauma—An unexpected journey from disembodiment to embodiment. BMC Women’s Health, 15(1):Article 88. DOI: 10.1186/s12905-015-0249-3 Prus, R. 1996. Symbolic Interaction and Ethnographic Research: Intersubjectivity and the Study of Human Lived Experience. New York, NY: State University of New York Press. Richardson, L. 2007. Last Writes: A Daybook for a Dying Friend. 1st edition. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. DOI: 10.4324/9781315425573 Tillmann-Healy, L.M. 2009. Body and bulimia revisited: reflections on “A secret life”. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 37(1):98–112. DOI: 10.1080/ 00909880802592615 Tolich, M. 2010. A critique of current practice: Ten foundational guidelines for autoethnographers. Qualitative Health Research, 20(12):1599–1610. DOI: 10.1177/ 1049732310376076 William-White, L. 2011. Dare I write about oppression on sacred ground [emphasis mine]. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 11(3):236–242. DOI: 10.1177/ 1532708611409535

Web address American Educational Research Associations: https://www.aera.net/

PART III

Challenges of autoethnography

Part III introduces the hands-on challenges of rigour, adhering to requirements for ethical research conduct and protection of privacy and the opportunities to combine or supplement autoethnographic research with alternative methods. In Chapter 6, Tim Gorichanaz introduces the reader to the need for rigour in autoethnographic research. He refers to this as “end-to-end rigour” that applies for the full process of autoethnographic writing. This cannot be done without acknowledging some rigour-related criticisms of autoethnography, and without addressing the evaluation of autoethnography. A key question an autoethnographic researcher should ask at every stage of the writing process is “How does this move us forward?” In Chapter 7, Anika Meyer and Ina Fourie explain how autoethnographic research faces all the conventional challenges for ethical research conduct as well as additional challenges when sharing deeply intimate and sensitive stories involving other people. They represent a table with issues to consider before embarking on autoethnographic research. In Chapter 8, Christine Urquhart and Louisa Lam acknowledge the value of autoethnographic research before continuing to explore alternative methods. They focus on Brenda Dervin’s sense-making methodology and consider several autoethnographic research study examples alongside their d­iscussion of sense-making methodology and organisational sensemaking methods. Sense-making can in particular contribute to interviewing and reflection and communication as a process when doing autoethnographic research.

6 “HOW DOES THIS MOVE US FORWARD?” A question of rigour in autoethnography Tim Gorichanaz

Introduction In library and information science, new technologies and forms of social organisation invite, or perhaps require, the asking of new questions. In some cases, the nature of these questions demands new methods for answering them. For example, research questions regarding people’s experiences of seeking information and becoming informed have prompted the application of novel qualitative methodologies (Gorichanaz 2018). Autoethnography is one such methodology. It has been developed over the past 40 years, but only in the past decade or so has it entered library and information science. Undertaking any study demands a consideration of rigour. There has been a wealth of discussion of rigour in qualitative research over the years (e.g., Maxwell 2005; Morse, Swanson & Kuzel 2001), and some of this has indeed focused on the unique issues at play in autoethnography (e.g., Chang 2008; le Roux 2017). In this chapter, I discuss this work in order to provide guidance for library and information science researchers to ensure that their autoethnographies are rigorous. Rigour is often conceptualised as a matter of performing data collection and analysis techniques in such a way as to produce valid, reliable and generalisable results. This definition limits the scope of “rigour” to the methods used – that is, the particular techniques for collecting and analysing data. But what about methodology? That is, do considerations of rigour have a place even before data collection begins, or after analysis ends? As I will suggest in this chapter, rigour is something that should infuse a research project from the start to the finish, what I call end-to-end rigour. Considerations of rigour should begin with the research question and continue through even after the final publication. In this chapter, I develop the concept of end-to-end rigour, discussing it in terms specific to autoethnography. The chapter begins by considering common

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rigour-related criticisms of autoethnography, such as navel-gazing and solipsism. Next, I conceptualise rigour for autoethnography in terms of generalisability, validity and reliability. I discuss how autoethnographic rigour might be evaluated, and then I turn to provide some tips to ensure that a study is rigorous. Beyond these tips, I suggest that the central procedure for ensuring end-to-end rigour is question-asking. The key question of rigour is: how does this move us forward? I suggest that by constantly returning to this question, at every stage of the research process, a researcher can improve the rigour of their autoethnography.

Between imagination and rigour In the preface to Mortal Questions, Thomas Nagel wrote that every field of research faces a contest “between extravagance and repression, imagination and rigour, expansiveness and precision. Fleeing from the excesses of the one, it is easy to fall into the excesses of the other” (Nagel 1979:ix). Unbridled imagination may lead to research that is unintelligible – which does not meaningfully connect to other discourse or real-world issues. On the other hand, uncritical adherence to traditional standards of rigour within a field may overly limit the questions that are deemed acceptable to ask. For example, a field that only valorises large-scale quantitative studies about the circulation of materials and structure of systems, as the library and information science research of the mid-20th century, can ask or say nothing about what might happen when a particular person encounters some of those materials. Autoethnography, it seems, emerged as a way to challenge the strictures of traditional research processes and products. As an avant-garde research methodology, autoethnography does not yet have widely accepted, standard ways to be assessed (le Roux 2017). In the terms of Nagel (1979), autoethnography leapt to life as an extravagant, imaginative and expansive methodology. Decades after its initial development, it still has not been fully accepted by the research community (granted, as much could be said about qualitative research generally, particularly in multidisciplinary fields such as library and information science) (e.g., Campbell 2017). Even those who accept the prospect of studying one’s own experiences as an entrée to answering questions of culture may balk at the expression of autoethnographic research in the form of stories, poetry, fiction, novels, photographic essays, journals, etc., preferring instead traditional social-scientific prose. Heeding Nagel’s (1979) warning, a path forward for autoethnography is to show that it is not simply a matter of imagination and extravagance coming at the cost of precision and rigour. To that end, this chapter focuses on rigour as an overarching concept for improving and communicating autoethnographic research. To begin, what is rigour? In everyday parlance, it has to do with being thorough, exhaustive and accurate (Rigour/Rigor 2020, sense 6). In research, these adjectives are applied to a researcher’s response to a research question. The

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overarching point is to make sure that the research question is being answered – that the research is meeting its objectives. This is not just a matter of whether an answer is obtained, but also how that answer connects to other literature and, importantly, the domain of practice. In library and information science, there is an ultimately applied objective to our research, in the training and practice of information professionals such as librarians and archivists (Bates 2015). That is, the research we conduct is meant to deepen our understanding of information and how people interact with information, with the eventual largescale goal of contributing to the improvement of information systems of all sorts. Broadly, rigour in research is traditionally assessed in terms of validity, reliability and generalisability. Because these concepts originated from a positivist worldview, some scholars dismiss them out of hand, arguing that they are inappropriate for qualitative research that operates in a different paradigm (Yardley 2000). Still, autoethnography is not autobiography, and serious consideration must be given to questions of quality to ensure scientific rigour in autoethnographic research. This is important for the integrity of the research itself, and also so that this type of work is ultimately accepted by the wider scientific community. With this in mind, we can still find value in the traditional notions of generalisability, validity and reliability, but when considering research outside the positivist paradigm, these concepts must be understood more broadly and applied in a different way (Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011; Maxwell 2005; Morse 2015).

Criticisms of autoethnography Qualitative methods in general have a history of drawing criticism from the broader research community; but autoethnography seems to attract the sharpest knives. Campbell (2017) documents some of the criticisms of autoethnography to be found on Twitter, which include ad-hominem attacks and trolling; though, to be sure, criticisms within the published literature are more measured and reasoned. Such criticism has also been noted in earlier chapters of this book, most prominently in Chapter 1. This chapter will address how autoethnographers can ensure rigour, and communicate this rigour, by addressing four common criticisms of autoethnography: that it is navel-gazing, solipsistic, unscientific and possibly unethical. a. The criticism of navel-gazing suggests that autoethnographic research is narcissistic or self-indulgent, questioning why a researcher should look to their own experience of a phenomenon rather than the experiences of others (Madison 2006). b. The criticism of solipsism suggests that autoethnographic work is an isolated report of someone’s experience, disconnected from the broader concerns of a field or a culture; making such connections would require a researcher to engage with other members of the culture (Buzard 2003; Delamont 2009).

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c. The criticism of being unscientific suggests that autoethnography is necessarily based on biased data (Anderson 2006; Atkinson 1997; Delamont 2007; Gans 1999). More deeply, critics say that narrative is not the concern of science (Delamont 2012). What’s more, the story form may seem to give life a structure it doesn’t naturally have, thereby being misleading (Ellis & Bochner 2000). d. The criticism of being unethical includes the observation that autoethnography focuses on those who are already in positions of power within society rather than the powerless, and the powerless are the right object of social scientific research (Delamont 2007). Additionally, autoethnography reveals information about others who may not have consented nor be able to consent (Holt 2003). To some extent, these criticisms question the possible contribution of autoethnography in principle – particularly (b) and (c). Responses to such questions have been taken up by numerous commentators. For instance, Ellis and Bochner (2000) write that autoethnographic research must be seen through the lens of narrative truth rather than correspondence truth; n arrative is not necessarily descriptive or representative, but rather it is ­ evocative. In my own work, I have framed the question of research contributions as an issue of perspective, emphasising that different research perspectives (e.g., first-person vs. third-person) reveal and conceal different aspects of a phenomenon, and the more perspectives we have, the richer our ­u nderstanding (Gorichanaz 2018). In this chapter, I take it for granted that autoethnography can be rigorous, and I will discuss how to ensure rigour in a given autoethnographic study.

Conceptualising rigour in autoethnography In the 1980s, Guba and Lincoln transformed qualitative research by stepping away from the question of rigour, proposing instead that qualitative research be judged in terms of its trustworthiness, which could be conceptualised in terms of credibility, transferability and dependability (Guba & Lincoln 1985, Guba & Lincoln 1989). As Morse (2015) writes, these tenets have gone mostly unquestioned since then, leading to a situation where journal referees, granting agencies and researchers themselves use these criteria as a checklist to evaluate the worthiness of research. Morse (2018) has suggested that it is time for qualitative researchers to return to the terminology of mainstream social science, using rigour (rather than trustworthiness), and replacing dependability, credibility and transferability with the more widely used reliability, validity and generalisability (Morse 2018). While Morse speaks of qualitative research in general, I have made similar arguments regarding research of the self specifically (Gorichanaz 2017). In this section, we will consider what these terms can mean in the context of autoethnography.

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Generalisability is the question of whether a study’s findings apply in other cases. In statistical research, generalisability implies applying findings to entire populations. In interpretive research, however, generalisability must be understood as an act of interpretation itself through case-based reasoning (Yin 2014). Thus, the generalisability of a given study rests on the detail in which the setting and methods are described. Autoethnography in particular, as a narrative form of research, is concerned with naturalistic or story-based generalisability; “a story’s generalisability is constantly being tested by readers as they determine if it speaks to them about their experience or about the lives of others they know” (Ellis & Bochner 2000:751). The facts of narrative are not necessarily of the same kind as statistical facts; narrative is more concerned with conveying felt experiences (van Manen 2014). Autoethnographers, then, should be concerned with presenting a narrative that is authentic – true to their experience – and doing so with as much relevant detail as possible. Validity is the question of whether a study’s findings show what a researcher claims they show. There are multiple forms of validity; two that are relevant to autoethnography are face validity and construct validity. Face validity refers to the common-sense correctness of the study, and construct validity refers to the logical relationships among the concepts at play in the study (Babbie 2007). In autoethnography, Ellis, Adams and Bochner (2011) describe validity as verisimilitude, or the lifelikeness of the research. In this sense, valid research “evokes in readers a feeling that the experience described is lifelike, believable, and possible, a feeling that what has been represented could be true. The story is coherent” (Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011:282). Maxwell (2005:108) discusses validity in terms of the extent to which the researcher has given alternative explanations a fighting chance. He encourages research designs that identify “validity threats.” One example of a validity threat he names is researcher bias – selecting data that support a preconceived theory, rather than letting the theory emerge from the data, which is particularly relevant in autoethnography. Finally, reliability is the question of whether the study would yield the same findings if it were conducted anew. Of course, qualitative research is contingent upon historical and sociocultural contexts (Allen-Collinson 2012), and it is not possible to conduct the exact same qualitative study twice – different from conducting, say, a chemistry experiment. For this reason, qualitative researchers should think of reliability not in terms of yielding the same results, but rather directionally similar results. Reliability can also be considered in terms of analysis; if the researcher were to analyse the data from a given study again, would similar or the same findings emerge? And finally, because the researcher and researched converge in autoethnography, reliability in autoethnography also points to the researcher: is the researcher a reliable person? Can they be trusted to do thorough and ethical work? In this light, Ellis, Adams and Bochner (2011) frame reliability in autoethnography in terms of the author’s credibility.

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Evaluating autoethnography Good autoethnographic research, like any good social science research, should be generalisable, valid and reliable. How can we assess whether a piece of research achieves these aims? le Roux (2017:200) cautions that we should be wary of universal checklists or sets of criteria devised for this purpose, given the diverse approaches of and purposes for conducting autoethnographic research. Still, some guidelines would be helpful and may be needed to establish the credibility and value of autoethnographic work. In library and information science, autoethnographies have been evaluated using, for instance, Richardson’s (2000) standards for evaluating non-traditional qualitative research (such as by Anderson & Fourie 2015), which include substantive contribution, aesthetic merit, reflexivity, impact and expression of a reality. While these are useful heuristics, we can also look to guidelines that have been developed specifically for autoethnography. Broadly, Ellis and Bochner (2000) suggest that autoethnography can be assessed just like any story or character; readers should ask: was the work honest? Was there some revealing epiphany? More concretely, Schroeder (2017) proposes six categories of evaluative criteria for autoethnography as a starting point for a living checklist: • • • • • •

Revealing the self: the “auto” portion of autoethnography Exploring culture/society: the “ethno” portion of autoethnography Storycraft: the “graphy” portion of autoethnography Ethics: considering the researcher’s relationship to others Social justice and transformation: seeking to make life better for all Unclassified criteria: a category which includes issues such as self-critique, substantial contribution to the scholarly conversation, personal impact

Contemporaneously, le Roux (2017) proposed a list of five criteria for evaluating autoethnography: • • • • •

Subjectivity: the researcher’s personal experience is foregrounded, and the researcher was explicitly involved in creating the narrative. Self-reflexivity: the researcher has considered their role in the research, and the writing shows self-awareness and introspection. Resonance: the reader is welcomed into the narrative and can connect with the researcher’s experience both intellectually and emotionally. Credibility: the researcher is honest and has taken care to demonstrate their trustworthiness. Contribution: the study has the potential for impact, such as: extending the field’s knowledge; provoking questions for further research; improving or challenging norms of practice; empowering practitioners or otherwise contributing to social change; and inspiring readers.

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These lists are similar in some respects, but they do differ. Both authors acknowledge that these lists are not the final word on the matter, and so it is worth pausing to consider their similarities and differences. Interestingly, none of the elements of the two lists seem to map straightforwardly onto each other. Schroeder’s (2017) “revealing the self ” seems to be split by le Roux (2017) into two: subjectivity and self-reflexivity, but her “self-reflexivity” also captures some of the items in Schroeder’s “unclassified” category. “Exploring culture/society” does not appear in le Roux’s list. “Storycraft” seems to have something to do with “resonance,” but le Roux’s notion of “resonance” also includes parts of Schroeder’s “unclassified.” “Ethics” is not treated by le Roux, though it does share some overlap with her “credibility.” “Social justice and transformation” seems to be a part of le Roux’s “contribution” category, but only a part. I will not endeavour here to propose a synthesised version of these two lists. Rather, I will turn to the topic of conducting research. If the lists above present principles by which autoethnography can be assessed, then we would do well to consider how researchers can conduct their research with these criteria in mind. This is the topic of the next section.

Being rigorous: some practical tips So far, we have considered what autoethnographic rigour is and how it can be evaluated. But how does a researcher achieve rigour in autoethnography? I offer some practical tips for conducting rigorous research, including clarifying one’s perspective, thoroughly analysing the data and discussing the research with others. Further tips for conducting rigorous research can be found in discussions of qualitative methodology more broadly, such as by Maxwell (2005), Meadows and Morse (2001), and Morse (2015); for additional discussions on autoethnography specifically, see Allen-Collinson and Hockey (2008). Firstly, I want to emphasise that striving for rigour is the responsibility of every researcher. Even so, autoethnographic research is under particular scrutiny; this may strike some researchers as unfair, and that may be the case, but it may also be a blessing in disguise. In this situation, autoethnographers are compelled to never take their methodology or techniques for granted, but to constantly engage with questions of rigour. Such questions must be considered by the researcher not only in conducting the study, but also in communicating the findings through publications or other research products. Each of us has a perspective on the world, and it is part of the goal of autoethnographic research to illuminate and communicate that perspective. Sometimes this is referred to as clarifying a researcher’s “bias,” but I prefer the word “perspective” because it is more precise and does not have the same negative connotations. We should root out our biases, particularly when they are harmful forms of prejudice, but we must recognise that having a perspective is unavoidable.

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Though this is an issue for all qualitative researchers, autoethnographers must take special care to avoid solipsism and navel-gazing, and to ensure that whatever findings result from the research are generalisable, valid and reliable. To do this, autoethnographers should describe their background and interest in the topic, and be detailed, explicit and honest about their methods of data collection and analysis. As an example from my own work examining my experience of running an ultramarathon (Gorichanaz 2015), I included a paragraph outlining my background and interest in the domain of study, and I sought to be honest and transparent in my methods throughout; for instance, I explained how my data collection method was, in practice, imperfectly successful. Next, autoethnography takes a great deal of time and attention. It requires, in Morse’s (2015) words, prolonged engagement, persistent observation and thick description. Lazy autoethnographic work may try to rush this process, jumping to conclusions that may have already been on the researcher’s agenda prior to starting the project. Clarifying our perspectives should help us avoid this scenario; and communicating these efforts can help gain the confidence of readers. But other tips include, during analysis, seeking out alternative explanations and counterexamples of an inchoate theory. This may involve further data collection as the researcher searches for discrepant evidence. Maxwell (2005) discusses guidance for doing so under the chapter heading, “How might you be wrong?” In other words, we must not be too precious about our ideas too early on. As well, even once analysis seems to be complete, the researcher could set the project aside for a week or longer and then analyse the data anew, testing the findings’ reliability. A third way to ensure rigour in autoethnography comes down to simple conversation. The scientific enterprise does not work through lone geniuses making once-and-for-all, incorrigible discoveries. Rather, it works through constructive critique, careful replication, informed discussion, and so on, which are manifest in institutions like the peer-review process. To that end, the formal peer review process provides an excellent opportunity for autoethnographers to improve the rigour of their work – and I would advise looking at peer review in this way, rather than as a hurdle or a gatekeeper. But even before formal peer review, autoethnographers can share their work with colleagues to get feedback from others, both those with expertise in the domain area as well as those with expertise in autoethnography. Lastly, we can also engage with the literature as a companion in discussion, comparing our findings to other applicable findings that have been reported, considering how and why our findings may have been similar or different.

“How does this move us forward?” I hope it is clear that rigour is not a characteristic of a single stage in the research process, and that achieving rigour is not a simple matter of going through a checklist. Rather, a rigorous attitude must pervade the entire research process,

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from end to end. In this vein, Morse (2018) describes rigour as a suite of targeted actions, from the proposal stage through study design, data collection and so on. Morse emphasises that qualitative research projects are generally not fixed but must evolve in a responsive way. Speaking of autoethnographic research specifically, Anderson and Glass-Coffin (2013:65) caution that such inquiry is guided by a set of ethical, aesthetic and relational sensitivities, rather than a strict set of particular techniques. This suggests that strategies for achieving rigour in ethnography must sit at the level of these sensitivities. To this end, Ellis and Bochner (2000) say that the biggest key to being rigorous in autoethnography is introspection about one’s feelings, motives and contradictions – again, throughout the whole research process. To me, these activities of establishing and ensuring rigour boil down to a single kind of activity: asking questions. At each stage of a study, a researcher must ask themselves questions and be attentive and responsive to the answers. A good question to ask, and to keep returning to, is: how does this move us forward? •

• •

“Us” denotes both the researcher and the relevant intellectual community, meaning that the work is theoretically situated and makes ties between self and culture. “Move forward” indicates that there is some heuristic value to the work, whether theoretical or practical. “How” reminds us that there are multiple ways that this can be done, and it assures us that the possibilities are out there.

All research, of course, should move us forward. But autoethnography should move us forward in perhaps a deeper way: into new ways of understanding, being and acting. Ellis and Bochner (2000:754) have written of autoethnography as “action research for the individual,” suggesting precisely this kind of forward motion. Further still, they write: So the question is not, “Does my story reflect my past accurately?” as if I were holding a mirror to my past. Rather I must ask, “What are the consequences my story produces? What kind of a person does it shape me into? What new possibilities does it introduce for living my life?” Ellis and Bochner 2000:746, emphasis mine The question “How does this move us forward?” can and should be asked by the researcher throughout the entire research process. Roughly, the research process includes a number of stages: identifying a research area; reviewing the literature; clarifying the research question; determining the methodology and methods; collecting data; analysing the data; writing the paper; publishing the paper; and then sharing and discussing the paper once it’s been published. (In practice, this process isn’t necessarily linear, of course.) “How does this move us forward?” takes on a slightly different meaning depending

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on when in the research process it is asked. Some inflected questions include, and certainly are not limited to: •

•

•

•

•

• •

• •

Identifying the research area: what topics excite me? What am I interested in? What kind of person am I interested in being? Where is exciting research being done? Reviewing the literature: what kinds of questions are being asked in this field? What kinds of methods are being used? What voices and perspectives are still missing? How might we strengthen the impact of this research area? Clarifying the research question: where are there gaps in our knowledge? What sorts of new knowledge will help the field grow? What assumptions is the field making? Might any of these assumptions be open to question? Determining methodology and methods: is autoethnography the best way to answer my questions and contribute to the field? What specific methods will best address my research question? Data collection: am I making progress in answering my research question? Am I making connections between my own experience and my cultural setting? Am I adhering to the standards of quality research? If I am transgressing these standards, are these transgressions necessary and justifiable? Data analysis: am I giving space to alternative explanations? Writing: am I including the necessary contextual details for readers to assess, understand and trust my work? What sort of impact do I want this work to have? Publication: where should I publish this work? Post-publication: did my work have the outcomes I expected or hoped for? What new questions have arisen?

Conclusion In describing methods for achieving rigour in qualitative research, Morse (2015) emphasises that all the pieces of rigour must be in place for each subsequent step of the research process to unfold in a rigorous way. Only by conducting a research project with end-to-end rigour “will we be able to describe our methods in a way that other social sciences will comprehend and respect our research” (Morse 2015:1220). Morse says that this is particularly important for mixed-methods or collaborative projects. But we can see that it is likewise particularly important for autoethnographic work. In this chapter, I have suggested that a researcher can continually ask themselves the question, “How does this move us forward?” inflected as necessary to speak to each stage of the research process. Doing so will help us not only conduct high-quality autoethnographic research, but also demonstrate the unique and necessary contribution of autoethnography to the research field.

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7 ETHICAL CHALLENGES AND PROTECTION OF PRIVACY Anika Meyer and Ina Fourie

Introduction Autoethnographic research tends to move outside the boundaries of traditional ethics and can hold many ethical, professional and personal risks (Anderson & Fourie 2015, Anderson & Fourie 2017; Andrew 2017; Ellis 2009a,b; Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011; Etherington 2007; Hughes & Pennington 2017; Lapadat 2017). Since autoethnography was created in response to the epistemological, methodological and ethical challenges faced by modernist social science research, the method acknowledges the importance of holding ethical issues central to its practices and for autoethnographic researchers to live by those ethics (Lapadat 2017). Autoethnographic researchers face many ethical challenges since they are telling deeply personal stories revealing feelings, emotions and vulnerability (even cultural vulnerability as discussed by Loveless and co-authors [2016]) that might implicate other people often referred to as characters. In their stories, they might be sharing the deeply personal stories of such characters. They need to gain the trust of those whose stories they are telling, and they need to respect and protect the privacy of the characters in their story. They must demonstrate mindful writing, and although writing to capture the attention of readers, they need to respect truth and honesty. A key requirement of ethical research conduct is always that no harm must be done to any person – physically or emotionally (Andrew 2017). This requires a mindset that is sensitive and responsive to adherence to ethical research conduct. In fact, “Autoethnography has gained a widespread following, in part because it addresses a significant ethical challenge that faces many other ethnographic and more broadly qualitative approaches to inquiry—the issue of representing, speaking for, or appropriating the voice of others” (Lapadat 2017:589). As noted in earlier chapters, autoethnography has often been criticised as navel gazing and being too evocative with many people questioning the credibility,

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rigour, validity and trustworthiness of autoethnography as a research method (Gibbs 2018; Lapadat 2017; Thompson-Lee 2017; Winkler 2018). Researchers often experience serious challenges in getting ethical approval because there are many challenges, and because solutions to these are not always easy (Douglas & Carless 2013). It is essential for prospective autoethnographic researchers to brace for the challenges in convincing ethical review boards and funding agencies of the validity of autoethnographies and to strengthen their awareness of challenges and their ability to deal with such challenges (Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011; Etherington 2007; Hughes & Pennington 2017; Lapadat 2017). Much can be learned from the deliberations of experienced autoethnographic researchers such as Art and Carolyn (Bochner & Ellis 2016a) who share glimpses of the resistance they have faced in their careers when embracing deeply personal research methods. Work by Anderson, Fourie, Meyer and Ball (2018) showed that although the importance of ethical adherence is widely acknowledged, research papers seldom elaborate on how they actually complied with ethical requirements and how they dealt with challenges. This is confirmed in the work of Stephen Andrew (2017) titled: Searching for an autoethnographic ethics and the work of Norman Denzin (2014) titled: Interpretive autoethnography. Both authors provide good guidelines on ethics in autoethnography and how to study personal experiences; they also touch on the implications this has for the textualisation of a life. In Chapter 6, Tim Gorichanaz also touches on ethics on autoethnographies and the evaluation of autoethnographic research. Librarians embarking on autoethnographic research must acquaint themselves with the challenges of ethical adherence and solutions. Often there are no clearcut solutions, but researchers need to make informed decisions. They must be able to explain and substantiate their decisions against an ethical framework. Apart from the body of literature on ethics in autoethnography (Gibbs 2018; Iphofen & Tolich 2018; Lapadat 2017; Smith 2017), much can be learned from other types of narrative research that also face ethical problems such as oral history/life histories (Bradley & Puri 2016), photographies (Böök & Mykkänen 2014; Langmann & Pick 2018) and diaries and letters (Androutsopoulou, Rozou & Vakondiou 2020). They also need to take note of the wide body of concerns about ethical research conduct (Kelley & Weaver 2020). This chapter will address the key issues of ethical concerns in autoethnographic research conduct: a. Procedural issues such as obtaining ethical clearance and informed consent, assuring anonymity and protection of confidence and privacy (these are all issues that need to be explicitly explained); b. Situational issues such as the vulnerability of the researcher and the characters and respect for these people. These align with relational ethics that require a researcher to accept responsibility for the implications for everyone involved in the autoethnographic story;

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c. Presentation of content, e.g., how the story is told, accuracy, honesty and truth, mindfulness of power imbalances in the research and in the story, acknowledgement of agency, voice of the story (e.g., harsh, angry or sad), deciding how reality will be depicted versus a good storyline and keeping readers’ attention, maintaining the importance of research quality, validity and reliability of autoethnographic research. (These issues relate to the rigour of autoethnographic writing and research as discussed in Chapter 6; in this chapter, we will only highlight the ethical considerations.); d. Explicit rationalisation of adherence to ethical research conduct, e.g., explaining how the autoethnography or autoethnographic research project actually set out to adhere to ethical research concerns. This chapter will include examples of how researchers addressed ethical research challenges as well as a matrix of issues to consider with potential solutions.

How the essence and purpose of autoethnography lead to ethical dilemmas Definitions of autoethnography, alternative terms used for autoethnography, related methods and how autoethnography developed are given in Chapter 1. The essence of different types of autoethnography and some of the challenges experienced for each are noted in preceding chapters. In the succeeding paragraphs, we want to use these as background to show how the very essence, contexts and purpose of autoethnography lead to the ethical dilemmas autoethnographic researchers face. Definitions of autoethnography draw attention to the auto (to do with self/personal experience); the ethno (to do with culture/insider insight) and graphy (to do with writing, documenting or analysing) that are echoed by many prominent researchers (Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011; Chang 2008; Chang 2016; Whitinui 2014). An autoethnographic researcher or author (i.e., the autoethnographer) utilises personal stories and self-reflection to write with a purpose to notify others of one or more significant experiences that often addresses political or social practices. At the same time, some deeper understandings and meanings are challenged. In this process, the autoethnographer constructs the relations of personal to cultural and organisational and may face many pitfalls for violation of ethical adherence as well as the need for explicit commitment to respect challenging issues. Autoethnography can be a very difficult undertaking because this form of scholarship highlights more than ever issues of representation, “objectivity,” data quality, legitimacy, and ethics. Although working through these challenges can lead to the production of an excellent text, the intimate and personal nature of autoethnography can, in fact, make it one of the most challenging qualitative approaches to attempt. Wall 2008:39

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Studying, telling and representing individuals’ lives bring a heavy ethical burden irrespective of methodology, data collection methods or analytical styles used (Sikes 2012; Scheurich & Young, 1997). Laurel Richardson (2001:38) mentions that writing about your life brings you to strange places; you might be uncomfortable about what you learn about yourself and others. You might find yourself confronting serious ethical issues … Who might you be hurting? … How do you write a “true” ethnography of your experiences? For those who practice an autoethnographic research approach, ethical issues and queries around truthfully and respectfully depicting others’ narratives can, however, be more challenging than for those utilising other traditional research strategies such as traditional ethnography (Sikes 2012; Scheurich & Young, 1997; Stephens-Griffin & Griffin 2019). The need to come up with explicit guidelines on how these challenges can be addressed and criteria to which autoethnographic research needs to adhere are thus significantly higher than for other methods. Thompson-Lee (2017:56) aptly states that “… c­ onventional ethical guidance is not that helpful” … and that … “there is a dearth of guidance tackling ethical issues in autoethnography.” These explicit guidelines must address the ethics of autoethnography in terms of the apprehension surrounding the representation of the author and how others may be implicated in an author’s stories. Autoethnography can be seen as an “outing” process due to the impending impact on personal identity and relationships (Flemons & Green 2002). “You have to decide if you are ready to be outed or to put yourself out in that way” (Flemons & Green 2002:93). To illustrate how deeply personal these narrative accounts can get, we look at Tillmann-Healy’s (1996, 2009) narrative about her struggles with purging and binging from ages 15 to 25 years. In her 1996 narrative, Tillmann-Healy (1996:86–87) describes her first time purging and the emotions she went through: I kneel in front of the toilet bowl, afraid yet strangely fascinated. As I stare at my rippling reflection in the pool of Saniflush-blue water, my thoughts turn to an article in the latest Teen Magazine about a young woman who induced vomiting to control her weight. It sounds repulsive in light of my experience with the flu and hangovers. Still, I want to try it, to see if I can do it. I place the shaking index finger of my right hand to the back of my throat. I hold it there for five or six seconds, but nothing happens. I push it down further. Still nothing. Further. Nothing. Frustrated, I move it around in circular motions. At last, I feel my stomach contract, and this encourages me to continue … Again and again, 20 times or more, I repeat this until I know by pushing on my stomach that it is satisfactory empty. My pulse races.

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In one of her later accounts, titled: The Last time (Tillmann-Healy 1996:90), she expresses her fear, anxiety and grief over death after experiencing a wrenching, stabbing pain in her chest during one of her purges: Laying my forehead on the cool tiles, I clutch my heart. I start to cry, but the contractions only intensify the pain. I imagine the headlines: “Local Girl Dead at 17,” or worse, “Bulimic Dies of Heart Attack.” No, god. Please no. What a way to go—crumpled here with vomit dripping from my mouth, running down my arm. Who will find my body?”… “How did I get here? How could I become so out of control? Such openness and vulnerability raise many ethical challenges. Apart from eating disorders, autoethnographies have been applied in a variety of research areas such as critical race theory, death and dying research, feminist theory, identity development, sexuality studies, bullying in the workplace, trauma, racism and praxis of care (Denzin 2014; Lapadat 2017; Vickers 2002) – all deeply sensitive areas involving people experiencing deep pain, hurt and humiliation. The very nature of these themes of autoethnographic research and the writing on one’s life or the lives of the characters who come into your stories lend itself towards being criticised and subsequently, facing unavoidable ethical challenges such as privacy, confidentiality, honesty, reliability and trustworthiness (Denzin 2014; Lapadat 2017; Sikes 2012; Scheurich & Young, 1997). Autoethnographic authors, however, write their stories for a purpose; they face the pain and ethical challenges for a purpose. Tillmann-Healy (1996) hoped in sharing her lived experience that others could gain a better understanding regarding these sensitive topics and that others can learn from it. Lorde (2007) encourages Black women to unashamedly share their stories of how whiteness terrorises and oppressed them in the hope that “those who are enacting whiteness will acknowledge their own behaviors, emotions, and speech that continues to racially microaggress people, and in particular, women of color” (Matias, Walker & del Hierro 2019:39). Birk (2013:391) wanted to share her story of severe chronic pain “to demonstrate that chronic physical pain—despite its traditionally being seen as the most private and personal of experiences—is also a public, even political issue.” Middlewood and colleagues (2016) tell a story about a mother and a nurse who wrote about the loss of her first baby just after birth and explained that her autoethnographic work would help nurses better understand their professional roles. Autoethnographers share “personal experience to create nuanced and detailed thick descriptions” that can also be grounded in strong moral, cultural and social purpose (Holman Jones, Adams & Ellis 2016:33). A requirement is that such sharing must be truthful. It must “… illustrate the personal, often hidden nuances of such traumatic experiences—nuances difficult to discern via surveys or interviews with others, or by someone who has never personally experienced this” (Holman Jones, Adams & Ellis 2016:34).

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Autoethnographers are willing to use their personal experience and face ethical challenges for a purpose. They speak out against racism (Pennington 2007), homophobia (Adams 2011), sexism (Edwards 2017) and domestic violence (Tamas 2011) to promote social change through breaking the silences and reclaiming voices and identities of subverted and subjugated experience. “One of the worst racisms…for any generation or group is the one that we do not see, that is invisible to our lens—the one we participate in without consciously knowing or intending it” (Scheurich & Young 1997:12). Accordingly, the value and need for utilising autoethnography as a research method for studying hidden or sensitive or “taboo topics” have been prominent in research, specifically, where there is a sense of injustice or discrimination, and the need to advocate for resistance or change at a societal, policy or discourse level (Chang 2016; Spry 2001; Whitinui 2014). Albeit taking a deeply personal stance, autoethnography in essence attempts to balance the positive potentiality of innovation, imagination, and the representation of diverse perspectives with the pragmatic necessity to sustain confidence in the quality, rigour, and usefulness of academic research, arguing that this is achieved through ensuring autoethnographic work is ethical, analytical, and theoretical. Stephens-Griffin and Griffin 2019:5 The vulnerability, fear and anxiety described by Tillmann-Healy when she shared her lived experience is a usual occurrence in autoethnographic writing (Roth 2009; Sikes 2012; Scheurich & Young, 1997). In fact, Ellis (2004) has made a compelling case that the power of autoethnography is due to the inclusion of emotion in the telling and writing of personal tales. That challenges faced by autoethnographic researchers and their rationale for pursuing this research method make it necessary for autoethnographers to move beyond conventional ethics since they recognise, like Thompson-Lee (2017:310), that “autoethnography does not naturally fit the procedures or structures that typically surround the ethical considerations of research.” Although essential and for a purpose, these all raise the ethical challenges.

Moving beyond conventional research ethics Consequently, prospective autoethnographic researchers need to be aware of the significant challenges (specifically ethical challenges) they will face and the ethical code of conduct they will have to follow when performing this kind of research. Sikes (2012), Scheurich and Young (1997) and Wall (2016) agree with Thompson-Lee (2017) by underlining that autoethnographers need to think very cautiously about the potential risks involved when writing about others’ lives and also to consider the ethical dilemmas which move beyond conventional ethics. As a first step, they need to acknowledge conventional requirements for

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ethical research adherence: obtaining permission to conduct research, i.e., ethical clearance to conduct the research; obtaining informed consent from research participants specifically consent required for video or audio recording; voluntary participation and participant right to withdraw; no physical or emotional harm to participants; ensuring anonymity and confidentiality of participants; participant right to check and modify a transcript; data protection; and reliability, validity, trustworthiness and credibility of research findings (Creswell 2014; Leedy & Ormrod 2015; Pickard 2013). Thompson-Lee (2017) reminds us that the ethical challenges in autoethnography are made worse due to an absence of clear ethical regulation, thus compelling researchers to look at other autoethnographers’ work for guidance. Conventional ethics is grounded on two main positions, namely: the deontological versus teleological stance (Doloriert & Sambrook 2009). “The deontological (or formalism) view contends that the end can never justify the use of research which is unethical, while teleological views argue that the ends served to justify the means” (Doloriert & Sambrook 2009:37). Key ethical concerns for conventional research as noted by Diener and Crandall (1978) include harm to participants, invasion of privacy, lack of informed consent, and ethical transgression (e.g., deception). Correspondently, Doloriert and Sambrook (2009:37) explain that in general “ethics committees are concerned with conventional ‘ethno’ ethics, and there are substantial academic literature, research and organisational policies that explore, advise and regulate this.” This is confirmed by widely cited textbooks on research methods such as The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research Ethics by Iphofen and Tolich (2018). Autoethnographic researchers and ethics advisory boards (also known as EABs) or ethics committees must concern themselves with research ethics, but they, however, must also move beyond this to consider the following additional challenges: procedural issues: situational issues and relational ethics; presentation of the content, i.e., the autoethnographic story and adhering to quality, truth, validity and reliability; and explicit rationalisation of adherence to ethical research conduct. These challenges will be discussed a bit later in this chapter after looking at examples from autoethnographers’ experiences with ethical challenges.

Stories of ethical failure – why autoethnographic researchers need to be extra mindful Concerns about ethics in autoethnography have been raised as there is little guidance in the autoethnography literature for dealing with these issues and thus allowing ethical failures to creep in during research (Wall 2008). The following stories of ethical failures/challenges have been mentioned by autoethnographic researchers: a. Assumptions that autoethnographic researchers do not have to obtain ethics approval as they are investigating their own experiences (Chatham-Carpenter 2010; Wall 2008): “I naively assumed that writing about my experience eliminated

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any need for ethical consideration, although I was limiting my conception of ethics to that which is governed by traditional research ethics approval processes in academic settings” (Wall 2008:49). b. Claims of ownership of stories: often autoethnographic researchers claim that the stories they write or perform are their own and thus forget that it is impossible to avoid implicating others (Ellis 2007a,b; Tolich 2010). For example, Wall (2008) explains that she did not realise that by speaking about her own perspective of her adoption, she was also automatically revealing things about her son that he might see as private. She was only made aware of these ethical implications for her son, such as privacy and anonymity after a comment made by one reviewer. Resultantly, Wall (2008) decided not to publish her autobiographical article on adoption due to the ethical dilemmas related to her son. c. Skipping the step of obtaining informed consent from individuals implied in their stories: For example, in Nathan’s comic autoethnography, he described being raised as vegetarian by “hippy” parents. While his parents did not object to him writing about his upbringing and their influence, he did not seek formal approval through them giving informed consent, and, in this sense, his ethical duty of care was arguably breached. Stephens-Griffin and Griffin 2019:11 d. Underestimating the complexities associated of being “insiders” (i.e., doing research in a field within which they are also embedded): “Naomi felt conflicted about researching people and spaces that she knew personally, feeling a degree of guilt due to her position as a researcher and the potential personal benefits that she may enjoy from the research” (Stephens-Griffin & Griffin 2019:12). e. Impact of overstepping the boundaries between crafting fictions and being true in the interests of rewriting oneself on the researcher’s self-presentation, introspection and objectivity: I wanted to present an authentic self, but I was also aware that brutal honesty might reinforce misconceptions and stigma about adoption, and I was afraid that my readers would think less of me if they knew what I really thought. Wall 2008:41 This raises questions about the honesty, credibility, validity, reliability and trustworthiness of the personal stories voiced. Autoethnographers thus always need to bear in mind that although autoethnography is a useful vehicle for introducing personal knowledge into a field of sensitive topics, promote social change and justice, or encourage therapeutic discourses, challenges such as self-presentation, introspection, objectivity and ethics are uniquely experienced in autobiographical research (Harder, Nicol & Martin 2020:239).

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Core challenges to ethical research conduct in autoethnography Some core challenges are discussed in more detail in the following subsections.

Procedural issues Procedural issues of ensuring the acceptance of research validity, obtaining ­ethical clearance, getting informed consent from participants, assuring anonymity and protecting privacy are very important (Adams, Holman Jones & Ellis 2013). Confidentiality, anonymity and informed consent are ethical concerns in autoethnography, for example, individuals mentioned in a story may be deductively identified through their physical characteristics, attitudes, actions and r­elationships with others (Smith 2017). Stephens-Griffin and Griffin (2019) explicate that autoethnography encourages a form of constant self-reflection and continual ethical appraisal, which could be seen as encouraging intellectual and/or ethical laziness. Consequently, those wanting to utilise autoethnography must pay specific attention to ethics and not assume that because a project concentrates on the self, it is excused from ethical inspection (Stephens-Griffin & Griffin 2019). More significantly, autoethnographic research is seen as posing a challenge to traditional notions of informed consent and requires the utmost care to protect the anonymity of those involved (Stephens-Griffin & Griffin 2019). For example, one of these consent grey areas is when the researcher is an insider, and he/she must use their “intuition to understand what information, provided by participants, could or should be deemed ‘off the record’” (Taylor 2011), thus understanding one’s duty of care to participants and the well-being of oneself. There is also the question “whether all individuals always deserve anonymity in autoethnographic w ­ riting” … “­especially if their name is already out in the public arena” (Sikes 2012:124; Scheurich & Young, 1997). At this stage, we will not attempt to offer an answer.

Situational issues One of the key ethical concerns around autoethnography is situational issues (Adams, Holman Jones & Ellis 2013). This involves the vulnerability of the researchers and of the people implied in a study when they share deeply personal, emotional and formative stories publicly (Lapadat 2017; Tullis 2013). Wall (2016:7) points out that even though researchers risk negative judgments, stigma by colleagues and even undesired career consequences, “conventional research ethics and research ethics boards tend not to be concerned with the impact that the research process can have on the researcher, both within qualitative research in general and within autoethnography specifically.” In concurrence, Vickers (2002:612) highlights that “few have considered (psychologically, physically, materially or emotionally) the potential harm to researchers when we write about our experiences as we go about our work.” Thus, while the duty of care

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to others is an immense ethical priority, an additional concern, is the well-being of researchers themselves. Downes, Breeze and Griffin (2013) note that this is something that applies more broadly, but it is seldom discussed in methodology texts, nor do ethics boards tend to focus on it. Besides the general safety concerns about practical reassurances that the researcher remains physically safe, there are also emotional and affective aspects of safety in research. Autoethnographers open themselves to vulnerability by sharing personal stories (Stephens-Griffin & Griffin 2019). As such, autoethnographic research is seen as a complex ethical and moral minefield which could make ethics committees highly critical and nervous about autoethnography as a research method, as revealed by Gibbs (2018). However, Allen-Collinson (2012), Ellis (2004, 2007a,b), Muncey (2010) and Tolich (2010) accentuate that none of these ethical dilemmas means that publishing and writing ethical autoethnographic research is impossible. Researchers should just consider introducing other aspirational ethical positions such as rational ethics (Andrew 2017; Doloriert & Sambrook 2009; Ellis 2007a,b). “Also let’s get people on ethics boards with autoethnographic knowledge, knowledge about the rationale, technique and implications, including ethical ones” (Gibbs 2018:158). Thus, aligning with relational ethics which requires a researcher to accept responsibility for the implications for everyone involved in the autoethnographic story (Ellis 2004; Ellis 2007a,b; Ellis 2009b; Tullis 2013). It is important to note that relationships with others may change over time with subsequent changes in ethical responsibilities.

Presentation of content In presenting autoethnographic content, it is important to focus on the mindfulness of power imbalances in the research, telling the story and deciding how much detail to include, how to “voice” the story in terms of harsh, angry or sad, and implications for others. It is also about deciding how reality will be depicted versus a good storyline, and keeping readers’ attention, maintaining the importance of research quality, validity and reliability of autoethnographic research. Holman Jones, Adams and Ellis (2016:255) reveal the influential power, control and responsibility autoethnographic researchers have in practising this research method. And more, autoethnographers can also decide how much they want to disclose about themselves and in this vein how honest they would like to be when creating and representing their life to others (Allen-Collinson 2012; Allen-Collinson & Hockey 2008). In correspondence, Etherington (2007) warns against the dangers of power discrepancy between vulnerable participants and autoethnographic researchers who remained invisible and in control of their stories, as well as, presenting fictional or false personal accounts. In autoethnography “your life is the data, in other words, life events and experiences are treated as data to be collected, analysed systematically, and critically reflected upon” (Gibbs 2018:148). The autoethnographic researcher, however, needs to be selective in what they choose to write. For example, Iphofen and Tolich (2018:148) note that good and ethical autoethnographic research must exhibit “high quality,

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well-crafted writing, or other means of high-quality communication, must be emotionally engaging, must be critically self-reflective, and must enable the reader to be actively engaged with the material being presented.” Therefore, also signifying the importance of addressing research rigour, maintaining the truth of the story, admitting to accountability, establishing credibility, member checking, analysis and the interpretation, and reporting of the story. For instance, autoethnography has been seen as ethically fraught as it can fall short of its ideological promise due to a lack of distance that results from the subject and the researcher being the same person, and because it can be challenging to translate personal experience into sociocultural and political action Lapadat 2017:589 Atkinson and Delamont (2006) argue that autoethnography can become unreflective personal narratives and that for autoethnographies to gain the credibility, they must be analytic, and be connected to, and critiqued within, broader social contexts. Additionally, Jensen-Hart and Williams (2010) point out that the link between autoethnography as research and practice is somewhat blurred, thus raising questions about trustworthiness. Ultimately, “autoethnographies have their place to promote understanding and action in the same way as other types of research: ‘statistics do not appear to move people; hopefully, one story will evoke a response from people and promote action” (Murray, Pushor & Renihan 2012:45), or, “Policymakers may value statistical data and analysis in their public discourse, in private, however if you want to convince them of something, tell them a good story” (Donmoyer 2012:805).

Explicit rationalisation of adherence to ethical research conduct “Autoethnographers should use, rather than resist, the Code of Ethics (e.g., informed consent, accuracy, deception, confidentiality and privacy) and the moral standards for research involving human subjects” (Holman Jones, Adams & Ellis 2016:258). Explicit rationalisation and adherence to ethical research conduct such as explaining how the autoethnography or autoethnographic research project actually set out to adhere to ethical research concerns is essential. Holman Jones, Adams and Ellis (2016) explicitly mention that they strived to adhere to the following guidelines to accomplish ethical life writing: Do no harm to self and others; Consult your Institutional Review Board (IRB); Get informed consent; Practice process consent and explore the ethics of consequence; Do a member check; Do not present publicly or publish anything you would not show the persons mentioned in the text and do not underestimate the afterlife of a published narrative.

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Some autoethnographic research studies do not specif ically mention how they adhered to ethical research conduct; however, they mention that they did obtain ethical approval from their Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Research Ethics Board (REB) (Harder, Nicol & Martin 2020; Murray, Pushor & Renihan 2012; Wall 2008). Other autoethnographic research studies mention the need to adhere to ethical approval processes but due to little consistency in ethical guidance or ethics committee denying their request, decided to dismiss this from their study (Campbell 2017; Tolich 2010).

Dealing with ethical challenges – examples In autoethnographic research, authors seek to extend human knowledge by reflecting on their own and others’ lived experiences and reasoning. When facing challenges, they look at examples from other autoethnographers to improve their understanding of how to handle sensitive and ethical challenges (Thompson-Lee 2017). We are thus including three examples to illustrate how ethical autoethnographic challenges have been addressed. •

•

•

Transcript validation (also known as member checking): Hole (2007) faced challenges in ensuring that the participants’ perspectives on the findings and interpretations were solicited. Thus, she used a transcript validation process (i.e., member checking) which involved taking the interview transcript back to the interviewee to check narrative accuracy, interpretive validity and descriptive validity (Hole 2007). Strengthening the rigour of obtaining informed consent: Etherington (2007) argues for approaching participants for informed consent as the study evolves and to provide opportunities for the participant to choose to give or withhold consent for each different reason for using the data. A solution suggested here by Etherington (2007) was to use time-limited, layered and iterative approaches to participant consent, where consent consists not just of a onetime signature, but rather involves repeated discussions and opportunities to give or withhold consent. Eliminating narrative power and improving authorial honesty: Sikes (2012:123; Scheurich & Young, 1997) points out that “skilful writers craft evocative accounts, drawing the reader in, sometimes using fiction and other literary conceits too.” These concerns are raising ethical questions about authorial honesty and narrative power. Several autoethnographers have recommended making use of polyphonic accounts through employing a collaborative autoethnographic research method, therefore, bringing multiple perspectives to stories (Chang 2016; Hernandez, Chang & Ngunjiri 2017; Sikes 2012; Scheurich & Young, 1997). In Chapter 5, Kathy-Ann Hernandez writes about collaborative autoethnography.

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Matrix of ethical issues Table 7.1 below presents a matrix of ethical issues to consider when embarking on autoethnographic research. This developed from a presentation at an interactive session in 2018 at the iSchool Conference (Anderson, Fourie, Meyer & Ball 2018). It is based on four issues: procedural, situational, relational, quality, truth and reliability. Chapter 6 by Tim Gorichanaz also provides more detail on rigour in autoethnographic research and ensuring quality. When these issues cannot be resolved, special precaution, innovative measures and clear rationalisation are required as we explained in this chapter.

TABLE 7.1  Matrix of ethical issues

Issues Procedural issues Getting autoethnography accepted as valid research

Getting ethical clearance, e.g., from review boards and meeting with bureaucratic institutional requirements

Obtaining informed consent • From yourself (autoethnographic researcher) • People mentioned/implied in your autoethnographic story/report (involuntary participants)

Comments and Examples What is told (i.e., the story), purpose and value of telling the story, situating the method in comparison to other methods and especially qualitative research, how the story will be supplemented by data from other methods, e.g., literature analysis, stories of others and acknowledging reliance on memory needs to be addressed. Autoethnographers need to ask and find answers to questions such as: • Do you need ethical clearance to conduct research on yourself, i.e., “reporting data on yourself ”? • Can you be denied experiences or the opportunity to reflect on your work or experiences? • What if other people, such as students are implicated? Autoethnographers need to ask and find answers to questions such as: • Do you need to sign a form of informed consent if you are the research subject? • Do you explain to yourself what the research study will entail? • Do you need permission to use other people, such as students in your story? • Do you get permission from people who feature in your story, e.g., the person who abused you, the school where you were bullied, your colleagues who featured in your career path as a professional from a marginalised group? • At what time do you get permission/informed consent? • Is it even possible to get informed consent?

Ethical challenges 105 TABLE 7.1  (Continued)

Issues Ensuring anonymity • Key research participant (you as author) • Places, institutions, people mentioned or implied

Protecting privacy

Comments and Examples Autoethnographers need to ask and find answers to questions such as: • How do you write your own story/autoethnographic report, published under your name, without revealing your own identity? • How can the names of other people, institutions and places be protected? • Should the names of other people, institutions and places be protected? Autoethnographic research tends to give up personal privacy by choice: • What about other people featuring in a story? • Which steps will you take to protect the voices of others? • How much detail should be revealed?

Situational issues Vulnerability of the researcher

Autoethnographers should remember: • Once you have shared and published the story/ extracts of your story, it is “out in the open.” • The essence of autoethnographic research is to show vulnerability, to write like a human – but it can mean that a person/researcher is hurt by what they share.

Vulnerability of people implied in the study/report

Autoethnographers should remember:

Telling the story (the research report):

Autoethnographers should remember to ask:

• Ensuring accuracy • Ensuring honesty • Construction and depiction of reality (but how do you verify your interpretation/ representation of reality?)

• Autoethnographic reports put other people in vulnerable positions. • How do you keep to the purpose of telling the story without hurting people (you as researcher or people who feature in the story)? • How much do you tell? • What do you tell? • Are there things you should not tell?

Voice of the story – must engage the reader audience

Autoethnographers should remember to consider the importance of the tone of the story.

Confidentiality in collaborative autoethnography (building on trust between the two or more people collaborating)

Autoethnographers should remember to ask:

Agency

Autoethnographers should remember that in collaborative autoethnographic research agency is shared.

• How do you ensure/maintain confidentiality in the collaborative research relationship? • How do you share the analysis and quotes from ­stories, but not confidential detail from the full story?

(Continued )

106  Anika Meyer and Ina Fourie TABLE 7.1  (Continued)

Issues Respect for people

Comments and Examples Autoethnographers should remember this requirement for all research and research methods.

Relational ethics (implications for everyone involved in the story) Power imbalances Autoethnographers should remember that when they in research reveal their own story and experience, they are in a power position. This holds implications for those in the story. They should ask questions: • How do you use the power position? • How do you acknowledge and deal with the fact that people in your story do not have the same power? Telling the story

Autoethnographers should remember to ask: • How much detail do I reveal? • What do I not reveal? • Writing in a reflective manner and at different points in time, will I always reveal the same things?

Voice of the story

Autoethnographers should remember to ask: • What is the tone of the story: harsh, angry or sad? • What language do I use? • How much do I reveal of what I really think and feel?

Implications for others

How do I acknowledge and deal with the implications my story will have for the people mentioned/implied in the story?

Ethics in quality, truth and reliability of autoethnographic research (i.e., addressing research rigour) Ensuring the truth of story Autoethnographers should remember to ask how they will do this. Admitting to accountability

Autoethnographers should remember to prepare for accountability and rationalisation.

Credibility and member checking

Autoethnographers should remember to prepare for credibility and member checking.

Analysis and interpretation of the story

Autoethnographers should remember to ask:

Reporting the story/ autoethnographic research

Autoethnographers should remember to ask:

• How do I move beyond myself? • How and where do I report the research?

Conclusion Autoethnography holds much potential for librarians and information scientists. In addition to conventional challenges for ethical research conduct, there are many more challenges to consider and often innovative solutions need to be found. Apart from being mindful to challenges, the quality of

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adherence to ethical research conduct in qualitative research can improve if researchers are willing to explicitly report the challenges they faced and how they address these.

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Ellis, C. 2009b. Telling tales on neighbors: ethics in two voices. International Review of Qualitative Research, 2(1):3–27. DOI: 10.1525/irqr.2009.2.1.3 Ellis, C., Adams, T.E. & Bochner, A.P. 2011. Autoethnography: an overview. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 12(1):Article 10:273–290. Available: http:// www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1589 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200811193212/https://www. qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1589) [Accessed 28 October 2020] Etherington, K. 2007. Ethical research in reflexive relationships. Qualitative Inquiry, 13(5):599–616. DOI: 10.1177/1077800407301175 Flemons, D. & Green, S. 2002. Stories than conform/stories that transform: a conversation in four parts. In Ethnographically Speaking: Autoethnography, Literature, and Aesthetics, edited by A.P. Bochner & C. Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press:87–94. Gibbs, A. 2018. Ethical issues when undertaking autoethnographic research with families. In The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research Ethics, edited by R. Iphofen & M. Tolich. City Road, London: SAGE Publications:148–160. DOI: 10.4135/9781526435446.n10 Harder, R., Nicol, J.J. & Martin, S.L. 2020. The power of personal experiences: post-­ publication experiences of researchers using autobiographical data. The Qualitative Report, 25(1):238–254. Hernandez, K.A.C., Chang, H. & Ngunjiri, F.W. 2017. Collaborative autoethnography as multivocal, relational, and democratic research: opportunities, challenges, and aspirations. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, 32(2):251–254. DOI: 10.1080/08989575.2017.1288892 Hole, R. 2007. Working between languages and cultures: issues of representation, voice, and authority intensified. Qualitative Inquiry, 13(5):696–710. DOI: 10.1177/ 1077800407301186 Holman Jones, S., Adams, T.E. & Ellis, C. (eds.) 2016. Handbook of Autoethnography. New York, NY: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315427812 Hughes, S.A. & Pennington, J.L. 2017. Autoethnography: Process, Product, and Possibility for Critical Social Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Iphofen, R. & Tolich, M. (eds.) 2018. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research Ethics. London, England: SAGE Publications. DOI: 10.4135/9781526435446 Jensen-Hart, S. & Williams, D.J. 2010. Blending voices: autoethnography as a vehicle for critical reflection in social work. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 30(4):450–467. DOI: 10.1080/08841233.2010.515911 Kelley, B. & Weaver, S. 2020. Researching people who (probably) hate you: when practicing “good” ethics means protecting yourself. Computers and Composition, ­ 56:102567. DOI: 10.1016/j.compcom.2020.102567 Langmann, S. & Pick, D. (eds.) 2018. Ethical considerations in photography as a research method. In Photography as a Social Research Method. Singapore: Springer:57–83. DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-7279-6_3 Lapadat, J.C. 2017. Ethics in autoethnography and collaborative autoethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(8):589–603. DOI: 10.1177/1077800417704462 Leedy, P.D. & Ormrod, J.E. 2015. Practical Research: Planning and Design. 11th edition. London, UK: Pearson Education Limited. Lorde, A. 2007. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press. Loveless, D., Beverly, C.L., Bodle, A., Dredger, K.S., Foucar-Szocki, D., Harris, T., Kang, S.J., Thall, J.B. & Wishon, P. 2016. The Vulnerability of Teaching and Learning in a Selfie Society. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-6300-812–9 Matias, C., Walker, D. & del Hierro, M. 2019. Tales from the Ivory Tower: women of color’s resistance to whiteness in academia. Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education, 18(1):35–58. DOI: 10.31390/taboo.18.1.04

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Middlewood, S., Luxford, Y. & Crawford, F. 2016. Willie you will live longer than me’: an autoethnography of reclaiming mothering my first-born. Journal of Family Studies, 22(3):203–217. DOI: 10.1080/13229400.2015.1088888 Muncey, T. 2010. Creating Autoethnographies. City Road, London: SAGE Publications. DOI: 10.4135/9781446268339 Murray, L., Pushor, D. & Renihan, P. 2012. Reflections on the ethics-approval process. Qualitative Inquiry, 18(1):43–54. DOI: 10.1177/1077800411427845 Pennington, J.L. 2007. Silence in the classroom/whispers in the halls: autoethnography as pedagogy in White pre-service teacher education. Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 10(1):93–113. DOI: 10.1080/13613320601100393 Pickard, A.J. 2013. Research Methods in Information. 2nd edition. London, UK: Facet Publishing. Richardson, L. 2001. Getting personal: writing-stories. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 14(1):33–38. DOI: 10.1080/09518390010007647 Roth, W.M. 2009. Auto/ethnography and the question of ethics. Forum: Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 10(1):Article 38. Available: https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/%20view/1213/2645a (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200114163044/ http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/%20view/1213/2645a) [Accessed 13 September 2020] Scheurich, J.J. & Young, M.D. 1997. Coloring epistemologies: are our research epistemologies racially biased? Educational Researcher, 26(4):4–16. DOI: 10.3102/ 0013189X026004004 Sikes, P. 2012. Truths, truths and treating people properly: ethical considerations for researchers who use narrative and auto/biographical approaches. In Explorations in Narrative Research, edited by I.F. Goodson, A.M. Loveless & D. Stephens. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers:123–139. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-6091-988-6_11 Smith, B. 2017. Narrative inquiry and autoethnography. In Routledge Handbook of Physical Cultural Studies, edited by M.L. Silk, D.L. Andrews & H. Thorpe. Routledge International Handbooks, Routledge:505–514. DOI: 10.4324/9781315745664-51 Spry, T. 2001. Performing autoethnography: an embodied methodological praxis. Qualitative Inquiry, 7(6):706–732. DOI: 10.1177/107780040100700605 Stephens-Griffin, N. & Griffin, N. 2019. A millennial methodology? Autoethnographic research in Do-It-yourself (DIY) punk and activist communities. Forum: Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 20(3):Article 3. DOI: 10.17169/ fqs-20.3.3206 Tamas, S. 2011. Life After Leaving: The Remains of Spousal Abuse. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Taylor, J. 2011. The intimate insider: negotiating the ethics of friendship when doing insider research. Qualitative Research, 11(1):3–22. DOI: 10.1177/1468794110384447 Thompson-Lee, C. 2017. Heteronormativity in a Rural School Community: an Autoethnography. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-6300-935-5 Tillmann-Healy, L.M. 1996. A secret life in a culture of thinness: reflections on body, food, and bulimia. In Composing Ethnography: Alternative Forms of Qualitative Writing: Volume 1, edited by C. Ellis & A.P. Bochner. Walnut Creek, CA: Rowman Altamira:76–108. Tillmann-Healy, L.M. 2009. Body and bulimia revisited: reflections on “A secret life”. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 37(1):98–112. DOI: 10.1080/00909880802592615

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8 SUPPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE METHODS Dervin’s sense-making methodology Christine Urquhart and Louisa Lam

Introduction As noted in Chapter 4, autoethnography can be supplemented by other methods such as action research. Following on this argument, this chapter will take a slightly different perspective on autoethnography, but one that reflects many of the aims of autoethnography in providing deep reflection on observations and interview data. Dervin’s sense-making methodology (SMM) “assumes that theorizing about human conditions and behaviors involved intertwined and tangled interconnections between philosophic assumptions and research implementations of theorizing, research designing, data collecting, and conclusion drawing” (Urquhart, Lam, Cheuk & Dervin 2020). Sense-making has been noted in reports on autoethnography, albeit sometimes with a different interpretation which will be considered (Boyle & Parry 2007; Ellis 2009; Haugh 2016; Vickers 2007). Pitard (2016, 2017) is one of few authors citing the work of Dervin. This chapter explores how Dervin’s sense-making methodology may, or may not, contribute to questioning and reflecting within autoethnographic research. Autoethnography is characterised by the use of qualitative personal narratives which are usually structured to allow the merging of the researcher’s personal understanding, together with other texts that allow connection with other readers, so that learning is possible for both researchers and readers. Autoethnography celebrates the personal journey but is also deeply reflective and reflexive. Sensemaking developed from the dissatisfaction with assumptions that communication was primarily about transmission (viewing the receiver as an empty bucket). But understanding of messages may change depending on how different “receivers” are perceiving and reacting to their particular situations at that time. The focus of SMM is on communication as a process, positioning SMM as a “methodology between the cracks,” handling differences in the way people make sense, in a

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disciplined and dialogic way. The sense-making interview is designed to allow the respondent to name their world, circle and engage with the phenomenon of interest, and analyze seeks patterns in terms of processes or verbs, rather than things or nouns (Foreman-Wernet 2003). Whether or not SMM respondents are encouraged to perform “informal autoethnography” – and whether that is a useful question to ask – will be considered later. There are other sense-making/sensemaking theories, which have emerged from different disciplinary roots. Organisational researchers usually follow the social constructivist ideas of Weick (2001), where sensemaking focuses on how organisational members react to ambiguous events, to reduce equivocality through actions, to reconsider and reinterpret previous experiences. Gradually, a plausible story emerges that is acceptable and added to organisational memory and narratives. The focus of organisational sensemaking is to impose order and to achieve a workable level of certainty. Later reviews (e.g., Maitlis & Christianson 2014) discuss developments in research on sensemaking in organisations, for example, how events become triggers for sensemaking, how intersubjective meaning is constructed and the role of action in sensemaking. Boyle and Parry (2007) in a discussion of organisational autoethnography refer to the self-­ narrative “as a form of sensemaking in organisational life,” emphasising the value of evocative autoethnographic research that should be meaningful to readers and perhaps bridge gaps they have in understanding of certain issues. In this chapter, examples of autoethnography will be set alongside SMM, and organisational sensemaking, to explore links, continuities, discontinuities, queries and reflection. The examples of studies using sense-making include the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) project and its interviewing protocol (Dervin, Reinhard, Song & Reed 2006), online communication in public spheres (Schaefer & Dervin 2009) and macro-micro models for sense-making for knowledge creation and use in the health sector (Lam 2014). The emphasis of the discussion will be on the interviewing situation, the verbing micro-practices, the practice of dialogue and the sense-making methodology. There are different ways of doing and presenting autoethnography (Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011) depending on the emphasis given to the relationship with others, the researcher’s self and interactions with others, the ways interviews may be included and how the relevant literature and other data are integrated into the reporting of the autoethnographic research. This chapter will consider various types of autoethnography, with an emphasis on organisational autoethnography (Sambrook & Herrmann 2018). Examples include an account of a woman’s journey into motherhood (Haugh 2016), that could be considered as a narrative autoethnography of the personal learning experienced by the researcher coming into motherhood, reflecting both on the anecdotal stories of other mothers’ experiences and some research literature (in some respects more like a layered account). The second example (Pitard 2016, 2017) concerns the experience of responding to the cultural challenge of working with a group of professionals from Timor-Leste, which focuses on

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reflexivity throughout the research process, and many of the concerns around power expected in i­ndigenous/native ethnographies. The third example is an organisational autoethnography (Brommel 2017) of sensemaking in the dialysis clinic. The fourth set of examples also comes, like Brommel (2017), from Herrmann (2017) and focuses on other aspects of identity work in organisations, where people try to make sense of events and their surrounding through narratives that are shared with the reader. Other examples considered include Duarte and Hodge (2007) on the cultural problems and opportunities offered during a fieldwork trip to Brazil. The chapter will conclude by referring back to the purpose of autoethnographic research, different types of autoethnography (Bochner & Ellis 2016; Herrmann 2017) and interpretations of sense-making in autoethnographic research to reconfirm the contribution of SMM.

Dervin’s sense-making methodology (SMM) SMM is best represented by a central metaphor that focuses on six dimensions of sense-making and unmaking as human agents seek to bridge gaps communicatively. The metaphor’s dimensions are: (a) situations—time– space anchored moments where agents experience barriers, constraints, and so on; (b) gaps—the questions, confusions, and muddles agents confront during these moments; (c) bridges—the sense-makings/unmakings by which agents move over gaps (e.g., thoughts/ideas, cognitions, attitudes, feelings, memories); (d) outcomes/uses—the consequences to be sought or avoided via gap-bridging (helps, hindrances, effects, and so on); (e) verbings—the micro-level communicative energizings or actings by which agents move through time–space, which could be internal or external, trans-situational or situational, habitual or innovative, cognitive, emotional, spiritual, or physical; and (f ) contexts—the ideological structures, communities, and knowledge systems that both constrain and enable sense-making practices. (Schaefer & Dervin 2009). The emphasis is on process, bridging the gaps, using “helps” or dealing with hindrances, moving through time-space. In this chapter, the emphasis is on the sense-making methodology. Dervin’s SMM assumes that “theorizing” about human conditions and behaviours involves intertwined and tangled interconnections between philosophic assumptions and research implementations (i.e., theorising, research designing, data collecting and conclusion drawing). SMM assumes that the basic problem in communication, what we know and how we know it, is bound to be a hard problem with the inevitable differences in interpretation between people. This ever-present gap SMM assumes can be bridged (albeit only in part) by attending to communication communicatively – i.e., dialogically. Dervin and Shields (2011) argue that the sense-making methodological tools

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attend to human universals that facilitate understanding others within their own “maps of their worlds” rather than positioning them on maps imposed by researchers. Thus, SMM’s interviewing tools offer a variety of ways of addressing human movement through time–space in terms of universals. Examples include formats labelled as “time-line micro-moment” focusing on a single situational entry broken into micro-moments as seen by informants; in contrast to the “life-line” where informants name multiple situations that they interpreted as being similar across a life-line of experiences (Dervin 2015). Olsson (2005) explains application of the “life-line” and “time-line” techniques. The queries that are addressed focus not on noun descriptors imposed on humans but rather on how interviewees see themselves as moving through time-space and how they define themselves. Example queries include: What happened? What did you see as leading to it? What were the outcomes, both helpful and hindering? What questions did you have? What hunches and ideas did you come to?

Reflection one: SMM interviewing and use of interviews in autoethnography In the report on the whys and the hows of college and university user satisficing of information needs (Dervin, Reinhard, Song & Reed 2006), Chapter III explains the rationale for the interviewing protocol. Much information user needs and information behaviour research have focused on assumptions about the ideal delivery, or ideal institutionally based content provision for users, whereas “Sense-Making interviewing was developed as an approach to being able to elicit and hear what people really want, think, need, feel, experience, struggle with.” Sense-making interviewing therefore aims to hear users on their own terms, but the content analysis of the transcribed interviews can also provide quantitative data that may interest those providing information services. SMM interviewing mandates: •

•

•

• •

Minimal intrusion by interviewers of their credentials and expertise (to avoid interviewees subconsciously editing their responses to give the right impression) Giving informants permission not to be system users (important for information behaviour studies that are based on views on the value of a particular system or service or content) Understanding that informants do not come to the interview with well-­ articulated answers to particular questions (informants need time to think about responses) Focusing on what informants have experienced, and what is real to them, not what they think they might like or appreciate Interviewing to build trust and willingness by informants to disclose ­information (and that may take time)

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•

•

•

• • • • • •

Focusing on one situation at a time (not assuming that informants can usefully [or not] average their behaviour over a time period, and allowing for situation specific differences) Allowing informants to talk about muddles and confusion (interviewing talks and helps and hurts, successes and failures, emphasising that informants were trying, intelligently, to develop a strategy that made sense to them) Allowing informants to talk about perceptions that might be outside the framework of interest to the interviewer (focus on the situation, not on perceptions about expected use) Allowing informants to be creators of their world (focus on the connections they are making) Precise question formulation matters less than building trust Using redundancy to help build trust and mutual understanding of the informant’s situation Talking about constraints (to explore issues of power) Using sense-making to gently channel informants’ responses Training interviewers well and allowing them flexibility in the way questions are presented, and which words are used

The core Sense-Making triangle has situation, outcome and gap at apices of an inverted triangle. The sense-making need (for the IMLS study of the information need) is seen as at the intersection of all parts of the triangle. The situation is defined as where the informant sees self as moving from – the nature of the situation, its history, its constraints, its links to lived experience. The gap is conceptually the “hole” that is always present between this moment and the next as seen by the informant. The bridge is defined as ideas, thoughts, emotions, feelings, hunches, memories, values and so on that the sense-maker turns to or constructs for gap-bridging. The outcomes are as defined by the sense-maker and often form part of the “situation” for the next “step-taking.” Conceptually, then, this Sense-Making “triangle” is used over and over again as part of the Sense-Making emphasis on giving informants time to think­ ­deeply…”Sense-Making rests on a basic premise that situation will be a better predictor of information behaviour (i.e., sense-making activities) in many contexts than traditional predictors such as across-time space measures (e.g., demography and personality) that assume informants are the same as they move across time-space” (Dervin, Reinhard, Song & Reed 2006, Chapter III:7). Sense-making interviews may start from a similar position to critical incident interviews or explicitation interviews (Urquhart & Light 2003) and the relationship between interviewer and informant is intended to allow the informant to elaborate on their experience, how they went about dealing with the situation. Interestingly, explicitation advice on interviewing often advises interviewers to sit alongside informants rather than face-to-face, to avoid interfering with recall of an event or situation and to encourage the interviewee to evoke the

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situation in full sensory detail. The premise is that informants in sense-making, critical incident or explicitation interviews are motivated to tell their stories in their terms. Such interviews are generally not repeated, and although informants often appreciate the opportunity to reflect, the emotional responses or personal learning are not (usually) considered formally as part of the analysis. Interviews in autoethnography are more reflexive, and generally form one part of the data collection. The researcher focuses not only on the informants and their stories, but also reflects on their personal motivations for the interview, awareness of the topics and the situation and emotional responses. Interactive interviews involve collaboration between the researcher and the participant (both are considered researchers) and often consist of multiple interview sessions (Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011). The difference between usual program evaluation type of interviews and autoethnography interviews is vividly illustrated in the account by Fernanda Duarte of her fieldwork of a sustainability project in Brazil (Duarte & Hodge 2007). Her reflexive analysis of her fieldwork journal and research notes explains the transformation from a more positivistic and structured stance to autoethnography. As a member of the Brazilian diaspora, she was soon made aware, or reminded, of the importance of charm and immediate affinity (simpatia) with someone. Simpatia may lead to informally obtaining resources, often avoiding bureaucratic rules ( jeitinho). Interviewing may be complicated not by the assumed power of the interviewer but the manipulative power of the informant. Fernanda Duarte explains how the contradictions in stories and ambivalence were best not viewed as truth, or not, but as texts, depictions of “reality,” and the processes behind those depictions were as important as the content of the stories. The new research focus was in fact on jeitinho in organisational workplaces, the creative (working around) ways of getting things done. In conclusion, the core sense-making triangle of situation, outcome and gap used for SMM interviews may also provide a framework for interviews that may form part of the reflection work for autoethnography. Interviews may be conducted with others, over a period of time, in different situations. In addition, the core sense-making triangle may also provide a framework for making sense in autoethnographic intrapersonal interviews or reflections. This is discussed in later reflections (particularly reflection three).

Reflection two: processes and constraints around sense-making Following the account by Duarte of her research in Brazil, it is interesting that SMM is also concerned with processes (verbings) and the way cultures constrain and enable sense-making (Schaefer & Dervin 2009). In a study of dialogic practices in public sphere, online discussion groups Schaefer and Dervin (2009) dig deeper into the processes of making consensus and dissensus. The analysis relies on the communication-as-procedure framework, assuming that at any

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given point in time-space, there are three universal dialogic verbing mandates: (a) self relating to self, (b) self relating to others; (c) self relating to collectivity (society) (Dervin & Clark, 1993). The chosen online discussion groups were based at a large state mid-West United States University. One course studied racism, the other two studied various aspects of media literacy and culture. The online discussion groups were student-led. For all class exercises, the students were required to use the SMM metaphor, to provide information on the situation that led to their comment, the question or muddle they faced or the idea/ connection they wished to offer and how they saw their question or comment helping or hindering them. At the start, the self-relating-to-self predictor verbings were defined as ­situatings (references to specific lived experience), emotings, self-growings. The self-­ relating-to-others predictor verbings were defined as engagings (direct addresses to, or comments about other participants), “perspectivings” (references to others’ words or viewpoints) and “empathyings” (references to other participants’ emotions, use of emotional terms, emoticons). The self-relating-to-society predictor verbings were defined as generalizings (stereotyped, automatic comments lacking critique or tending towards homogeneity), reflectings (with social critique connecting participant to social structures), and conscientizings (references to actions that the participant would make to change a critiqued social structure). The two criterion verbings, consensusing and dissensusing, were defined as agreeing/­ according or disagreeing or showing discord with observations, perspectives or discussions of other participants. Factor analysis testing of the nine predictor verbings provided partial support for the three dialogic groupings originally posited. Three factors were identified as otherings (similar to self relating to others), societying (partly similar to self related to society) and selfings (partly similar to self relating to self ). The fourth factor, transformings (self related to acting), loaded on to self-growings and conscientizings. Interesting from an autoethnographic stance was the finding that the transforming neither took place in the presence of consensusing nor dissensusing. Although postings that were concerned with self-learning or proposed actions to change the social structure were in the public sphere, the contemplation was intrapersonal and did not engage with others. In an autoethnographic account of becoming a mother and learning to breastfeed, Haugh (2016) also considers relationships between herself and others. For example, she describes acquiring information about breastfeeding from her friends in her personal journal. These stories were often unsettling, and triggered feelings more of fear than comfort. Despite the difficulty of reflecting and trying to learn from others’ stories, formal published sources (print and online) did not particularly help. Stories from other women were important, but ­neither in the sense of engaging (as defined above) nor directly on others’ emotions or perspectives. Haugh (2016:59) notes “It was dialogues I was seeking.” For her, the transforming process was not concerned with agreeing or disagreeing with the views of others, but required acknowledgement of her own emotions and self-growing, through questioning and dialogue with the accounts of other

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mothers’ experiences. Reflection on those narratives prompted self-reflection that resulted in personal learning. The advice from others was very tiresome and had a strong effect on me. But I did not yet have the confidence to follow through with my own instincts despite what others were saying. As well, I did not yet have the foresight to see the positive effect the stories were having on my experience either. In conclusion, SMM’s communication-as-procedure framework may help explore the personal learning experienced in autoethnographic research. Denzin (2006) stresses that research practices should be performative, pedagogical and political, challenging official hegemonic ways of “seeing.” Trying to reflect, dialogically, on self relating to self, self relating to others and self relating to society, may help the self growing and transforming that seems to have been the experience of Haugh (2016).

Reflection three: autoethnography, sensemaking and identity Bernard Brommel’s autoethnography of his sensemaking around communication in a dialysis clinic is a detailed and very moving account (Brommel 2017) of how patients and professionals interact in various dialysis clinics, how professionals interact, how patients may communicate with each other and how “the most important kind of communication that takes place is intrapersonal – talking to myself inside my head. Dialysis has forced me into interior communication where I process my expectations and fears.” Brommel uses Weick’s organisational sensemaking framework (Weick 1995) to extract meaning and make sense of living with dialysis. His personal account is integrated towards the end with ethnographic research on the working routines of a dialysis clinic, how staff interact with each other. Brommel (2017:90) cites Weick’s views of sensemaking as an “ongoing accomplishment that takes form when people make retrospective sense of situations in which they find themselves” (Weick 1995:15). Weick suggests that sensemaking is the enlargement of small cues, a search for context within which small details fit together and make sense. People interact to test out their hunches. Brommel explains how listening and reflecting on small fragments of conversations helps to understand, over many months, how fellow patients are coping with other health problems, what the co-morbidity means for the experience of dialysis. Some patients may not communicate with other patients at first, usually out of fear of what is, or might happen. So much is unknown, so much cannot be known, that Brommel reflects on imagining and speculating on what is happening around him, relating this to Weick’s observation that people’s own inventions, and interpretation understood as discovery, go hand in hand. And talking to oneself,

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intrapersonal communication is important, becomes extremely important to Brommel, as communication lessens when dialysis patients become sicker over time. The interruptions to previously normal routines, in order to come in for dialysis plus associated surgery, become more prominent. In “doing sensemaking” to understand his anger and anxiety, Brommel realises that the uncertainty of the unknown is the main troubling factor for him, and that part of the sensemaking process involves accepting what happens, what can and cannot be accomplished by himself and the healthcare staff. He deals with cycles of depression, and is helped by some hypnotherapy. Although Brommel cites Weick’s sensemaking as a framework for making meaning out of the experience of dialysis over time, the approach he actually takes is better described for me as talking to himself using the interviewing approach of Dervin’s sense-making methodology. Consider the gap situation of wondering what has happened to one of the fellow patients. The staff are unable to say anything for reasons of patient privacy – this is a hindrance to bridging the gap but Brommel has learnt that there are patient dyads that can help bridge the gap. Patient A tends to sit with Patient B, or Patient C when they come to clinic. Patient C may also sit with Patient D on occasion. Patient B may also be one of the “Greeters” who talks to several of the other patients. Through these Greeters with many contacts, working across the dyads, Patient A may find out what has happened to Patient D. Brommel explains his growing awareness of the situation of one of the older and sicker diabetic patients, Darlene, and how the empathy and trust between Darlene and himself evolved. As is conventional in autoethnographic accounts, the literature is used as a way of helping to make meaning. Brommel (2017) uses ethnographic research on organisational structures in a dialysis clinic, focusing on the way the staff interact. The ethnographic research demonstrated that there was a tension between the routinisation of care and continual adaptations. This idea was helpful to Brommel in bridging the gap or uncertainty over the frustrations of bad days being treated when things go wrong and staff need to be called to help, if a fluid bag does not work or bleeding happens. For the patient care technicians, there are routines associated with starting, monitoring and stopping the dialysis, but these have to be interrupted if there are problems and some adjustments have to be made. But for patients, the tension lies between the desire for a quiet time in the dialysis clinic, and the feeling of upset, followed by fear, if there are problems. The first feeling of upset is associated with guilt about the possible time taken up in dealing with one patient’s problems when there are so many other ill patients around. The ethnographic study examined only one clinic, whereas Brommel is making sense of his experiences in several clinics and this leads to the observation that there are wide variations among staff and clients as they negotiate routines, adaptations and power in their communication. The importance of power has often been overlooked in Weick’s sensemaking (Maitlis & Christianson 2014; Thurlow & Helms-Mills 2015). Schildt, Mantere and Cornelissen (2019) discuss systemic and episodic power in sensemaking. Episodic power may act to suppress

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sensemaking processes (by dismissing divergent views, for example) or empower those processes (by questioning initial explanations, for example). In Brommel’s consideration of the findings of other, ethnographic research in the dialysis clinic, the value of the ethnographic research could be said to be the time and space allowed for reflection on his initial explanations. The literature evidence is empowering, not in the sense of “evidence-based policymaking” but more for testing, verifying and expanding explanations, for deeper understanding for the authoethnographic researcher and the readers of their research accounts. Vickers (2007) also used Weick’s sensemaking framework to make sense of shifting and multiple identities during a period of bullying at work. In the narrative, she uses an inwards/outwards, backwards and forwards format. The literature on bullying forms part of the outwards focus on the events as recorded in her file notes, and reflections on these notes form the inwards focus. The backwards and forwards reflections on particular events and situations help to make sense of how things got really bad for her, without realising at the time how bad they were. Critical moments may be recognised in hindsight, but as Bochner (2012) notes, the “truths” of stories are not stable, the past is always open to revision: “the burden of the social science storyteller is to make meaning out of all the stuff of memory and experience: how it felt then and how it feels now.” In conclusion, both Brommel (2017) and Vickers (2007) have used an organisational sensemaking framework which has worked for them as part of their autoethnographic research. Arguably, their respective approaches share as many similarities with Dervin’s SMM, with reflections similar to intrapersonal SMM interviewing (situation, outcomes, gaps, bridges) and the emphasis on the micro-moment timeline, discussed in more detail in the next reflection.

Reflection four: sense-making situations and creating knowledge Lam’s doctoral research explored how knowledge was sometimes created during sense-making of problematic situations in delivering health care (Lam 2014). Her methodology was based on Dervin’s sense-making methodology, using the micro-moment timeline method for interviews with 38 practitioners (doctors and nurses), working across three regional hospitals and some private hospitals, with doctors and nurses working in the same ward sampled. The sampling of professionals working on the same ward assumed that it was possible that the same situation would be discussed by different professionals as a knowledge-­ creating situation but often different cases were discussed, reflecting the ­personal nature of learning. Sense-making often describes sense-making in terms of bridging gaps, making sense of muddles or confusion but in this setting, the interviewing guide was revised to clarify the meaning of “perplexing” medical cases. Examples given included: an unusual case that made an impression on the health professionals; the patient was unusual in a particular way, or the professionals noticed that the treatment was not working as well as they thought it

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should. This clarification helped reassure the participants that the interview was not an exploration of any shortcomings in professional practice. After the respondents had identified the situation that produced confusion and perplexity, they were asked to describe the case first and then each step they went through to handle the case in details. At each sense-making moment, the same set of questions focusing on the situation, the gap, the gap-­bridging strategies and the helps or hurts was repeated. However, questions were not asked in a linear sequence. They were adapted according to the question-­ answering style of the respondent, and whether they might have expressed their views to some questions when they answered others. Thus, it is essential to exercise active listening and reflective listening skills. Those questions that were answered were not repeated. In reflective listening, the respondents were asked to check that this was what they have narrated – “…so, the really difficult part to finding the answer was…?”. The paraphrasing was done to check that the researcher’s interpretation of what the respondents said was what the respondent appeared to mean. Reflective (or active) listening (Weger, Castle & Emmett 2010) is a listening skill associated with counselling or motivational interviewing but for qualitative research such listening skills help maintain rapport with the interviewee as well as ensuring that the interviewer and interviewee understand each other. Interviews were supplemented by notes on observations on a surgical ward round. The unit of analysis was the “individual in situation,” for 70 knowledge-­ creating situations and 30 non-knowledge-creating situations. Each timeline step in a situation was conceptualised as the specific time–space moment when the respondent came across a gap that needed to be bridged in order to move forward. The bridge could be constructed by resorting to habits and routines, in which case no new knowledge was created, or by making new responses, that would add to his or her knowledge set. Broad sense-making methodology categories were employed for the initial coding: situation, situation movement state; knowledge gaps, gap-bridging strategies, success in gap-bridging, helps, hurts, knowledge sources of inputs, relevance of sources of inputs. Other inductively-­ developed categories were “new knowledge created” and “knowledge-sharing.” The coding labels for gap-bridging were drawn from the actual thoughts, ideas, actions and emotions articulated by the respondents in the interview. A total of 36 sub-categories (grouped into eight broad categories) were derived. Another emphasis was the use of the communication-as-procedure framework to categorise the coding labels in an attempt to examine how individual sense-making efforts can be facilitated by or interrupted by macro-level structures, context and culture (Schaefer & Dervin 2009:268). The “individual relating to self ” was labelled “dealing with self ” and operationally defined as (a) accepting reality; (b) alerting; (c) emoting; (d) escaping; (e) feeling stressed; and (f ) making intuitive judgments, testing hypotheses. “Individual relating to other individuals” was sub-divided into two labels, namely “dealing with informal persons (patients or relatives)” and “dealing with formal

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persons” because of the specific nature of healthcare professions and the need of this research to study knowledge sharing which can be reflected in “dealing with formal persons” such as supervisors and other specialists in the same or a different patient care team. Dealing with informal persons was operationally defined as (a) accommodating patients’ requests; (b) assessing financial situation of patients; (c) assessing patients’ physical conditions; (d) assessing patients’ preference; (e) clarifying misunderstanding; (f ) counselling patients or relatives; and (g) suggesting advice to patients or relatives. Dealing with formal persons was operationally defined as (a) consulting or referring; (b) discussing with colleagues; (c) negotiating with authorities; and (d) reporting to seniors. “Individual relating to collectivity” was labelled as “Dealing with institutions” and was operationally defined as (a) checking with drug companies; and (b) referring to public hospitals. The rest of the gap-bridging strategies were categorised into “comparing and contrasting scenarios”; “dealing with information,” “doing checks and trials” and “doing tasks.” The results indicated that knowledge creating situations were mostly concerned with therapy, followed by diagnosis and then hospital management situations. For example, problematic therapy situations often involved treatment dilemmas: Then afterwards, there was an issue; that is whether we will use anti-­ platelet drugs or anticoagulation? In fact, cardiothoracic surgeon wanted to use anti-platelet drugs, they would like to prescribe aspirin and clopidogrel, two anti-platelet drugs. But we preferred prescribing anticoagulant; we would like to use Warfarin. These two drugs were different; we all know their different effect. I have discussed this with another cardio-­ thoracic medical officer… (English translation of original Cantonese). Gap-bridging strategies were the methods adopted to bridge the knowledge gaps identified in each unit of analysis. Of the knowledge-creating situations, the most frequently associated strategy was “dealing with formal persons” which meant that the strategies were related to persons seen as experts or authority figures or other professionals. It included consulting and referring, discussing with colleagues, negotiating with authorities and reporting to seniors. The next most frequent was “dealing with information,” which involved using or searching for good quality literature evidence or just general information to close the gap. This was followed by “dealing with self,” which was related to the ideas, cognitions, knowledge, experience and emotions of the respondent’s own self. It included accepting reality, alerting, emoting, escaping, feeling stressed, and making intuitive judgments, testing hypotheses. Participants attempted different ways of closing their knowledge gaps. Of the 97 units of analysis that involved gap-bridging, respondents used from one to eight types of strategies (mostly between two and four) and gap bridging was a zig-zag pathway for most participants.

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Gap-bridging strategies varied according to the type of knowledge gap. A need to understand the causes of the problem was frequently tackled by doing some checking and trials. Questions about therapy mostly involved discussions with other professionals, and problems around trust between the health professional and patients and their family required discussions with patients and/or their relatives. The main “helps” that participants obtained during gap-bridging were “getting control of a bad situation” and “getting support and confirmation.” Taking these two “helps” together with the zig-zag pathway of gap bridging provides some interesting comparisons with autoethnographic research. In collaborative autoethnography, the emphasis on self relating to self, and self relating to others is similar to the SMM communication as procedure framework. Ngunjiri, Hernandez and Chang (2010) describe their dialogic and ethnographic model, which first involves individual self-writing and reflection followed by group sharing and probing, further data collection, individual self-writing and reflection with group sharing and preliminary meaning making. Various rounds of individual reflection and review of data follow to help identify themes during group meaning-making, and finally, group writing. For Pitard (2016, 2017), reflecting on her experience as teacher and researcher working with a group of professionals from Timor-Leste, the position of the researcher concerned the difference between single-loop learning (simple ­problem-solving) and double-loop learning (questioning the underlying assumptions, values and beliefs behind our actions) (Argyris & Schön 1995). For her, double-loop learning involved returning to her observable data and reflecting on how personal and cultural experiences affected how she added to that data. She realised how her previous life experiences had coloured her reactions to events and prospective actions for students. For her, one episode of getting control of what was perceived to be a bad situation actually was counterproductive for the students, as she realised later in a focus group, during her “zig-zag pathway” of making sense of events. In conclusion, Lam and Pitard both discuss personal learning and the ups and downs of that learning. What was believed at one point in time may need to be challenged, and making sense is a backward and forward process, querying previously held beliefs and previous interpretations of events. Collaborative autoethnography shows how a dialogic framework helps to develop a group meaning.

Conclusion Sense-making methodology (SMM) and organisational sensemaking have different disciplinary backgrounds. Some researchers in organisational autoethnography have used organisational sensemaking – and, arguably, sense-making methods and frameworks – to help make sense of the situations in which they have found themselves. Reflections on sense-making methodology alongside examples of organisational autoethnography suggest that SMM interviewing advice should help the personal reflections of autoethnography researchers – in

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intrapersonal interviews. The SMM’s communication-as-procedure framework may help clarify the personal learning experiences during autoethnographic research, and sense-making or making-meaning does acknowledge the need to consider micro-moments in time. Personal learning is not a linear process, but requires continuous dialogue, querying previous interpretations and beliefs to make sense of experience. Despite the different disciplinary backgrounds of autoethnography, organisational sensemaking, and sense-making methodology, there are useful points of contact. Autoethnographic researchers, whether working as individuals or collaboratively, could use sense-making/sensemaking frameworks to help reflect and make meaning.

References Argyris, C. & Schön, D.A. 1995. Organizational Learning II: Theory, Method and Practice. Reading: Addison Wesley. Bochner, A.P. 2012. On first-person narrative scholarship: autoethnography as acts of meaning. Narrative Inquiry, 22(1):155–164. DOI: 10.1075/ni.22.1.10boc Bochner, A.P. & Ellis, C. 2016. Evocative Autoethnography: Writing Lives and Telling Stories. New York, NY: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315545417 Boyle, M. & Parry, K. 2007. Telling the whole story: the case for organizational autoethnography. Culture & Organization, 13(3):185–190. DOI: 10.1080/14759550701486480 Brommel, B.J. 2017. Sensemaking in the dialysis clinic. In Organizational Autoethnographies: Power and Identity in Our Working Lives, edited by A.F. Herrmann. Abingdon, UK: Routledge:87–106. DOI: 10.4324/9781315213880-6 Denzin, N.K. 2006. Analytic autoethnography or déjà vu all over again. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4):419–428. DOI: 10.1177/0891241606286985 Dervin, B. 2015. Dervin’s sense-making theory. In Information Seeking Behavior and Technology Adoption: Theories and Trends, edited by M.N. Al-Suqri & A.S. Al-Aufi. Hershey, PA: IGI Global:59–80. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8156-9.ch004 Dervin, B. & Clark, K.D. 1993. Communication and democracy: a mandate for procedural invention. In Communication and Democracy, edited by S. Splichal & J. Wasko. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation:103–140. Dervin, B., Reinhard, C.D., Song, M. & Reed, S.J. 2006. Chapter III. Interviewing. In Sense-Making the Information Confluence: The Whys and Hows of College and University User Satisficing of Information Needs. Phase II: Sense-Making Online Survey and Phone Interview Study, edited by B. Dervin, C.D. Reinhard, Z.Y. Kerr, M. Song & F.C. Shen. Report on National Leadership Grant LG-02-03-0062-03 to Institute of Museum and Library Services, Washington, D.C. Columbus, Ohio: School of Communication, Ohio State University. Available: https://sense-making.org/docs/report/2006-­reinhard-dervinsong-ph-ii-ch-iii.pdf (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive. org/web/20201105122200/https://sense-making.org/docs/report/2006-­reinharddervin-song-ph-ii-ch-iii.pdf ) [Accessed 29 October 2020] Dervin, B. & Shields, P. 2011. Disciplining communication: invention, resistance, the dialectic struggle and its paradoxes. In Against Objections: Politics, Communication, and Philosophy, edited by F. Deppe, W. Meixner & G. Pallaver. Innsbruck, Austria: Innsbruck University. Press:51–61. Duarte, F. & Hodge, B. 2007. Crossing paradigms: a meta-autoethnography of a fieldwork trip to Brazil. Culture and Organization, 13(3):191–203. DOI: 10.1080/14759550701486514

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Ellis, C. 2009. Autoethnography as method. Biography, 32(2):360–363, 463. DOI: 10.1353/bio.0.0097 Ellis, C., Adams, T.E. & Bochner, A.P. 2011. Autoethnography: an overview. Historical social research/Historische sozialforschung, 12(1):273–290. Available: http://www.­ qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1589 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200811193212/https://www. qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1589) [Accessed 27 October 2020] DOI: 10.17169/fqs-12.1.1589 Foreman-Wernet, L. 2003. SMM as an approach to rethinking communication. In SenseMaking Methodology Reader: Selected Writings of Brenda Dervin, edited by B. Dervin, L. Foreman-Wernet & E. Lauterbach. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton:3–16. Haugh, B. 2016. Becoming a mother and learning to breastfeed: an emergent autoethnography. The Journal of Perinatal Education, 25(1):56–68. DOI: 10.1891/1058-1243.25.1.56 Herrmann, A.F. (ed.) 2017. Organizational Autoethnographies: Power and Identity in Our Working Lives. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315213880 Lam, L.M.C. 2014. A micro-macro sense-making model for knowledge creation and utilization in healthcare organizations, PhD dissertation, Aberystwyth University. Available: https://pure.aber.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/a-micromacro-sensemaking-­model-forknowledge-creation-and-utilization-in-healthcare-organizations(e883e736-b60e408d-9dc4-c89095e97dce).html (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web. archive.org/web/20201105122840/https://pure.aber.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/amicromacro-sensemaking-model-for-knowledge-creation-and-utilization-in-­ healthcare-organizations%28e883e736-b60e-408d-9dc4-c89095e97dce%29.html) [Accessed 27 October 2020] Maitlis, S. & Christianson, M. 2014. Sensemaking in organizations: taking stock and moving forward. Academy of Management Annals, 8(1):57–125. DOI: 10.5465/ 19416520.2014.873177 Ngunjiri, F.W., Hernandez, K.-A.C. & Chang, H. 2010. Living autoethnography: connecting life and research. Journal of Research Practice, 6(1):Article E1. Available: http:// jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/241/186 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200725083125/http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/ article/view/241/186) [Accessed 27 April 2020] Olsson, M. 2005. Meaning and authority: the social construction of an ‘author’ among information behaviour researchers. Information Research, 10(2):paper 219. Available: http://InformationR.net/ir/10-2/paper219.html (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200806070819/http://informationr.net/ir///10-2/ paper219.html) [Accessed 27 April 2020] Pitard, J. 2016. Using vignettes within autoethnography to explore layers of cross-­cultural awareness as a teacher. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 17(1). Available: http://www. qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/2393/3922 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200725060106/https://www. qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/2393/3922) [Accessed 27 April 2020] Pitard, J. 2017. A journey to the centre of self: positioning the researcher in autoethnography. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 18(3). Available: http://www.­qualitativeresearch.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/2764 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200810205751/https://www.qualitative-research. net/index.php/fqs/article/view/2764) [Accessed 27 April 2020] Sambrook, S. & Herrmann, A.F. 2018. Organisational autoethnography: possibilities, politics and pitfalls. Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 7(3):222–234. DOI: 10.1108/ JOE-10-2018-075

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Schaefer, D.J. & Dervin, B. 2009. From the dialogic to the contemplative: a conceptual and empirical rethinking of online communication outcomes as verbing micro-practices. Ethics and Information Technology, 11(4):265–278. DOI: 10.1007/s10676-009-9206-x Schildt, H., Mantere, S. & Cornelissen, J. 2019. Power in sensemaking processes. Organization Studies, 41(2):241–265. DOI: 10.1177/0170840619847718 Thurlow, A. & Helms-Mills, J. 2015. Telling tales out of school: Sensemaking and narratives of legitimacy in an organizational change process. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 31(2):246–254. DOI: 10.1016/j.scaman.2014.10.002 Urquhart, C.J., Lam, L.M.C., Cheuk, B. & Dervin, B. 2020. Sense-Making/ Sensemaking. In Oxford Bibliographies in Communication, edited by P. Moy. New York: Oxford University Press. Urquhart, C., Light, A., Thomas, R., Barker, A., Yeoman, A., Cooper, J., … Spink, S.. 2003. Critical incident technique and explicitation interviewing in studies of information behavior. Library and Information Science Research, 25(1):63–88. DOI: 10.1016/ S0740-8188(02)00166-4 Vickers, M.H. 2007. Autoethnography as sensemaking: a story of bullying. Culture and Organization, 13(3):223–237. DOI: 10.1080/14759550701486555 Weger, H. Jr., Castle, G.R. & Emmett, M.C. 2010. Active listening in peer interviews: the influence of message paraphrasing on perceptions of listening skill. The International Journal of Listening, 24(1):34–49. DOI: 10.1080/10904010903466311 Weick, K.E. 1995. Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Weick, K.E. 2001. Making Sense of the Organization. Malden, MA: Blackwell Business.

PART IV

Autoethnography in contexts

Part IV focuses on the use and potential for autoethnography in selected contexts. It can certainly be used much wider such as in information literacy training, support to patients and their caregivers and many other contexts. The intention with chapters in Part 4 is to raise interest for doing autoethnographic research, e.g., evocative autoethnographic writing such as presented by Lisa Spinazola, Carolyn Ellis and Art Bochner in Chapter 3, analytical autoethnography as discussed by Ina Fourie in Chapter 4 and collaborative autoethnography as discussed by Kathy-Ann Hernandez in Chapter 5 and for reading autoethnographies and then doing an analytical analysis to gain insight into the needs of particular populations serviced by libraries and information services. Vulnerable populations such as immigrants, refugees and minority groups can especially benefit from such insight. In Chapter 9, Fiona Blackburn challenges her own competency and cultural awareness to write on autoethnography as a tool for cultural competence and working with Indigenous communities. She raises deeply challenging questions and argues that cultural competence is an essential capacity for librarians working cross-culturally, including with Indigenous peoples and communities. Her questions on cultural competency take her back to autoethnography where constant reflection and reflexivity are essential. Her autoethnography on the development of her cultural competence is influenced by key stories in her life and employment in the health and information sectors, Indigenous autoethnographies and interaction with Indigenous and non-Indigenous librarians, archivists and members of the community. In Chapter 10, Naailah Parbhoo-Ebrahim and Ina Fourie address a challenging context where there is extensive scope for library and information science autoethnographic research as well as analytical reading of autoethnographic

research published in the context of law enforcement. They show how much can be learned from the experiences of prison librarians, the challenges faced by prison librarians, information behaviour studies in the context of law enforcement and the limited examples of autoethnographic work in this context. Their key message is that there is extensive scope for further work and especially for critical and analytical reading of autoethnographic work and encouragement of autoethnographic writing for those employed in law enforcement, those in correctional services, those affected by criminal and violent acts and the librarians who might serve these communities. Olívia Pestana takes a dual lens in Chapter 11. She writes on caregiving and autoethnography and draws on her earlier experiences as a clinical librarian as well as her current experience as an academic. She emphasises how caregiving is dependent on up-to-date knowledge and access to scientific literature and how hospital libraries and librarians can play a role. She builds on a retrospective view of a personal, lived-experience as a Head Librarian in a Regional Hospital in Portugal in combination with her experience as an academic and researcher. She demonstrates emergent application of autoethnographic methodology that may develop into full scale autoethnographic work.

9 MOMENTS OF ILLUMINATION A personal experience narrative of cultural competence Fiona Blackburn

Introduction My name is Fiona Blackburn. I am an Australian woman with English heritage and some European ancestry. I worked in libraries and archives for thirteen years, generally with some responsibility for Indigenous knowledge collections or engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Depending on which side you look, and counting my sister’s boy, my family have been here for between four and seven generations. The more than one hundred years that this constitutes is paltry compared to the tens of thousands that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the First Nations of Australia, have been here but I have nowhere else that is home. Therefore, I acknowledge that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have never ceded sovereignty; that settler-colonists1 have settled in lands already inhabited.2 Among my great-great grandparents on one side, are Lutheran missionaries, proselytising Aboriginal people in south east Queensland. On the other side, there were farmers in central western Queensland. That is, I don’t only benefit from the dispossession of Aboriginal people, by being able to live in Australia as a white person in a Western system of laws and values, part of the dominant group: my family were dispossessing settler-colonists. Paradoxically, without the willingness and determination of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to engage with libraries and archives, I wouldn’t have had the jobs I did, or been able to do them. In this chapter, I aim to illuminate cultural competence and other key concepts such as the cultural interface and unidirectionality through an autoethnography based on key personal and professional stories. The autoethnographies of researchers working in cross-cultural situations, including Indigenous researchers, provide a means for insight into my experience and obstacles to my achieving

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cultural competence. I aim to demonstrate that an autoethnographic sensibility can assist librarians in developing cultural competence and hence enhance the connections they make with Indigenous communities.

Questions and answers The invitation to write this chapter raised some questions. I have written a short article about practitioner-research (Blackburn 2016), suggesting that autoethnography might be useful for practitioners who are untrained in, or constrained from using, other research methods, who nevertheless have questions they want to investigate. I have also written articles about working with Aboriginal people and managing Indigenous knowledge collections (e.g., Blackburn 2009; Blackburn 2014; Blackburn 2017). My experience is central to these, as information services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and cultural competence, are not prominent topics in Australian library and information literature. The first question is, am I an autoethnographer? Sylvia Perrurle Neale, an Eastern Arrernte woman and Indigenous Services officer at Alice Springs Public Library (ASPL), and I co-presented at the 2008 Australian library professional association conference (Blackburn & Neale 2008). We took care to keep our voices distinct, and indicated when we were speaking together. This is similar to the co-constructed critical autoethnography employed by Cann and DeMeulenaere (2012) – but it was a technique we settled on ourselves, unaware of “autoethnography.” In this conference presentation, I stated that being white was my biggest challenge to working with Aboriginal people. Bartleet (2011) describes how profoundly disturbing encountering different cultural ways, and the impact of colonisation, can be for people from the dominant group. In Blackburn (2015), I identified where I am in the framework of whiteness and the power structures with which it is imbricated … Does unwitting autoethnographic writing constitute the method? If you accept Russel’s formulation, that “autobiography becomes ethnographic at the point where the author understands their personal history to be implicated in larger social formations and historical processes” (1998 cited in Houston 2007:47), then yes I have been writing autoethnographically since 2008. Not all the time however; describing my experience as a preliminary to discussing a concept (cultural competence) doesn’t equate to autoethnography. That is scene setting. In thinking through my approach to this chapter, I concluded that it is my first autoethnography because consciously undertaken as such. I concluded the use of any research method has to be deliberate to be valid. Further, reflection and reflexivity are central to autoethnography. “[S]elf-reflexivity is most valuable when … it results in critical analysis rather than unadulterated self-discovery” (D’Arcangelis 2018:343). Critical analysis is hard without intentional application or reference to a broader framework. This “personal experience narrative” is necessarily contingent, demonstrating my evolving cultural competence through

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interaction with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and colleagues, and through continuing reading and reflection. The next question was, why was a white person asked to write this? Indigenous autoethnography is a category in the method (Butz & Besio 2009; Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2010), adopted by Indigenous researchers as a means to define Indigenous research (Houston 2007; Karki 2016; Martin & Mirraboopa 2003) and reveal Indigenous positionality, approaches and challenges in dominant Western contexts, including libraries (Morrison 2017; Reta 2010; Thorpe 2019). The answer, I think, is the projected audience for this publication, which I infer to be white or non-Indigenous. If so, then a white or non-Indigenous person must write this chapter. Thorpe (2019:5) makes very clear the cost to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander library and archive staff, of the dependence of white staff on them for guidance and support. They have to “politely explain Indigenous perspectives to people who [are] not aware of … their unconscious bias, stereotypes and prejudices.” To ask an Indigenous person to explain how autoethnography might be used by non-Indigenous people would be to ask for their “emotional labour, to make sure that other non-Indigenous people feel ok” (Thorpe 2019:5). For an Indigenous person to attempt an autoethnography intended to deepen non-Indigenous people’s understanding of themselves and their position, would be to distort the method, displacing the subject (the Indigenous authors) in favour of the audience (non-Indigenous people) and displace the responsibility for creating connection and culturally safe libraries from the providers (non-Indigenous librarians), exactly the imposition Thorpe rejects. Indigenous autoethnography is nevertheless a valuable resource for a librarian seeking cultural competence and connection with Indigenous people. Morrison (2017), Reta (2010) and Thorpe (2019) directly or indirectly require non-Indigenous readers to reflect independently on how they are personally positioned. The responsibility for achieving cultural competence lies with the individual through their own reflection and effort, but it is not contradictory to draw on autoethnography written “to change the way one’s group is understood in authorised circuits of knowledge,” a purpose of Indigenous autoethnography suggested by Butz and Besio (2009:10). This chapter is necessarily written from a white perspective. This probably means it is more useful for some readers, perhaps less so for people of colour. Indigenous colleagues and autoethnographies have been stimulating and necessary challenge(r)s for me. Autoethnographies by people of colour (Chandrasekar 2018; D’Arcangelis 2018; Espinal, Sutherland & Roh 2018) have provided insights into the different complexities others experience.

Cultural competence This is the absorbing problem of the thirteen years I have worked in libraries and archives: how does a largely white workforce, or a diverse workforce adapted

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to implementing prevailing systems and dominant values, provide information services developed within a Western cultural framework, for people of another culture? Early in those thirteen years I learned the term, “cultural competence.” As a white Australian working to develop cultural competence, my conception of the issue has expanded to cross-cultural provision by the dominant group for another group who live dispossessed and colonised and whose resilience draws on their continuing culture. The definition I most frequently use explains cultural competence as learning how culture works, personally and in the lives of others, and changing practice and the environment to incorporate all cultures present in the service community (Overall 2009). Reflection, reflexivity, learning and adaption are constant. Overall, and others (e.g., Andrade & Rivera 2011) argue that the whiteness of library workforces and the diversity of library clientele mandates cultural competence for effective service provision. Foster (2018) points out that cultural competence is contingent: moving from one environment to another comprising different cultures, will likely mean a regression in competence, until the features and cultures of the new situation are absorbed. Bartleet (2011) argues that trusting cross-cultural relationships are necessary to surmounting misaligned expectations and ways of working. What cultural competence I achieve or maintain is built upon working past discomforts, to recognise the cultures of my colleagues and peers and the impact of white dominance on them; and to accept the uncertainty that disrupting comfortable preconceptions engenders. Cultural competence is criticised (e.g., Hudson 2017) as only likely to accommodate difference, rather than dismantle structures creating unequal provision in libraries. At best it will create a more accurate microcosm of society, faithfully reproducing inherent inequalities. I have suggested (Blackburn 2015) that cultural competence could be the vehicle for recognising the power of whiteness; and that the concept can be further developed, to identify the social structures creating inequality and injustice (Blackburn 2019). Library educators in the United States (Foster 2018; Jaeger, Cooke, Cooke, Felton, Jardine & Shelton 2015) are teaching cultural competence using theories and tools which “identify systems of power that are historic, racist and sexist and protective of the dominant” (Engseth 2018). Optimally, librarians will be able to identify how privilege, race and marginalisation impact on the use subaltern groups, including Indigenous communities, can make of libraries, and connect more effectively.

Reflecting on key stories Illumination – of interactions, mistakes, complacency, better perspectives, insights – comes from repeated reflection and reflexivity, revisiting key stories, conclusions and references. These insights are conveyed autoethnographically through vignettes, reflective and critical journaling, or through narrative depicting changing consciousness (Butz & Besio 2009; Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2010).

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This narrative considers key personal and professional episodes and records my changing assessments of each. Reflexivity over an extended period is a feature of autoethnography (Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2010). Koot (2016:841) lived among Bushmen in Namibia, working on a development project for nearly a decade. Seven years after that experience, his perspective had evolved, to acknowledge the importance (to himself ) of his status as “some kind of baas.” Ten years later again, he could perceive his unawareness of the colonial roots of relationship patterns involving paternalism and humbleness, and of his relatively strong position of power. Similarly, D’Arcangelis’ (2018) comprehension of the complexity of her position as a white settler woman activist developed over a decade. I (re)tell stories from my employment in an aged care facility for Aboriginal people, from the first library I worked in, and rising out of reading for interest. These occurred at least a decade ago. Using stories from employment in health and from my personal (not professional) reading and life demonstrates that my cultural competence has evolved from a range of experience, that experience outside the workplace feeds into culturally competent work, and that the same themes recur in different situations, because privilege and power are systemic and structural. Further, for this autoethnography about cultural competence to be authentic, it can’t be confined to my current employment. The literature I use reflects that breadth.

The cultural interface Nakata (2007) describes the cultural interface as a space where “things are not clearly black or white, Indigenous or Western, [containing] all the histories, economies, multiple and interconnected discourses, and social practices” brought into the space by white, Indigenous and minority people. The differential status of Western and Indigenous knowledge systems makes the cultural interface both a tense and dislocating space for Indigenous people and a space where non-­ Indigenous people can be obliviously effective. In Blackburn (2015), I describe the “accidents” that have shaped my life, the primary one being born white, placing me in a situation of privilege that is no accident, but the product of a racially-based system affording me relative dominance. In this system, whiteness represents “neutrality,” so that the power and privilege accruing to white people is concealed in plain view: in an aged care facility for Aboriginal people, the interplay of the residents’ life experience with white people and with racist systems of control, my whiteness, and the Western setting, guaranteed my effectiveness as a personal care attendant. Nilson (2017:121), a white woman working in health care in a remote Aboriginal community, articulates something similar: “The structures and processes of my upbringing were the scaffold of my self-identity and my experiences gained through that scaffold defined my world view and provided me with my lines of action.”

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She then describes how the scaffold, built on Western dominance, didn’t fit in a situation determined by Aboriginal norms. She had to learn to work in a different way, moving from Western health imperatives to an understanding and acceptance of community priorities and ways of functioning. She “moved into a new space, a ‘liminal’ location … where [she] could watch and wait” (Nilson 2017:125). Wyatt (2018:302) identified the appropriate roles for a white researcher working with Indigenous communities, as stepping forward, including into leadership positions; stepping back, into support and facilitating roles; and stepping out, i.e., leaving. Identifying the correct actions was a process filled with uncertainty. There were “tensions between collaboration and leadership.” Complicating factors included being an outsider, being asked by elders to assume a leadership position even though doing so would block an Indigenous person, initial ignorance of signals for conversational inclusion and exclusion, and not recognising varying notions of leadership. She still regrets some decisions, after ten years of “thinking about [her] role, actively trying to make some sense of [her] discomfort” (Wyatt 2018:304). It is possible to recognise how indifferently Western systems work for minority groups, from within a Western framework. Key staff at Alice Springs Public Library, observing the way Aboriginal people used the library, thought there “had to be a better way” (personal communication, 2008) and developed programs and the Akaltye Antheme Collection with Traditional Owners.3 Wondering myself, a few years later, about attitudes to Aboriginal resources in the library (Blackburn 2009), I searched for literature about “cross-cultural provision” and began gradually working towards cultural competence.

Nuanced stories about the cultural interface In an aged care facility where I worked, the women residents who were in peer relationship or were of equal status called each other “tidda” (sister). Older women or women due respect were “aunty”; and the staff were called “baby.” We staff called each of them “aunty.” As a feminist, I am not fond of terms that minimise the maturity and capacity of women, such as referring to us as “girls” or calling a partner “baby”; no-one had ever called me “baby” unchallenged. In this situation, I accepted it as one of the ways the women made the facility familiar and dignified the dependence that frailty and age create. I also liked using an appropriate, respectful form of address. A few years later, when I was living thousands of kilometres away, I told a story about the facility and mentioned “Aunty Mona.” Sylvia Perrurle Neale looked startled and said, “Who are you, calling someone aunty? You’re not Aboriginal.” I was reminded that cultural practice differs from place to place. Sylvia’s comment also occasioned insight into the privilege the women were extending to staff, by incorporating us into their system of relationships. More time passed before I realised that they were probably also being kind.

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Alice Springs Public Library had a high proportion of Aboriginal users, who could be up to 30% of clients. There was no equivalent in Australian public libraries. The figure is remarkable, as Aboriginal people comprised 19% of the town population. The establishment of the Akaltye Antheme Collection saw significant change in the library, which generated resentment among non-Indigenous townspeople and a negative reaction from some staff (personal communication, 2008). Education, about library functions, for Aboriginal patrons, and about managing change for staff, followed. Colleagues nevertheless rejected my expectation (five years later) that services created with Aboriginal people, intended for the whole community (although used mainly by Aboriginal people), for which the library had garnered renown, would be core business. Espinal, Sutherland and Roh (2018) comment that libraries are “white public spaces, both symbolic and material, that are controlled so that the dominant racial groups benefit, and things of racial significance [such as the response of ASPL staff ] are made to seem fair, just, legitimate and simplistically obvious” (147). Western systems and approaches remained dominant in the Alice Springs Public Library interface, notwithstanding some subtle amendments by Aboriginal patrons, which I will outline later.

Unidirectionality and neutrality Encapsulated in the story about the women in the aged care facility is an assumption on my part about the structural relationship between themselves and staff. D’Arcangelis (2018:338) points out that white people often assume a unidirectional dynamic, “assigning white women the role of helper and Indigenous women the role of beneficiary of that help.” It’s an easy role to assume in a healthcare setting, a place of service provision; D’Arcangelis (2018) enabled me to see that it prevented me from recognising the depth and generosity of what the women were doing. Assumptions of unidirectionality were also at work in the library, also a place of service provision. It enabled staff to insist on the library as a neutral service and to not modify their role in the cultural interface. In an evaluation, the project worker who had co-created Akaltye Antheme, attributed Aboriginal people’s changed use of the library, called a “whitefella space,” to the “neutrality” that existed within its walls. This “neutrality” afforded Aboriginal town residents relief from some of the tensions they encountered daily outside the library. I accepted this assessment uncritically and repeated it in following years. I now think it is more likely that Aboriginal people found relief in that little bit of themselves present in Akaltye Antheme, rather than in any over-arching neutrality. In fact, any degree of neutrality was achieved by the co-creation of the collection, and Aboriginal people’s use of it, balancing the whiteness of the library’s collections and space somewhat. I could have been alerted to the error of neutrality earlier if I had attended, on one occasion, to the silence of the Aboriginal woman sitting next to me. I wonder now whether she thought me

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blind; or whether such ignorance from someone who had seemed an ally hurt. I am sorry. Because staff considered the whitefella library a neutral space, that they created, the potential of the cultural interface wasn’t recognised. When an Aboriginal woman took my hands and said, “The library, it’s my home,” because the manager banned her husband for a period after he assaulted her on the library lawns; when a homeless Aboriginal couple put the library as their contact address on their application for public housing; when Aboriginal children came to the library rather than go to school; when Aboriginal users managed incidents between themselves, by removing troublemakers or stopping altercations often before staff fully realised what was happening, we were genuinely pleased and attributed it to the value of neutrality. What we were actually witnessing, what we were an unwitting part of, was change in a cultural interface. Parents stopped leaving their very young children in the library because they accepted that while the library was changed by the Indigenous knowledge collection, it still wasn’t a place where Aboriginal norms of responsibility for children applied. People managed conflict themselves not because they valued the neutrality of the library but because it had become a more comfortable space for them and they were willing to take a degree of responsibility for it. The Aboriginal woman took my hands, not because the library manager had maintained neutrality, but because she had acted in the woman’s defence. In not recognising that change, we missed opportunities: instead of ringing the school to come and collect children who were in the library during school hours, we might have explored whether the school could teach in the library. When non-Indigenous townspeople did not take up the invitation to learn about local culture implicit in Akaltye Antheme/Giving Knowledge, we might have asked Aboriginal leaders to devise a program of cross-cultural information-sharing. Unidirectionality applies blinkers in other ways. On realising her unidirectional assumptions about ally-ship, D’Arcangelis (2018) also realised for the first time, the work Indigenous women do as allies for white women. It’s possible to infer that the support Indigenous women offer as cross-cultural allies is not simplistic. When I moved to a new town, an Aboriginal woman introduced me to her sisters and invited me to go to a big annual fair with them. She also invited me to come with her to hear the Prime Minister’s Apology to the Stolen Generations,4 at a breakfast hosted by a local Aboriginal organisation. She was being genuinely welcoming and supportive of me; I really appreciated her friendliness. I now think she was also laying the groundwork for a cross-cultural alliance, one that would allow me particular social acceptance and build support for her professionally. I wonder whether Wyatt (2018) in her struggles was unaware of the work Indigenous Elders were doing to support her presence and role, as well as exploiting the skills she brought to the situation.

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Discussion I hope I have shown that self-reflexivity is the mechanism for arriving at greater insight into interactions in their cultural and structural context. The narrator is at the centre of an autoethnography, the reference point from which it begins and the locus for developing greater understanding or operational dexterity. This is paradoxical for a narrator who is a member of a dominant group, working cross-culturally. Placing yourself at the centre of the situation being explored will not automatically or easily impel you towards the liminal space and discern what different role the situation requires. Understanding your dominant cultural position may mean you assume the role that dominance affords you, with greater facility. How does a method reliant on the centrality of the narrator break open a culturally informed perspective, or reveal the requirement to dislodge yourself from the structural place your culture occupies? By viewing the library as a cultural interface, and not presuming the pre-eminence of established library systems and methods, a culturally competent librarian might modify them in response to community cultures and ways of accessing information. Moving into a liminal space, watching and waiting, learning when to step up and step back, how to collaborate and on what, are challenges to established approaches to provision in a library, to internally devised, embedded structures and programs. These challenges have to be met within the library framework rather than in a situation framed by Aboriginal norms, as Nilson (2017) encountered or in decolonial settings (Wyatt 2018). My experience has been that enduring engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait communities requires modification of those preconceptions and established systems, rather than of community approaches. My experience has also been that modifying systems is harder than engaging with Indigenous people, who will take opportunities to showcase culture and demonstrate its place alongside the mainstream (Blackburn 2014). Sung and Hepworth (2013) illustrate however the greater authenticity and sustainability of engagement driven by the community, than any controlled by the library. DiAngelo (2012) notes that white people often report feeling unsafe when their dominance appears under challenge, whether that perception is warranted or not. She suggests that this feeling is more accurately described as uncertainty or discomfort, and names this misreading as white fragility. It prevents us from perceiving the genuine uncertainty and lack of safety experienced by minority groups. Espinal, Sutherland and Roh (2018:159) describe the trauma of microaggressions staff of colour experience in white-dominated libraries. They urge us to “reach out to your colleagues of colour, reach out of yourselves and toward another person, toward another culture, another way of doing things,” and to do so consciously: “It takes forethought in order to be able to offer kindness without forethought” (Espinal, Sutherland & Roh 2018:158). Put another way, the challenge of working in the cultural interface is to recognise and then not take up

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the leadership position that might seem the normal thing to do, to find instead the liminal position. Autoethnography for white people is a means to record our identification of the power inhering to us in existing social structures, where we are positioned in them and how we benefit at the expense of others. From that more culturally competent position, a librarian may be able to see past assumptions of neutrality and unidirectionality, to a complex situation replete with the kind of opportunities we missed at Alice Springs Public Library. Working cross-culturally, a white autoethnographer explores their own culture and the power structures with which it is imbricated; and how that culture and others align, interoperate, adapt, oppose, dominate, resist – or work in parallel, as in the whitefella library. Autoethnographies by people of colour tell a different experience, from a different position: Chandrasekar (2018), an international student in the United States, documents his growth in understanding of his privilege relative to Indigenous people, while experiencing a lack of privilege relative to whites. D’Arcangelis (2018) describes her initial assumptions of solidarity with Indigenous women because of her immigrant, working class origins. These assumptions she saw as erroneous when she realised the unidirectionality in her approach. For any autoethnographer, “it is not enough to simply tell the story, it is equally important that we name, locate and situate the ‘story’” (La Roque 2010 cited in Sandiliuk 2016:371). By contrast, being at the centre of the narrative offers a different potential for Indigenous autoethnographers, who are seeking to reconstruct their ways of knowing (Houston 2007), re-imagine ways of doing research (Duarte & Belarde-Lewis 2015) and to introduce Indigenous ontologies into Western systems. Morrison (2017) and Reta (2010) illustrate how Indigenous perspectives enable Indigenous students to learn and engage in education, including library and information science education. Thorpe (2019) demands an Indigenisation of libraries and archives, so they become culturally safe for Indigenous staff and users. Indigenous autoethnography offers non-Indigenous librarians the challenge of the liminal space, to listen, learn and reflectively imagine their library as a cultural interface. Cultural competence and autoethnography are each vulnerable to the complacency afforded by the sense of superiority embedded in whiteness. D’Arcangelis (2018) describes the positional confession, ultimately self-serving, which obstructs structural understanding and allows the autoethnographer to acknowledge their position of dominance and retain it. Using my experience as the starting point for this chapter demonstrates the centrality of the self to both autoethnography and achieving cultural competence; and the pitfalls of doing so: I have taken quite some time to identify the depth of the fallacy of neutrality and the effect of unidirectional assumption. Complacency, about making the effort to become culturally competent, about engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and collections, contributed to that time.

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Butz and Besio (2009) suggest an “autoethnographic sensibility” for what they term “trans-cultural” interactions. The researcher and other participants, nominally the research subjects, are each immersed and interacting in the research field, are each autoethnographers. Besio and Butz (2004) suggest that minority groups or colonised people are performing autoethnographies simply by interacting with dominance, in trying by various ways of communicating to further their aspirations. Accepting that an autoethnography may be performed, not only written, may build cultural competence. If all participants in a situation are seen as producing autoethnographies, of a performative nature, a librarian may be able to recognise when people are operating strategically, e.g., in the creation of alliances, as well as culturally. An authoethnographic sensibility may influence how a librarian recognises that they, their colleagues and their service community are each interacting, sometimes in parallel – and other times not. Using this lens, the responsibility Aboriginal people took for managing certain interactions in the whitefella library can be identified as their autoethnographic expression, occurring within a cultural interface but without challenging or changing other autoethnographies such as the “neutral library.” In managing these interactions, Aboriginal people were acting strategically. They kept their place in the library and access to resources like Akaltye Antheme in the midst of resentment and resistance, and mitigated the possibility of certain staff interventions, e.g., ejection from the library. Their cultural framework enabled them to resolve conflicts satisfactorily and swiftly. Autoethnography takes time (Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2010; cf D’Arcangelis 2018; Koot 2016), time a librarian may not have (Ina Fourie, personal communication, 2020). An autoethnographic sensibility, relying on observation of the operational situation in which the librarian may be time-pressed, from a liminal standpoint, may facilitate the development of cultural competence. At the risk of sounding circular, in writing this autoethnography, I have realised that I am describing the development of an autoethnographic sensibility – the capacity to see what others are doing – as well as the development of cultural competence – an understanding of what they are doing as culturally expressed. It is possible to infer from the stories from the aged care facility and from the library, that where members of the dominant group are assuming unidirectionality, other subaltern groups are working in parallel, following their own frameworks and purposes. The Aboriginal woman, who introduced me to her sisters and took me to social events, was acting strategically. It is also possible to infer that, without an autoethnographic sensibility, there may be no negotiation or change in a cultural interface. If we staff in the whitefella library had had it, we may have not missed opportunities. Instead we were complacent about the efficacy of neutrality. The comparatively unbounded nature of a librarian’s workplace (compared to the defined focus of formal research) means autoethnography and/or an autoethnographic sensibility can be general strategies. Working in an unbounded space

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with either approach, enables us to listen critically to ourselves, as members of a group. While I was listening to a white archivist insist that description of an item had to follow the shape given it by its creator, so that evidence of colonialism would not be expunged, I suddenly understood that for as long as we applied Western rules of description, for so long would the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experience be obscured, white dominance maintained. For as long as we continue conventional practice, for so long will researchers have to scrap back that descriptive overlay, in order to perceive Indigenous experience. An autoethnographic sensibility which recognises the co-existence of parallel experiences or perspectives in a single instance, enables the question, why privilege the colonial perspective and Western methods? A colonial record described from an Indigenous perspective would still be a record of colonialism. Critical reflection may occur outside the work environment but the insights gained will nevertheless make for a more culturally competent approach to work. It was when I was reading the letters of Judith Wright5 (because Wright and my immediate family lived in the same street for a period6) that my family’s place in the dispossession of Aboriginal people became clear: my great-great grandparents’ missionising was a footnote in my father’s family history, background to how my grandparents met. My grandmother, a Lutheran, married a Methodist minister (my grandfather) at a time when gender and denominational politics meant her family stories were obscured. Wright’s letters include a remark Oodgeroo Noonuccal7 made about Lutheran missions in south-east Queensland. That glimpse, of part of my history in its broader context and impact, was revelatory. It reoriented my understanding of my position in Australian race relations. Telling this story publically, and demonstrating how I understand its meaning, has, I hope, made me a more trustworthy peer.

Conclusion Reflecting on professional and personal interactions over the span of my adult life has illuminated this autoethnography. Its purpose is to illustrate how cultural competence can inform approaches to making connections with Indigenous communities, and how autoethnography can assist the development of that competence. Achieving cultural competence, to better provide cross-cultural services, requires interaction, reflexivity, reflection, sustained attention, discomfort and recognition of whiteness, its imbrication with power and inequality, and of contingency. Cultural competence is not a static achievement but an evolution over time, shaped according to place. The sustained consideration of experience in autoethnography complements the requirement in cultural competence for reflection on interactions and learning. Experience is the basis for the reflection that shifts understanding of position, behaviour and assumptions, in both cultural competence and autoethnography.

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The cultural interface and a liminal space can be keys for the librarian to unlock perceptions of a Western library as a neutral space of service provision underpinned by established, internally devised and maintained systems. Thinking of it as a cultural interface, of greater and lesser ease for different groups (including staff ) within it, and as a liminal space for watching and learning, the librarian may discern different ways of working, according to the cultural interactions within it. This approach may also be thought of as applying an autoethnographic sensibility, illuminating cultural and strategic interactions, and avoiding unidirectional assumptions about librarians and service recipients. The librarian may then be culturally competent, able to identify opportunities for collaboration and connection.

Notes 1 I think there is an argument for calling Australia’s European settlers, invader-colonists, as settlement was supported by a British military force and was characterised by frontier massacres. First Nations people and their supporters refer to Australia Day as Invasion Day. 2 Terra nullius’ – empty land – was the legal basis for the British crown’s claiming the Australian landmass. 3 Akaltye Antheme’ is the Arrernte name given to the ASPL Indigenous knowledge collection, co-created by Traditional Owners and a project worker, before I worked there. It translates into English as “Giving Knowledge.” 4 Apology to Australia’s Indigenous peoples, 2008. https://www.australia.gov.au/ about-australia/our-country/our-people/apology-to-australias-Indigenous-peoples 5 Clarke, P. & McKinley, M. (eds). 2006. With Love and Fury; Selected letters of Judith Wright. Canberra: National Library of Australia. 6 I was reading for personal interest, not research or professional development. 7 Oodgeroo Noonuccal, of the Noonuccal tribe on North Stradbroke Island, was an Australian black rights activist, poet, environmentalist and educator.

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Hudson, D. 2017. On “Diversity” as anti-racism in library and information studies: a critique. Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies, 1(1):1–36. DOI: 10.24242/ jclis.v1i1.6 Jaeger, P.T., Cooke, N.A., Cooke, C., Felton, M., Jardine, F. & Shelton, K. 2015. The virtuous circle revisited: injecting diversity, inclusion, rights, justice and equity into LIS from education to advocacy. The Library Quarterly, 85(2):150–171. DOI: 10.1086/680154 Karki, K.K. 2016. Walking the complexities between two worlds: a personal story of epistemological tensions in knowledge production. Qualitative Social Work, 15(5–6): 628–639. DOI: 10.1177/1473325016652678 Koot, S. 2016. Perpetuating power through autoethnography: my research unawareness and memories of paternalism among the Indigenous Hai//om in Namibia. Critical Arts, 30(6):840–854. DOI: 10.1080/02560046.2016.1263217 Martin, K. & Mirraboopa, B. 2003. Ways of knowing being and doing: a theoretical framework and methods for Indigenous and indigenist research. Journal of Australian Studies, 27(76):203–214. DOI: 10.1080/14443050309387838 Morrison, K.L. 2017. Informed asset-based pedagogy: coming correct, counter-stories from an information literacy classroom. Library Trends, 66(2):176–218. DOI: 10.1353/ lib.2017.0034 Nakata, M. 2007. The cultural interface. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 36(S1):7–14. DOI: 10.1017/S1326011100004646 Nilson, C. 2017. A journey toward cultural competence: the role of researcher reflexivity in Indigenous research. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 28(2):119–127. DOI: 10.1177/1043659616642825 Overall, P.M. 2009. Cultural competence: a conceptual framework for library and information science professionals. The Library Quarterly, 79(2):175–204. DOI: 10.1086/ 597080 Reta, M. 2010. Border crossing knowledge systems: a PNG teacher’s autoethnography. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 39(1):128–137. DOI: 10.1375/ S1326011100000983 Sandiliuk, A. 2016. Researching the self: the ethics of autoethnography and an Aboriginal research methodology. Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 45(3):360–376. DOI: 10.1177/0008429816657990 Sung, H. & Hepworth, M. 2013. Modelling community engagement in public libraries. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 18(1):1–13. Thorpe, K. 2019. Transformative praxis – building spaces for Indigenous selfdetermination in libraries and archives. In The Library With The Lead Pipe, January 23, 2019. Available: http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2019/­ transformative-praxis/ (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive. org/web/20200711215218/http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2019/­ transformative-praxis/) [Accessed 11 September 2020] Wyatt, T.R. 2018. Knowing when to step forward, back, or out: an autoethnography of a white researcher in two post-colonial educational contexts. Power & Education, 10(3):301–314. DOI: 10.1177/1757743818789709

10 AUTOETHNOGRAPHY, LAW ENFORCEMENT AND AN OPPORTUNITY FOR LIBRARIES Naailah Parbhoo-Ebrahim and Ina Fourie

Introduction Law enforcement is associated with crime, danger, trauma and excessive use of power and force (Root, Ferrell & Palacios 2013) – the dark side of life. This even applies to law schools (Krieger 2002). Individuals working in law enforcement deal with criminals from white crime to hardened murderers, serial killers, rapists and terrorists. They arrest juvenile offenders, and prostitutes and they participate in drug raids and get assaulted – sometimes all in one day or night (Bright 2015). They face many ethical challenges including secrecies and deception with all its intricacies on a daily basis (Ellis 2008; Gariglio 2019). Burnout, depression and post-traumatic disorder are familiar challenges which often are unfortunately stigmatised by TV series and movies (Brown 2015; Ritchie 2019). Although perhaps less traumatic in terms of danger, lawyers, attorneys, advocates and prosecutors face similar challenges in terms of seeing the darker side of life (Seamone 2014:493). According to Seamone (2014:544), Air Force Major, Beth Townsend, recognised there are many challenging cases as they “test the ability of a defence counsel to defend a case in spite of personal feelings regarding the case or the accused.” Prison staff, prison chaplains, parole officers, social workers and medical staff working with inmates are also challenged (Reid 2020:265; Sun 2008:12). People working in these occupations often cope without support from libraries, except for bigger companies supported by law libraries. They can, however, benefit from services that understand the scenarios they face on a daily basis and their lived-experiences (Brown 2014:184). Prison librarians also face many challenges that needs to be explored (Plowrite 2017). Although autoethnographic studies in law enforcement are rather limited, the value of autoethnography in all its various forms to reveal these experiences is undeniable. Examples include research on criminals and the manner in which

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they are treated by law enforcement (“black live matter”) (Hillstrom 2018:45) and the perception of various cultures who have engagement experiences with law enforcement (“detective’s perspectives on crimes and use of information from witnesses, family members and media sources”) (Hasisi 2008:1123; Solakoglu 2016). There are many more examples that we will note. Analysis of autoethnographic studies and encouragement of such studies can reveal a deeper level of awareness of lived experience of people working in law enforcement and non-rational elements underlying their actions, decisions and needs (Cotter 2017; Cramard 2011). Autoethnographies can reveal how people deal with trauma and daily emotional challenges in law enforcement; writing autoethnography can be part of either a therapeutic or research process (Au 2017; King 2018). Autoethnographies can also reveal the ordeal and challenges of inmates (Newbold, Ross, Jones, Richards & Lenza 2014) and the experiences with library services or the experiences of librarians providing such services. Insight into the lived-experience of prisoners and juvenile criminal offenders can inform policies and procedures in law enforcement and can kindle empathy (Ettorre 2017). Awareness and use of autoethnographies and autoethnography as therapeutic and research methods can enable libraries in law enforcement to both tailor their information services, to encourage autoethnographic studies in various spheres of law enforcement and to document and analyse their own experiences. It can even enable them to deal with affective and emotional challenges of their work in a law enforcement context. Such challenges are increasingly noted in the work of librarians (Brown & Daus 2015:294). Public libraries might support people affected by crime and school libraries might turn to bibliotherapy-related methods to support children affected by the criminal activities of family members (Butterworth & Fulmer 1991; Daniel 1992). There are many opportunities to learn from autoethnographies and “to make sense of autoethnographic texts” – the legitimacy, truth and memory (Muncey 2010). She explains how to engage with autoethnographic texts – a useful point of departure for librarians. This chapter takes a broad view of law enforcement as encompassing police and detective work, forensic science, prison and correctional services, criminal, legal and justice services, national secret agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and national-guard services. It explores the use of autoethnography for therapeutic and research purposes in various spheres of law enforcement as well as from the perspective of inmates and how libraries can enhance their services. We will consider the topic from four slants: (i) autoethnographic work published from a law enforcement perspective including experiences as inmates and criminals; (ii) information behaviour studies related to law enforcement; (iii) library services in law enforcement including legal and prison libraries; (iv) potential of autoethnography for librarians working in law enforcement contexts.

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Scope of literature search Literature on autoethnography and law enforcement is limited and very scattered. However, since we consider the topic very important for libraries we searched the literature on autoethnography in the context of law enforcement, as well as on prison and legal libraries from a wide variety of databases such as Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA), Library and Information Source, Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA) and all other databases provided by EbscoHost and Proquest to which our institutional library subscribes, Clarivate Analytics Web of Science, ScienceDirect and Emerald Insight. We also drew on insight gained from Parbhoo-Ebrahim’s in-progress doctoral study on cold case investigation and information behaviour.

Contextualisation of key concepts Various definitions of autoethnography has been noted in Chapter 1. In the context on which we are writing, the characteristics of autoethnography as a personal experience narrative of lived experience and its relationship to auto-observations, personal, self and autobiographical ethnography, reflective ethnology, emotionalism, experiential texts and ethnography (Boyle & Parry 2007:186) is especially important. More so, how autoethnography can show the struggles, passion, embodied life and collaborative creation of sense-making in situations which people have to cope with and the circumstances and loss of meaning (Ellis & Bochner 2006:433). In our further discussion of examples and cases in this chapter, these are the issues we will highlight. Law enforcement is defined by the activities of the agencies’ responsibility for maintaining public order and enforcing law, thus preventing various activities, and detecting and investigating crimes and apprehending criminals (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2020:el). This definition, does however, not fully capture the dynamics and complexity of law enforcement and the diversity of the scope and challenges faced by law enforcement personnel dealing with crimes ranging from minor offences such as petty theft to severe crimes such as homicides. These are the issues that might be revealed through an autoethnographic lens.

Autoethnographic work published from a law enforcement perspective including experiences as inmates and criminals Autoethnographic work in the context of law enforcement is valuable, but also holds challenges. Wakeman (2014:706) explains: “…an increased focus upon the self in criminological research can produce significant advantages in three interlinked fields: the ways in which research is done, the theory that stems from it and then the ways in which it is presented.” But for researchers with a criminal past there may, however, be challenges:

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… it is crucial to note one last factor that impedes the further use of autoethnography in criminology—fear. Fear on the part of its actual and/or potential practitioners. The intolerance of intrusions of the self in criminology is not just bound up with its methodological/scientific aspirations, it can be understood critically as indicative of the discipline’s privileging of certain voices. Wakeman 2014:709 This is especially problematic if the author has a criminal past. A range of experiences have been reported ranging from brutality in law enforcement to experiences of illegal immigration, assault and crime. Victims and their families often suffer immense trauma (Cohen 2019; Khosravi 2007). Bruner (2014) for example reviews the turmoil that Mexican and Latin Americans living in the United States experience with law enforcement and immigration services and specifically racial profiling, prejudice and injustice due to their physical appearance, employment status and language. If they look slightly suspicious, they are stopped to show their documentation – all based on very subjective assessment of their physical appearances. Immigrants who are already in a very vulnerable position are in particular affected in a significant manner. Such experiences are in alignment with racial issues experienced in other contexts such as academia (cf Chapter 5). More people of colour impacted by racism in law enforcement are speaking out about the manner in which they are treated by society and the reality of being a person of colour. Black lives matter is an international activist movement founded in 2013, originating in the African-American community. The movement was created to fight against the ongoing violence, inhumane treatment and racism towards black people by various racial groups, communities and specifically law enforcement. At the time of writing this chapter, global protests were reported after the violent death of George Floyd (Valentine, Valentine & Valentine 2020). McKenzie’s (2015) autoethnographic inquiry on experiences of grief and suffering after traumatic loss or witnessing violence raises awareness of the experiences of grief caused by violence in particular, for example, witnessing a murder, escaping from a school shooting massacre and gang-related homicide. Participants experienced extreme senses of vulnerability and frequent nightmares, terror and panic or depression and a need for methods to recover and cope. In addition to an extensive body of research on the psychological experiences of victims of violence, there are autoethnographic reports that show deep emotional experiences. People are vulnerable to violent attacks regardless of their geographical locations, age, gender and community status. Some are fortunate to escape their attackers or are saved by law enforcement; many may however not be so lucky (Cohen 2019). Their families speak out on the trauma, frustration and fear they feel. Those who manage to survive need intensive counselling and treatment before integrating back into society; others experience post-traumatic

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stress disorder (PTSD) and relapse due to triggers. Some never recover and require full-time care facilities. Smith, Pedersen and Burnett (2014:218) report on storytelling as a police practice which does not merely represent reality but also brings new perspectives on reality, it aids police officers to learn how to do their jobs and what it means to be a police officer. Storytelling and autoethnography are under-studied aspects of police culture (Smith, Pedersen & Burnett 2014:218), where autoethnography can be a useful way to capture and share knowledge. Law enforcement officials face many traumatic experiences such as being called out when deaths occur at home, traffic homicide investigations and notifying the next of kin of deaths. Constant exposure to such experiences may cause psychological symptoms such as anxiety, depression and PTSD (Maguen, Metzler, McCaslin, Inslicht, Henn-Haase, Neylan & Marmar 2009:754). When reporting on such experiences, there are, however, many ethical challenges to deal with (Worley, Worley & Wood 2016). An important issue in police work is misconduct. According to MilesJohnson (2019:4), police culture is an important barrier that prevents police officers from following the code of conduct, thus allowing law enforcement officers to follow informal norms of behaviour and participating in misconduct that might have serious consequences despite the formal rules implemented by police departments. Burnier (2006) offers a good example of getting involved with the self in a different context, dealing with the different factors that play a role in solving cases and applying different technological and crime scene search patterns that have evolved to aid law enforcement to solve various crimes. Factors include prior experiences, gut feeling and knowledge learnt through law enforcement academics, eyewitness accounts, family and friends’ concerns and perpetrators coming forwards due to guilty consciences. Moving to a field related to law enforcement, Higate and Cameron (2006) can also see the value of autoethnography to trigger research on military experiences. Autoethnography have also been used to report on music instruction with black detained youth where a teacher’s personal journey towards cultural responsiveness in correctional facilities is described (Thompson 2015). “An unwavering desire to bring voice to the musical creations of individuals silenced by the system has kept me committed to this important endeavour well beyond my initial experience as a graduate instructor during doctoral studies” (Thompson 2015:422). Questions came up on musical genres, assessment and teaching pedagogics and “questions that future instruction and research with this population may consider: where is the intersection of culturally responsive teaching and social activism in the context of correctional settings?” (Thompson 2015:434).

Experiences and needs noted in studies of information behaviour in law enforcement: from staff to inmates Information behaviour research reports hold the potential to be combined with autoethnographic reports – evocative or collaborative autoethnography can

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especially be useful when taking an analytic autoethnographic approach which would combine well with information behaviour studies and action research. Work on information behaviour has noted that people working in law enforcement make use of many types of information sources that includes evidence, case files and legal databases. Lilienthal (2013) reports on how some police officers rarely consult printed journals, libraries and books as information sources and how they rarely attend conferences. These sources as well as investigative systems and search engines provide investigative information (Walton 2014:79– 80). Popular investigative systems include Accurint for Law Enforcement and CLEAR for law enforcement (Walton 2014:80). Typical services offered include interlibrary lending, training programmes and career guidance for inmates (Plowrite 2017). What these studies show is that although we have some knowledge of the information behaviour of people working in law enforcement and their preferences for information sources, the focus is on factual information needs and behaviour that can be checked in a more concrete manner. It is not about emotional needs and emotional experiences in the daily routines of their jobs. There is also information available on the information needs and preferences of inmates relevant to library services. Inmates need access to health care information on preventative measures and other issues that are available to communities (Sambo, Usman & Rabiu 2017:5). Information most needed by inmates include educational, spiritual and recreational information. They often require information that enlighten them on hiring lawyers and getting free legal aid in order to exercise their basic human right, access to court and possible freedom (Sambo, Usman & Rabiu 2017:5). Inmates use education information and sources to improve on various skills that will support a future career. Factors that influence their information behaviour include poor funding of prison libraries, lack of time to interact with outside information providers, lack of free access to libraries and when available, the building or room allocated to the library is often unfavourable (Sambo, Usman & Rabiu 2017:13). It is important to take note of such needs to ensure that prison libraries and training programmes are available. There is, however, more to be met and considered. Information behaviour studies with inmates provide strong motivation to deepen further insight by using autoethnographic work and for libraries to consider drawing on autoethnographic reports when planning services. Campbell (2005:21–22) explains how an inmate described books as being a lifeline during his time in prison: I do not think I would have been able to handle stressful situations if the library was not readily accessible to me, it allows me to escape the on-going stress and monotony of being unable to see the outside world first hand. Needs for legal information applying to inmates’ situations are often reported. Such information makes it easier for them to cope with their poor conditions of being incarcerated (Campbell 2005:30). Both Plowrite (2017) and Campbell

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(2005) report on inmates needing educational information that can be used for career and job opportunities once their sentence has been served. In the work by Emasealu and Popoola (2016:32), information is also a key resource for inmates to facilitate training and retaining continuous education to improve themselves to return into society – to become self-reliant and better equipped. Access to a prison library and usage of the resources can also be a base for the psychological well-being of inmates. A deeper understanding of experiences as might be revealed through autoethnographies might supplement such findings when planning services. Cases has also been noted where information might cause a threat for inmates and where they had to actually proof that lack of access to information caused harm to them. Campbell (2005:31) explains that: Prisoners are perfect examples of people under extreme stress — another group aside from cancer patients illuminating what happens under such conditions. They are tracked after leaving prison, so any changes in behavior can be studied longterm. And, as long as America leads the world in incarceration rates, we will need to understand what incarceration does to humans, and the implications to society of these changed individuals. We need confirmation that access to information and making choices regarding it are transforming experiences unrelated to the successful integration of the information. Information professionals understand this, but policy makers generally do not.

Background on the scope of services libraries provide relevant to law enforcement and correctional services Library services are provided both in the context of libraries for legal companies or at universities with legal departments (i.e., law libraries) as well as for correctional services, a term widely used to refer to prisons (Dissel 2008). Some countries have a long history of law libraries supporting individuals working in law enforcement as well as inmates (Bowe 2011; Costanzo, Montecchi & Derhemi 2011; Šimunić, Tanacković & Badurina 2016). In order to tailor information services, libraries must understand the challenges faced in various contexts of law enforcement from the professional as well as criminal point of view. The services offered can be divided between (i) services to individuals working in law enforcement and (ii) services to inmates and criminal offenders. Not only the nature of services provided, but also the manner in which information is used must be noticed. The latter is typically addressed in information behaviour studies as explained in the next section. Autoethnographic research from Law Enforcement and Criminology could supplement findings from information behaviour studies. Various legal libraries are noted in the literature such as the American Association of Law Libraries, New York State Department of Correctional

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Services’ Law Library, South African Correctional Services (Men) Prison Library and Grootvlei Maximum Prison Library (also South African) (Department of Arts and Culture 2016; Lehmann 1994). In prisons, libraries have been established to create a supportive role in reforming and rehabilitating prisoners by providing library services and information resources (Emasealu & Popoola 2016:32). Such libraries can take responsibility for bridging the digital divide and information literacy training for inmates, collection development, building social capital and offering support for emotional information needs (Metheny 2017). In fact, libraries have been described as the “heart of the prisoners’ learning journey” (Bowe 2011:427). Often circumstances are, however, less than desirable such as noted by Costanzo, Montecchi and Derhemi (2011) with regard to prison libraries in Italy when they argue that the goal should be to make sure that Italian prison libraries can reach the same quality as their counterparts elsewhere. One of the main roles of incarceration is the reform of the individual (Garner 2017:331). Libraries are experienced as a means of escaping the negative environment of the prison, a means of connecting with others, both inside and outside of prison, and of passing time constructively. They are also experienced as a means of experiencing autonomy and responsibility for self in an environment where such opportunities are very limited (Garner 2017:341). Like any other human being, prisoners have equal rights to read and get useful education. In a study by Hussain, Batool, Soroya and Warraich (2019:el) a participant explained: “I am illiterate and unable to read books. However, I requested literate inmates to read a book and tell me the summary of the book and they happily do it (Inmate 6, Central Jail).” The prison library is often referred to as a “normal zone” and for many inmates, the library functions as a window to the world in an otherwise monotonous existence behind the walls. The library and the librarian might bring mental stimulation from the outside into the prisons in the form of literature, culture, current events and knowledge, which provide opportunities and gateways to a richer life (Ljødal & Ra 2011). There are thus many opportunities for libraries in the context of law enforcement taking a broad perspective.

Opportunities for libraries to get involved in autoethnographic studies Advice by Wakeman (2014:719) regarding autoethnography in criminology research can also serve librarians well: “The emotive processes that stem from these and the theoretical insights they can provide should not be underestimated.” Since research does not happen in a vacuum, it is worthwhile to acknowledge the “self ” and the diversity which researchers, and also librarians, can bring to their writing. To learn from both the literature and autoethnography such as in the excellent examples of the analytic autoethnography by Thompson (2015) on music instruction to youth in a correctional service.

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In a study on prison libraries in Canada, Ings and Joslin (2011:el) noted that Aboriginal offenders are disproportionately represented at all levels of the Canadian criminal justice system. At the end of March 2009, according to statistics made available by the Correctional Service of Canada, they comprised 17.3 percent of federally sentenced offenders, while the general Aboriginal population was 2.7 percent. Such statistics points to an opportunity for a cultural perspective and addressing imbalances in society that might affect the role of libraries albeit in a small way. Clearly an opportunity for autoethnographic research. A blog contribution by Andrew Plowrite (2017) provides very interesting insight into the life and work of a prison librarian and the needs of inmates. He explains how some people may view prison libraries as a small dark room where a librarian toils around old and outdated materials, prisoners creep among the stacks hiding contraband and officers are looking for signs of trouble. Being a prison librarian is the hardest, rewarding, happiest, eye-opening, frustrating and challenging position: “If you can survive this library, you can survive any library.” Prison libraries present a lot of challenges but they also create opportunities where the mission of a librarian is to provide prisoners with educational and recreational resources including books, newspapers, magazines, videos and training programmes. The aim would be to aid in the rehabilitation process and as means of escape and distraction for inmates to stay out of trouble: “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop in prison, and having a book in them is much better than a weapon” (Plowrite 2017:el). The reward would be in the gratifying experience of finding information prisoners need and providing them with information on workshops to learn something new that will allow them to earn certificates from training programmes that may help them find jobs once they re-join society after servicing their sentences. This happens on a daily basis. Although not intended as autoethnographic writing as such, the reflections by Plowrite (2017) show the potential of prison librarians engaging in autoethnography and what might be learned for example from the daily routine of a prison librarian: opening and shutting the library several times in the day while supervising around fifteen inmate library workers; ordering, receiving, and inventorying ILL [interlibrary lending] requests; answering inmate letters to the library; visiting segregation; ordering periodicals and law books; picking up book donations; emptying book drop boxes; answering reference questions; providing notary services; IT [information technology] troubleshooting; creating monthly programming; and…responding to altercations. Plowrite 2017:el He continues to explain how the librarian needs to go for training on how to deal with dangerous situations and individuals before starting work in

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a prison library and how you should be able to monitor prisoners visiting the library, answering reference questions on tiny houses, business plans, self-help, cooking, languages and superheroes and perform legal research to assist inmates. The most common need is for help with business plan samples (Plowrite 2017:el). Creative opportunities abound in a prison library. Workshops, book clubs, and community service projects are both welcomed and needed. One of the best things about my job was the instant gratification I experienced when I helped an inmate find the information they needed, or when inmates approached me after a workshop and told me that they learned something new that day. Plowrite 2017:el Plowrite did not write an autoethnography, but this work shows the potential value of going further and in more depth to apply rigour in autoethnographic writing. In law enforcement, librarians and information scientists can get involved in autoethnographic work through autoethnographic writing of their experiences (cf Chapters 2 and 9), encouraging and supporting autoethnographic research in law enforcement and reading, analysing and learning from autoethnographies. New opportunities can open for librarians and information scientists regarding research opportunities, roles and services. Muncey (2010), for example, offers guidelines on making sense of autoethnography, while Sobre-Denton (2012) elaborates on autoethnographic sensemaking of workplace bullying, gender discrimination and white privilege; the article title refers to “Stories from the cage….” Such “cages” need to be opened to improve supporting library services. In taking on an advocacy role, libraries can learn from autoethnographies to raise awareness of societal injustice and prejudices, class and care consciousness and they can facilitate platforms for people to speak out (Crean 2018). They are already doing this, but autoethnographic voices may add motivation and encouragement to pursue, such as in the work discussed by Raymaker (2017). In some cases, libraries can respond to the injustice and concerns they observe by long proven traditional library services such as bibliotherapy (Butterworth & Fulmer 1991; Daniel 1992). They can turn to the work by Lynn Westbrook (2015) on the role of the public library and victims of intimate partner violence and how her suggestion for a model to address the plight of a private crisis by public response can guide the services of public libraries. This might trigger outreach programmes and community referrals. It might stimulate interest in digging deeper into reconceptualising social movements and power – within the reach of contributions that libraries can make (Au 2017). Even if this is only on the agenda of librarians doing postgraduate research.

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Adding a book such as Mobile orientations: an intimate autoethnography of migration, sex work, and humanitarian borders to the library collection may change perceptions of sex work. After many years of research, Mai (2018) observed: In none of those places, with the partial exception of the initial phase of my first fieldwork in Albania (1998–2001), did I encounter the prevalence of victimhood that is generally presented as self-evident by political, academic, and nongovernmental actors advocating the criminalization of clients and the abolition of prostitution as the best ways to fight sex trafficking. On the contrary, the majority of the people I met—including minors (adolescents between the ages of fourteen and seventeen) and third-party agents—explained to me the different ways in which they had decided to work in the sex industry. Even if people do not agree with findings – it is important to note, to reflect on and to reconsider what is happening in society.

Conclusion As shown, law enforcement – taking a broad interpretation to include all people working in this context as well as prison inmates and people affected by criminal and violent acts (when people break the law) – is an important context for librarians and libraries to further their self-knowledge of their experiences in this context and to expand the roles they can take on and the scope of work they can do. Apart from the sources cited here, the book by Deitering, Schroeder and Stoddart (2017) would be a useful point of departure for librarians.

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Thompson, J.D. 2015. Towards cultural responsiveness in music instruction with black detained youth: an analytic autoethnography. Music Education Research, 17(4):421–436. DOI: 10.1080/14613808.2014.930117 Valentine, R., Valentine, D. & Valentine, J.L. 2020. Relationship of George Floyd protests to increases in COVID-19 cases using event study methodology. Journal of Public Health, 5 Aug; fdaa127 (early cite). DOI:10.1093/pubmed/fdaa127 Wakeman, S. 2014. Fieldwork, biography and emotion: doing criminological autoethnography. British Journal of Criminology, 54(5):705–721. DOI: 10.1093/bjc/azu039 Walton, R.H. 2014. Practical Cold Case Homicide Investigations Procedural Manual. Boca Raton: CRC Press. Westbrook, L. 2015. ‘I’m not a social worker’: an information service model for working with patrons in crisis. The Library Quarterly, 85(1):6–25. DOI: 10.1086/679023 Worley, R.M., Worley, V.B. & Wood, B.A. 2016. ‘There were ethical dilemmas all day long!’: harrowing tales of ethnographic researchers in criminology and criminal justice. Criminal Justice Studies, 29(4):289–308. DOI: 10.1080/1478601X.2016.1237945

11 CAREGIVING AND AUTOETHNOGRAPHY – A LIBRARIAN PERSPECTIVE REINFORCED BY EXPERIENCE AS AN ACADEMIC AND RESEARCHER Olívia Pestana

Introduction When someone decides to work in the healthcare sector, that is because it has a spirit of mission, there is the possibility of contributing to enhancing someone’s health condition. Caregiving is not a task limited to the health professionals such as doctors, nurses and allied health professionals. All the professionals in a hospital contribute to the primary goal of a healthcare organisation: caring for the patients. That is also the main goal of a hospital librarian. The contribution of the information society to the development of any country has a visible impact on the quality of life of citizens, and the health sector is probably the most visible side of this impact. The tremendous organisational and social changes resulting from the effects of the diffusion of new technologies have prompted the discussion about the conduction of these changes and their costs and benefits, with the healthcare sector being the centre of many discussions. The application of new technologies to a diversity of procedures, without barriers to access information worldwide, and quick access to research and scientific information, are some examples in a scenario irreversibly transformed by informational developments. Much of its application is in new diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and systems, as well as in electronic health records, used to rationalise and optimise the time spent on the main routines, such as patient admission, information sharing between hospitals and administrative procedures. The immediate access to scientific information is crucial in the health work environment, but all these developments have costs. The main focus of the information society has been on information networks creation and development. Nevertheless, the global nature of the network, in allowing information to be retrieved from anywhere, can raise serious questions considering the genetic, environmental and cultural differences between

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populations. That’s why subjects such as data sharing, interoperability between systems and data protection are crucial for the sector. On the other hand, globalisation effects are reflected also in the healthcare. Some diseases are no longer confined to specific geographies. Sharing knowledge related to prevention, diagnosis and therapeutics is globally impacting. Hospital librarians work in this context, facing deep transformations and coping with the restructuring of their organisations. Challenges do not stop, and the required skills are broad. This chapter will build on personal, lived experience as a head librarian in a Regional Hospital in the north of Portugal, and also experience with research conducted in this context. I will use an autoethnographic methodology to describe my earlier daily routines, my professional interaction with and commitment to library users and optimal information retrieval, my rationale for doing the research projects, my experiences during the research projects and also the impact of sharing in the lessons and work of healthcare professionals. The lived experience will be interpreted several years after changing my professional activity and starting a full-time job as an academic and researcher.

Autoethnography as a research methodology for health librarians’ work Autoethnography has been described, not only but also, as a method for approaching a personal experience, especially when involving emotionality in the narrative. Probably that is why we don’t find a consistent group of literature for reflecting on activities in the information science disciplinary field. A personal view is crucial when looking at any professional performance, and it gives the lived experience of practice. It may illustrate some fragilities, but for sure will clarify many experiences sufficiently rich for sharing with others. Difficulties, challenges, surprises, rewards, any profession is full of these moments. Furthermore, learning from other experiences is one step forward in knowing yourself as an actor in a given professional environment. Considering that autoethnographic texts evidence author’s knowledge of past research on the topic (Holman Jones, Adams & Ellis 2013), literature support eliminates the subjectivity of the author. It validates his/her experiences as a contribution to new research in the field. Like Adams, Holman Jones and Ellis (2015) point out, an autoethnographer’s contribution to knowledge includes the particular insights transmitted. Autoethnography methodology is barely used in the library and information science research literature (Michels 2010) and there are even fewer articles and papers using the autoethnography methodology for analysing health libraries’ contexts. It does not mean the absence of research focusing on the librarian’s experiences. What is missing is the use of the first-person discourse to express those experiences and more in-depth exploration of the personal. Nevertheless, some relevant articles could be considered as effective

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autoethnography practices. I have selected two of them because of their almost unique reported experiences. Miles (2015) worked as a solo librarian at the Simon Schwob Medical Library of the Columbus Regional Healthcare System from 2008 to 2013. She also served as the coordinator of the Continuing Medical Education and participated in the Physician Technology Committee. In her article, Miles describes the close relation to the clinicians, as far as a direct impact on patient outcomes is concerned. As a reflection of her valuable involvement in the daily routines of the clinical teams and being part of the Clinical Informatics team, she was offered a single opportunity to training clinicians on electronic health records. A balance of the impact of these experiences in the library performance is described. Library services and librarian skills were promoted, but several activities were time-consuming and led to the reduction of previous library tasks. Nevertheless, the reported experience opens the opportunities for librarians in the healthcare context and evidences the competences for many tasks related to health information. Taylor (2015) served as a medical librarian for several decades. In her article, she traces a diachronic perspective of hospital libraries and librarians from 1970 to 2014. The author’s experience, combined with a literature review, gives support to the analysis. The transition from paper into online information, and the library patrons group widening to nurses and allied health professionals are the significant marks that featured at that time in hospital libraries. In the end, Taylor encourages the future librarians to be seen as knowledge experts, with an active collaboration in supporting decision-making.

A personal, lived-experience as a head librarian in a hospital Librarians as information explorers – supporting the information needs of healthcare workers I worked in a hospital library for seventeen years, experiencing some of the most challenging developments of the scientific information market and also facing many local and national organisational transformations related to the healthcare providers. Hospital libraries are specialised information centres in the health sector, whose resources are focused on patient care and also on research, responding to specific information needs in a precise moment or for a more extended period. They address the individual and collective needs of doctors, nurses, technicians, administrators, among others. They can make services available within the facilities dedicated to the library or, with the development of information networks, provide users with access to services remotely. Several studies refer, in the conclusions, that health libraries have a direct impact on clinical decision-making, saving professionals time, retrieving relevant information more effectively and saving costs (Abels, Cogdill & Zach 2002, Abels, Cogdill & Zach 2004; Urquhart, Turner, Durbin & Ryan 2007; Weightman & Williamson 2005).

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There are many ways for describing the hospital libraries sector. I will focus on some literature I have followed during my work as a librarian. The beginning of a profession is always challenging and sometimes strange. However, the best way of initiating a hospital librarian career is by identifying the several professional communities in the health sector and knowing the hospital’s environment. The reality is very different across countries and these information services, as well as the professionals’ skills, may be subject to specific standards and certifications. Given that health information encompasses scientific, clinical and administrative information, it was strange to me, right from the beginning, that the main work of the hospital library would be mainly centred on external scientific information. I will start this approach mentioning the latest version of the Standards for Hospital Libraries, developed by the Medical Library Association, that considers the Library services as responsible for the development of what is called “knowledge-based information” services (Holst, Funk, Adams, Bandy, Boss & Lett 2009; Hospital Libraries Section Standards Committee, Bandy, Doyle, Fladger, Frumento, Girouard, Hayes & Rourke 2008). Furthermore, in the set of resources available to support the library’s mission of providing knowledge-based information resources and services, there are only references to external scientific information, searchable in referential or full-text and free or commercial databases. This American standard has served as a basis for the construction of the other best-known standards applied to hospital libraries, in several cases called Library and Information Services, which share the same options regarding the organisation of information. In general, all standards refer to the same areas, for which they establish standardisation principles: organisational structure and planning, human, financial and technological resources, facilities and access, services to be provided to users, measures for promotion and dissemination and quality assessment (Australian Library and Information Association 2008; Canadian Health Libraries Association/Association Des Bibliothèques De La Santé Du Canada 2006; Fowler & Trinder 2002; German Medical Libraries Association 2003; Harrison & Sargeant 2004; Health Sciences Libraries Group 2005). Moreover, it is precisely within the scope of the quality accreditation standards targeted exclusively to hospitals, that we find an integrative approach, albeit incomplete, of the various types of information and their articulation. Indeed, the Joint Commission International Accreditation Standards for Hospitals, 4th edition (Hospital Libraries Section Standards Committee, Bandy, Doyle, Fladger, Frumento, Girouard, Hayes & Rourke 2008; Joint Commission International 2010) presented a set of procedures to be followed by hospitals to obtain quality certification, where we find a reference to what is called “Management of Communication and Information.” In these procedures, it was recommended to have information management processes that could meet the needs of internal and external information. In the last edition of this quality standard, the 7th, the approach to this sector is not based on the separation

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of services, but in the direction of the management of information with a cross-sectional perspective. Unfortunately, library services loss their representativity in this standard. There are several landmarks regarding the studies for assessing the impact of information services. The following studies gave me the tools for surveying the library’s performance and helped me in the promotion of the library activities in meetings for healthcare professionals and managers at the hospital. The change in patient advice and the improvement in diagnostic tests and treatment to be performed were the main conclusions reached in a study carried out with the participation of a group of doctors from 15 hospitals in the Rochester, New York region (Marshall 1992). The Rochester study is a study of high relevance for the health sector, particularly for the development of libraries, since it has evolved from analysing productivity indicators to assessing the impact on users and the impact on patient care. Between 2005 and 2006, the Vital Pathways Survey Subcommittee (VPSS), a group created under the auspices of the Medical Library Association, conducted a survey aiming to understand the status of hospital libraries and librarians and establish a set of recommendations for hospital administrations (Thibodeau & Funk 2009). Given the results, trends were analysed and compared with reference studies previously carried out, particularly with the study carried out in 1989 by the American Hospital Association. The results of the Vital Pathways Survey revealed that there was a decrease in the number of hospitals and, consequently, libraries, mainly due to the extinction of military hospitals and the reorganisation of health services. Electronic resources, on the other hand, grew, due, necessarily, to the expansion of the Internet. Few responses (14.7%) indicated that the entities provided the information resources integrated into the patient information systems, such as, for example, in articulated access with the electronic health records. Regarding the groups of staff, it should be noted that 73.3% of the responses to the survey stated that librarians, qualified with academic studies at the Master’s level in the scientific area of library and ​​information science, took part in the working teams. It should also be noted that a considerable part of the answers, 35%, corresponded to non-academic hospitals and that 46.9% corresponded to hospitals with less than 300 beds, that is, medium and small hospitals. The changes resulting from the growing role of mediation have been visible in the United States and the United Kingdom over the past few decades, concerning the creation of training programs for clinical librarians, who participate in the health teams and are closer to health professionals (Schacher 2001; Sargeant & Harrison 2004; Thibodeau & Funk 2009; Tod, Bond, Leonard, Gilsenan & Palfreyman 2007; Urquhart, Turner, Durbin & Ryan 2007). I can consider myself as being a privileged professional along the years working as a health librarian. I started working at the end of the 90s, exactly when the Internet had its growing impact on the access to scientific and technical information. At the beginning when journals were printed, I had to deal with

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the tremendous effort of suggesting the valuable journals at a price as low as possible. Along the years, different opportunities arose and nowadays it is possible to participate in national consortia for acquiring packages of online scientific journals and databases. The same can be considered as far as books are concerned. A core collection of updated textbooks is essential in any hospital library, and its acquisition may require a strong budget not always available. Budgeting is one of the hard tasks in a library, and the return of investment calculation is essential for discussing the financial needs with the hospital managers, especially when cost containment is always the primary goal. A substantial part of my daily routines consisted of reference work, mainly searching for scientific literature according to the users’ specific information needs. Emotional experiences, when dealing with sensitive topics and the urgency in helping the decision-making based on optimal information retrieval, were the essence of this task. But, undoubtedly the most valuable and challenging one. Helping in finding the right literature for the solving of a severe health problem is highly motivating and gratifying.

Research experience during the work as librarian Working as a health librarian is enriching and highly stimulating. Notwithstanding, the experience of researching is the best opportunity for improving our skills. Joining the two is living an unparallel experience. While working in the hospital, I have decided to enhance my knowledge and started with a Masters in information management at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. This Masters allowed me to boost my knowledge in a broader context, which means that it gave me skills related to information management in any area, not exclusively in library and information science. This experience had its reflection in my daily activities, given that new challenges arose: leading the Continuous Education Department and the Research Service. The dissertation I have presented for the fulfilment of the requirements of the masters was dedicated to optimal scientific literature retrieval in critical care. I would say that the study conducted during the research process was probably the most valuable moment of my career. Influenced by daily work routines, I developed a research project in 2006 in the Critical Care Department, together with a team of ten doctors. The study was part of the work for my Master’s dissertation. Using a case study method, I have collected information about subject information retrieval for a set of topics most common in the clinical area served by the hospital. Two topics were selected for this study: 1 – Sepsis AND corticosteroids; 2 – ARDS (Acute respiratory distress syndrome) AND mechanical ventilation. The study focused on searches in PubMed, the extensive free access database to biomedical literature. Optimal information retrieval is essential for doctors and this study compared the retrieval results according to the recall and precision values. The

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main goal of the study was to find optimal search strategies for the topics mentioned above, which are recurring issues in a Critical Care Department due to the number of patients suffering from these pathologies. Some years later, right at the last year of my librarian career, I have decided to repeat the research strategy and determine the differences as far as the performance of PubMed is concerned. The results were impressive: the search results achieved a higher average of results of recall and precision, mainly due to the systems improvements that have occurred in the meantime (Pestana 2014). As an academic and researcher now, I would say that if I wanted to study the same topic in the present, the approach would be somehow different because there are several issues related to information behaviour that could and should be explored. By then, the approach was mostly practical and instrumental, as it considered the exploration of the PubMed database exclusively. After completing the Master’s degree, the motivation for research development was even more robust, and the doctoral studies were right in front of me. Then, I have decided to proceed with my doctoral studies, this time in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto, in a joint program with the University of Aveiro called Information and Communication in Digital Platforms. Given that doctoral research is time-consuming and that I did not stop the main activity as a librarian, I decided that the research topic should be centred in an organisational point of view of information services in the Portuguese National Health Service hospitals. The research led to the development of a model for a Department of Information (Pestana 2011). This is a model for reorganising information services in a hospital context, having the post-custodial and informational paradigm of information science as its theoretical-epistemological framework, conveying a holistic view of information and having a direct impact on the organisation of the services.

Reflection form the present position as academic and researcher A common assumption many times argued by librarians is the need for specialised education in this area. It does not mean that education at undergraduate and Masters levels cannot prepare a future professional. However, adequate knowledge that a health librarian needs when starting a career goes beyond the actual programmes in general. Almost ten years passed from my last day of work at the hospital, and I am convinced that maybe it is true. Nevertheless, there is a need for understanding that a holistic perspective of information also in the health sector may be decisive for the success of the information services. That is why I share the perspective of graduation and post-graduation in information science considering an integrated view of information (Rankin, Grefsheim & Canto 2008; Ribeiro 2007; Ribeiro & da Silva 2012). Participation in the clinical routines require skills related to organising and consulting clinical archives and electronic health records. Discussing

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budgets with managers and preparing activity plans and reports require records management. The discussion about specific skills and competences for a hospital librarian is not new. The term clinical librarian arose in the 1970s, and training programs in the United Kingdom have been in place to provide technical training for these professionals. These programs remain today, based on the development of the librarians’ traditional skills, but developed in a closer connection with the clinical teams. On the other hand, the receptivity of these professionals to clinicians and their integration in the work teams has not been as fruitful as in the United States (Harrison & Sargeant 2004; Ribeiro & da Silva 2012; Sargeant & Harrison 2004). However, there have been several studies on the need and development of a new speciality, by some called “informationist” or “clinical librarian,” whose action is aimed at deepening the skills of librarians regarding their role of mediation of research and supply of scientific information external to the institution, and their activity takes place with the clinical teams, that is, integrated with the healthcare teams (Rankin, Grefsheim & Canto 2008). Regarding the preparation of these specialists, the “clinical librarians,” we find an awareness of the need for contact with clinical information, more specifically with electronic health records for integrating scientific information in the latter. The main objective is the reduction of the risk of performing inadequate clinical practices (Holman Jones, Adams & Ellis 2013; Holst, Funk, Adams, Bandy, Boss…Lett 2009; Giuse, Koonce, Jerome, Cahall, Sathe & Williams 2005; Wolf, ChastainWarheit, Easterby-Gannett, Chayes, & Long 2002; Weightman & Williamson 2005). Traditionally, librarians have acted as managers of collections of information resources, trainers of health professionals regarding the use of resources and as mediators in searching and accessing information. This new competence has repositioned these information professionals within the scope of health information seen as a whole, leading to the change in practices and also leading the organisation of the services to a different path, a path different from the artificial and fractional division of information. In fact, in the final recommendations of a study carried out by the Medical Library Association (2008), in order to examine the state of the art regarding hospital libraries and the future roles of librarians and information services, we can verify the reference to the need for developing courses and training programs, explicitly preparing librarians for areas such as electronic health records. In addition to this work, I also highlight the report developed by the Medical Library Association entitled Competencies for Lifelong Learning and Professional Success: The Educational Policy Statement of the Medical Library Association (2007). This report presents a set of skills and competences for health sciences professionals. Although it has been presented by a professional association of health libraries and is aimed at librarians, it conveys a broader view of the competencies that have traditionally been assigned to them. As an example, I can cite leadership, finance, communication and management theory and techniques.

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More recently, the Medical Library Association (2017) published a new report with current competences. These competencies are organised in six categories, namely: information services, information management, instruction and instructional design, leadership and management, evidence-based practice and research and health information professionalism. Having reached this point, it becomes evident that there is a need to clarify the set of competencies that I consider essential for the performance of information professionals in the hospital context. There is a set of competencies that are similar to any information professional in any area of knowledge and another set that is more specific to the health information sector. Nevertheless, a beginner has to be aware of the possibility of working as a solo librarian, meaning that both managerial and technical knowledge are required. Here is the list of what I consider as the essential competencies: a. Management • design and implement departments and information services that contribute to the performance of the organisation in which they are integrated, in order to achieve the objectives of the organisation; • manage financial, human and technological resources efficiently – return of investment evidence is the most powerful weapon against the cut of funding many libraries suffer; • design and implement training devices using a variety of teaching methods and following the best pedagogical practices; b. Information • identify and retrieve information resources for healthcare workers and create information services for patient education, focusing on both preventive care and on advanced care; • create, apply and monitor standard policies and procedures for organising and representing information; • define guidelines for access, use and preservation of information. c. Research • develop and promote research initiatives using various methodologies, with a view to continuous improvement of the quality of resources and services. d. Professional context • understand the professional context at the national and international level, involving knowledge of the health system, health policies and structures of services and professions in the health sector; • know the organisation of health professions training (graduate and postgraduate) and research.

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e. Health information • master the terminology and tools for organising and representing health information; • know the ethical and legal principles associated with healthcare.

Conclusion Is there a sense of mission completed when other challenges arise, and we change the profession? No. Not at all. Many times, I look at the health news, and I feel as if something is missing, and grows a sudden wish of participating, of searching for literature, of discussing cases. In this chapter, I have described what I may call the highlights of my previous career as a hospital librarian, focusing on the main activities as a librarian. Aware of today’s new information tools for health professionals, one may think that it is a matter of dealing with technologies. However, it is not. There is team working, and human relations are crucial for professional success and personal satisfaction. I am finishing this text in a moment when the world faces a tremendous challenge: the battle of fighting against COVID-19. Recent past and the near future will be lived in a global pandemic one may never forget. Health professionals, researchers, scientists, epidemiologists, health communication and information professionals and librarians working in many scientific fields are in a single universal mission, and this is the highlight of the production of and access to reliable information. More than ever, sharing information in an immediate moment is crucial to save lives and to contribute to the quality of life to the survivors who suffered severe symptoms. On the other hand, this reliable information and its diffusion to the healthcare consumers have a substantial impact, especially in fighting the growing phenomenon called fake news. This phenomenon is not new, but its impact on social networks and the rapid diffusion can seriously damage the confidence and commitment of a considerable group of the population worldwide. The true values of the information market are highlighted, and the need for permanent and totally open access to scientific information is evident. This change has to be expanded to the whole health sector and build in economic and environmental sustainability and coping with the best practices. Let the future begin!

References Abels, E.G., Cogdill, K.W. & Zach, L. 2002. The contributions of library and information services to hospitals and academic health centers: a preliminary taxonomy. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 90(3):276–286.

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Abels, E.G., Cogdill, K.W. & Zach, L. 2004. Identifying and communicating the contributions of library and information services in hospitals and academic centers. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 92(1):44–55. Adams, T.E., Holman Jones, S. & Ellis, C. 2015. Autoehnography. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Australian Library and Information Association. 2008. Guidelines for Australian Health Libraries. 4th edition. Kingston: ALIA. Available: https://read.alia.org.au/ guidelines-australian-health-libraries-4th-edition (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200328021315/http://read.alia.org.au/guidelinesaustralian-health-libraries-4th-edition) [Accessed 30 May 2020] Canadian Health Libraries Association/Association des Bibliothèques de la Santé du Canada. 2006. Standards for Library and Information Services in Canadian Healthcare Facilities. Toronto: CHLA/ABSC. Available: https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/ jchla/index.php/jchla/article/view/22664/16891 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200911083926/https://journals.library.ualberta. ca/jchla/index.php/jchla/article/view/22664/16891) [Accessed 30 May 2020] Fowler, C. & Trinder, V. 2002. Accreditation of Library and Information Services in the Health Sector: A Checklist to Support Assessment. 2nd edition. London: National Health Service; Health Libraries and Information Confederation. Available: https:// www.libraryservices.nhs.uk/document_uploads/LQAF/Helicon_Accreditation_ Checklist_2nd_ed.pdf (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive. org/web/20200911085118/https://www.libraryservices.nhs.uk/document_uploads/ LQAF/Helicon_Accreditation_Checklist_2nd_ed.pdf ) [Accessed 30 May 2020] German Medical Libraries Association. 2003. Standards for Hospital Libraries in Germany. Köln: AGMB. Available: http://www.agmb.de/papoopro/index.php?menuid=12 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20160409231545/ http://www.agmb.de/papoopro/index.php?menuid=12) [Accessed 20 December 2009] Giuse, N.B., Koonce, T.Y., Jerome, R.N., Cahall, M. & Sathe N.A. & Williams, A. 2005. Evolution of a mature clinical informationist model. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 12(3):249–255. DOI: 10.1197/jamia.M1726 Harrison, J. & Sargeant, S.J.E. 2004. Clinical librarianship in the U.K.: temporary trend or permanent profession? Part II: present challenges and future opportunities. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 21(4):220–226. DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2004.00541.x Health Sciences Libraries Group. 2005. Standards for Irish Health Care Libraries and Information Services. 2nd edition. Dublin: LAI. Available: http://hdl.handle.net/10147/71656 [Accessed 30 May 2020] Holman Jones, S., Adams, T.E. & Ellis, C. (eds.) 2013. Handbook of Autoethnography. London, England: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315427812 Holst, R., Funk, C.J., Adams, H.S., Bandy, M. & Boss…Lett, R.K. 2009. Vital pathways for hospital librarians: present and future roles. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 97(4):285–292. DOI: 10.3163/1536-5050.97.4.013 Hospital Libraries Section Standards Committee, Bandy, M., Doyle, J. D., Fladger, A., Frumento, K. S., Girouard, L., Hayes, S., & Rourke, D. 2008. Standards for hospital libraries 2007: Hospital Libraries Section Standards Committee. Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 96(2), 162–169. https://doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.96.2.162 Joint Commission International 2010. Joint Commission International Accreditation Standards for Hospitals. 4th edition. Illinois: Joint Commission Resources. Marshall, J.G. 1992. The impact of the hospital library on clinical decision making: the Rochester study. Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 80(2):169–178.

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Medical Library Association. 2007. Competencies for Lifelong Learning and Professional Success: The Educational Policy Statement of the Medical Library Association. Available: https://www.mlanet.org/d/do/7993 [Accessed 30 May 2020] Medical Library Association. 2008. Vital Pathways: The Hospital Libraries Project. Chicago: Medical Library Association. Available: http://www.mlanet.org/pdf/resources/ vital_finalreport.pdf (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/ web/20090712203854/http://www.mlanet.org/pdf/resources/vital_finalreport.pdf ) [Accessed 20 December 2009] Medical Library Association. 2017. Medical Library Association Competencies for Lifelong Learning and Professional Success. Available: https://www.mlanet.org/d/do/7992 [Accessed 30 May 2020] Michels, D.H. 2010. The place of the person in LIS research: an exploration in methodology and representation. The Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 34(2):161–183. DOI: 10.1353/ils.0.0001 Miles, A. 2015. A solo hospital librarian’s experience in clinical informatics. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 34(2):232–239. DOI: 10.1080/02763869.2015.1019762 Pestana, O. 2011. Serviços de Informação em Contexto Hospitalar: Rede de Serviços e Serviços em Rede (Translate: Information Services in the Hospital Context: Network of Services and Services in network). PhD Thesis. Porto: Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto. Pestana, O. 2014. Information value and quality for the health sector: a case study of search strategies for optimal information retrieval. In Rethinking the Conceptual Base for New Practical Applications in Information Value and Quality, edited by F. Ribeiro, A. Malheiro & G. Jamil. Hershey: IGI Global:116–133. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-46664562-2.ch006 Rankin, J.A., Grefsheim, S.F. & Canto, C.C. 2008. The emerging informationist specialty: a systematic review of the literature. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 96(3):194–206. DOI: 10.3163/1536-5050.96.3.005 Ribeiro, F. 2007. An integrated perspective for professional education in libraries, archives and museums: a new paradigm, a new training model. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 48(2):116–124. Ribeiro, F. & da Silva, A.M. 2012. Documentation/information and their paradigms: characterization and importance in research, education, and professional practice. Knowledge Organization: International Journal Devoted to Concept, Theory, Classification, Indexing and Knowledge Representation, 39(2):111–124. Sargeant, S.J.E. & Harrison, J. 2004. Clinical librarianship in the UK: temporary trend or permanent profession? Part I: a review of the role of the clinical librarian. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 21(3):173–181. DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2004.00510.x Schacher, L.F. 2001. Clinical librarianship: its value in medical care. Annals of Internal Medicine, 134(8):717–720. DOI: 10.7326/0003-4819-134-8-200104170-00023 Taylor, M.V. 2015. Impressions of an old master: hospital libraries and librarians, 1970-2014. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 34(1):104–112. DOI: 10.1080/ 02763869.2015.986797 Thibodeau, P.L. & Funk, C.J. 2009. Trends in hospital librarianship and hospital library services: 1989 to 2006. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 97(4):273–279. DOI: 10.3163/1536-5050.97.4.011 Tod, A.M., Bond, B., Leonard, N., Gilsenan, I.J. & Palfreyman, S. 2007. Exploring the contribution of the clinical librarian to facilitating evidence-based nursing. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 16(4):621–629. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2702.2006.01726.x

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Urquhart, C., Turner, J., Durbin, J. & Ryan, J. 2007. Changes in information behaviour in clinical teams after introduction of a clinical librarian service. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 95(1):14–22. Weightman, A. & Williamson, J. 2005. The value and impact of information provided through library services for patient care: a systematic review. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 22(1):4–25. DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2005.00549.x Wolf, D.G., Chastain-Warheit, C.C., Easterby-Gannett, S., Chayes, M.C. & Long, B.A. 2002. Hospital librarianship in the United States: at the crossroads. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 90(1):38–48.

PART V

The way forward

Understanding and awareness of autoethnography must be followed by knowledge of how to proceed and how to strengthen skills in autoethnographic writing and underlying theory. It also requires understanding of the experiences in deepening such understanding and awareness. Part 5 thus addresses the way forward. In Chapter 12, Ina Fourie sketches ideas for personal growth in the use of autoethnography and how to keep momentum. She touches on current awareness and alerting services such as journal tables of content services, monitoring new publications from book publishers, conference calls for papers and joining professional organisations. Monitoring trends and new publications are important for both autoethnographic research and challenges and communities that can be addressed by libraries. She also stresses the need to address professional growth through reflection, collaboration, interest groups and communities of practice. Chapter 13 presents concluding remarks on the way forward after reflection on authors’ personal experiences in preparing Autoethnography for librarians and information specialists.

12 TAKING ON SOCIAL CHALLENGES, PERSONAL GROWTH AND KEEPING MOMENTUM AS AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC READER AND WRITER Ina Fourie

Introduction Autoethnography is not just about storying and revealing deeply personal experiences (Anderson & Fourie 2015; Bochner & Ellis 2016). It must be aimed at making cultural and social differences, addressing social injustice, and giving a voice to marginalised individuals and communities. This evolves from personal experience. Librarians can become more sensitive to their experiences in making a difference in society, e.g., (il)literacy, addressing the digital divide, offering services to vulnerable people and addressing concerns about freedom of information, misinformation and fake news. In the very first issue of Journal of Autoethnography when making it clear that autoethnography is here to stay, Adams and Herrmann (2020) explain: … the use of personal experience does not automatically make a manuscript autoethnographic; personal experience must be used intentionally to illuminate and interrogate cultural beliefs, practices, and identities (“ethno”). At its core, autoethnography assumes that personal experience is infused with social norms and expectations, and autoethnographers engage in rigorous self-reflection—often referred to as “reflexivity”—in order to identify and interrogate the intersections between the self and cultural life. The “ethno” component of autoethnography also requires manuscripts to engage the purposes and practices of ethnography, such as referencing and/ or critiquing extant research, identifying patterns of talk and action, interviewing others, doing fieldwork in “natural settings,” analyzing popular discourse and grand narratives about a topic, describing meaningful epiphanies and aesthetic moments, and/or providing insider access to contexts in which cultural outsiders and other research methods could never provide.

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Preceding chapters showed the need for rigor (cf Chapter 6) and the value of different types of autoethnography and autoethnography per se. In these chapters, there are also many examples of how librarians can exploit the value of autoethnography and how they can supplement autoethnographic studies with other research methods such as action research and Dervin’s sense-making methodology (cf Chapter 8 for the latter). Autoethnography might be considered as a sole or supplementary research method or a method that needs to be complimented by other methods. Ongoing awareness of research opportunities, challenges that need to be addressed by library services and the refinement of knowledge of and skills in autoethnographic writing are required for libraries to address the affective component of their services and responsibilities to society. Adams and Herrmann (2020:1) set the tone for growing in the use of autoethnographies and recognising the value: For us, autoethnographies, and articles about autoethnography, enlighten our intellect, engage our emotions, and pique our curiosities. They can make what seems mysterious to outsiders comprehensible and make tacit knowledge explicit. They teach us about ourselves, our friends, our families, our workplaces, our world. They offer us the ability to empathize with others, make strategic and positive personal and cultural change, and become better and just researchers and people. This chapter is a reminder of responsibilities to address social inclusion, illiteracy and digital divides, to secure access to information for all, to understand information needs and information practices in all contexts and to be a pillar in times of disaster (Lloyd & Wilkinson 2019; Lockyer-Benzie 2004; Martzoukou & Burnett 2018; Stilwell 2016). Embarking on appropriate services will require both the study of autoethnographies and autoethnographic writing on experiences such as mindfulness of the need for cultural competence when planning collections and services, noting pain and hurt often expressed in autoethnographies and growing sensitivity for the need for advocacy for freedom of information, gender and racial equalities and to speak out against domestic violence and xenophobia. Deitering, Schroeder and Stoddart (2017) offer good examples of librarians’ experiences in autoethnographic writing. From a non-librarian perspective, Zempi (2017) gives a good example of autoethnographic research regarding xenophobia. Once appreciation of autoethnography sparks, it is important to keep impetus and to nourish skills and confidence in autoethnography as a research method, a coping method and a method for problem-solving. Also, as a method to improve library and information services and to enhance personal growth and well-being and to understand the situations of others. If practiced as a research method, autoethnography requires knowledge, training, interaction with other autoethnographers and reflection on personal growth. This chapter touches on

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these issues. In addition, examples are shown of how librarians and information scientists can use autoethnography to monitor for opportunities to fulfil people’s information needs and to provide appropriate services. Various means to stay abreast of autoethnographic research and publications as well as reflective practices and journaling to keep momentum as an autoethnographic reader and writer are discussed. In this chapter, collaborative autoethnography and interest groups are noted as means to support library and information communities of autoethnographers. Communities of practice is also a possibility.

Opportunities for libraries and information services to support diverse communities As noted in earlier chapters, there are many reasons why librarians need to explore all facets of autoethnography as a means to give a voice to them to explore their own experiences in emotionally challenging and frustrating positions (Matteson, Chittock & Mease 2015), to address the needs of others and to take note of different means to represent themselves in library and information science research (Guzik 2013). There are also many reasons why librarians need to deepen understanding of explicit, but especially implicit information needs in a diversity of contexts. These include contexts noted in earlier chapters such as Fiona Blackburn on the need for cultural competency when offering services to Indigenous groups, Olívia Pestana on the challenges faced by clinical librarians and when offering supporting services to caregivers and Naailah Parbhoo-Ebrahim and myself on needs that are observed in law enforcement and correctional services (i.e., prisons). Libraries might serve people from such groups as individuals or as communities. They can serve as physical institutions or they can serve people through their digital collections and information services. They can also serve through outreach involvement in other challenging contexts such as refugee groups (Bowdoin, Hagar, Monsees, Kaur, Middlebrooks, Miles-Edmonson, White… Ford 2017; Vårheim 2014) and disaster areas (Featherstone 2012; Stewart 2014; Tu-Keefner, Liu, Hartnett & Hastings 2017) or in a global health crises where Xie and her colleagues (2020) give many examples of the roles librarians and information scientists can play during a global pandemic such as COVID-19. Similar to the arguments raised by Hepworth (2004) and Fidel (2012) for the value of studies of information behaviour, an analysis of autoethnographies might inspire librarians to design more appropriate information services for those whose challenges are voiced in autoethnographies. More examples of opportunities can be seen in the works of Bordonaro (2020), Fister (2017) and Morrison (2017) on information literacy training and the practices of information literacy and Grace and Sen (2013), Kramer (2020) and Maynor (2019) on the role of libraries. Most important here is the thesis by Phillips (2016) on the empathetic rural librarian as a source of support for rural cyberbullied young adults.

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Autoethnography can also raise awareness for the challenges faced by faculty members and especially members of colour (Cooke 2019; Gibson 2019). There are also many potential opportunities to note from work in related fields such as archival science and services (Evans 2014; McIntyre 2016) and publishing where Ross and Shanty (2009) report on the fun and aggravation in editing encyclopaedias. It is especially important to note the slow but increasing interest in the use of autoethnography in information behaviour studies (Cunningham, Nichols, Hinze & Bowen 2016; Gorichanaz 2015; Gorichanaz 2017; Lopatovska & Smiley 2014; Magasic 2014; Schlesselman-Tarango 2019). I am not going into any specific detail; the message is that there are numerous opportunities for librarians and information scientists to not only analyse autoethnographies when considering their information services, but also to use autoethnography as a means to reflect on their own experiences in attempting these challenges, the knowledge and skills they require, their thoughts and their feelings. It is important to monitor such changes and opportunities. When librarians themselves become autoethnographers, it opens for them the opportunity to move away from complacency with neutrality as sufficient or to merely rely on findings from user needs and information behaviour studies as discussed by Dorner, Gorman and Calvert (2015). As Blackburn posits in Chapter 9: Experience is the basis for the reflection that shifts understanding of position, behaviour and assumptions, in both cultural competence and autoethnography… This approach may also be thought of as applying an autoethnographic sensibility, illuminating cultural and strategic interactions, and avoiding unidirectional assumptions about librarians and service recipients. The librarian may then be culturally competent, able to identify opportunities for collaboration and connection.

Promoting autoethnography as research method Autoethnography has been noted as a very useful research and coping method in many disciplines, workplaces and everyday life contexts. Educators, healthcare professionals and social workers have reported autoethnographic writing (Farrell, Bourgeois-Law, Regehr & Ajjawi 2015; Foster, McAllister & O’Brien 2005; Werner-Lin & Biank 2009). Libraries – academic libraries and even school and research libraries – can also promote its use. Libraries can make textbooks on autoethnography available in their collections such as the books by Holman Jones, Adams and Ellis (2013), Bochner and Ellis (2016), Chang, Ngunjiri and Hernandez (2013), Denzin (2014) and obviously also Deitering, Schroeder and Stoddart (2017). They can also draw attention to curricula for research methods in a diversity of disciplines and the use of autoethnography in education and training (Korin 2020).

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Using autoethnography as a method to cope with challenges faced by librarians There are many ways librarians can benefit from autoethnography. They can improve their collections and services to be culturally appropriate for those who use their services. They can offer safe spaces for vulnerable people. They can use autoethnography as a method to reflect on their growth, their leadership development and their positions in racial issues (Deitering, Schroeder & Stoddart 2017). They can improve information literacy training (Bordonaro 2020; Fister 2017; Morrison 2017) and in terms of library and information science Faculty members, they can be mindful of the experiences of members of colour (Gibson 2019). Librarians can use autoethnography and journaling and combinations of these to find their own voices in their own stories and professional experiences (Michels 2010; Miller 2003; Sen & Ford 2009; Wood 2013).

Staying abreast of autoethnographic research and publications It is important to keep momentum in expanding knowledge of autoethnography and to note the latest books, articles, calls for conference papers and trends. This can be done through the use of current awareness and alerting services as explained by Fourie (2003, 2011). Such services can be used to monitor journal tables of contents, e.g., Information Research for information behaviour studies using autoethnography and for articles on autoethnography, Journal of Autoethnography, Methodological Innovations, Qualitative Inquiry and Qualitative Research Journal. Other journals with occasional coverage of autoethnography include: Art/Research International; Cultural StudiesCritical Methodologies; Departures in Critical Qualitative Research; The Ethnographic Edge; Health Communication; International Journal of Multicultural Education; International Journal of Qualitative Methods; International Review of Qualitative Research; Journal of Contemporary Ethnography; Journal of Loss and Trauma; Journal of Organizational Ethnography, Storytelling, Self, Society; Liminalities; The Qualitative Report and Text and Performance Quarterly. Book publishers such as Routledge, Left Coast Press, Sage Publishing and Guildford can be monitored. Database search profiles for autoethnography can also be useful to pick up articles on new trends such as digital autoethnography (Tasha, Dunn & Myers 2020) or reviews on innovative research methods such as a special Library Trends issue edited by Adler and Sloniowski (2020); such methods might supplement autoethnographic research. For librarians, Library and Information Science and Technology Abstracts is a useful option since it is available for free. Membership of professional organisations such as The Association for Qualitative Research and participation in conferences with a strong focus on autoethnography such as the British Autoethnography Conference;

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Contemporary Ethnography Across the Disciplines; Critical Autoethnography; Doing Autoethnography Conferences; European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry; International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry; Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender; The Qualitative Report are also useful means to stay abreast.

Authoethnography, reflective practices and journaling – keeping momentum The literature of library and information science has often argued for reflective writing (Greenall & Sen 2016). Autoethnography can encourage reflective practices (Davies, McGregor & Horan 2019) and reflective writing can be used to hone skills in autoethnographic writing and to keep momentum as an autoethnographic writer reflecting on growth, ideas, the potential of theories, e.g., feminist theories that again might be combined with autoethnographic writing (Brown 2019) and personal identity (Davies 2019). Two key sources on reflective writing per se is the book by McKinney and Sen (2012) titled Reflection for Learning: Understanding the Value of Reflective Writing for Information Literacy Development and the article by Sen (2010) on reflective writing as a management skill. Wood (2013) written from a different perspective can also offer valuable points of departure. Various digital tools can be used for reflective practices such as blogs, journaling and even a mosaic memory reflection method as described by Fox (2010) or songwriting as explained by Carless (2018). Chapter 1 explains the link between autoethnography and reflection and reflective practices.

Exploring collaborative autoethnographic practices Collaborative autoethnographic practices can be very valuable in keeping momentum, sharing experiences and nurturing skills. Kathy-Anne Hernandez provides an excellent exploration of collaborative autoethnography in Chapter 5. Her work with co-authors, Chang and Ngunjiri (Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez 2013), is evidence to the value of collaborative autoethnography, especially to explore experiences with library leadership positions. Closer to the field of library and information science, Anderson and Fourie (2015, 2017) argue for collaborative autoethnography in deepening understanding of caregivers in existential contexts and their information interactions. They wrote from an information behaviour perspective. Other examples of collaborative autoethnography are Anderson, Goodall and Trahar (2020) writing on women in academia and Tabb and Valdovinos (2019) writing on health services in the global south. Another form of collaboration that is open to librarians is the community of practice approach noted by Anne-Marie Deitering in Chapter 2 and in the book The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship edited by Deitering, Schroeder and Stoddart (2017).

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Conclusion It is clear that there are many opportunities for librarians to engage in autoethnography and to hone their skills. Similarly, there are many opportunities for information scientists to experience with the value of autoethnography for proving richer research understanding, especially when combined with other research methods. It is hoped that this chapter will provide tools to continue with what could be learned from preceding chapters. Similar to Pestana in Chapter 11, I can say: Let the work begin!

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Cunningham, S., Nichols, D., Hinze, A. & Bowen, J. 2016. What’s news? Encounters with news in everyday life: a study of behaviours and attitudes. International Journal on Digital Libraries, 17(3):257–271. DOI: 10.1007/s00799-016-0187-1 Davies, C.E. 2019. An autoethnographic approach to understanding identity construction through the enactment of sense of humor as embodied practice. Journal of Pragmatics, 152:200–215. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2019.02.010 Davies, J., McGregor, F. & Horan, M. 2019. Autoethnography and the doctorate in business administration: personal, practical and scholarly impacts. The International Journal of Management Education, 17(2):201–213. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijme.2019.03.001 Deitering, A.-M., Schroeder, R. A.S. & Stoddart, R. R. (eds.) 2017. The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association. Denzin, N.K. 2014. Interpretive Autoethnography. 2nd edition. Los Angeles: Sage. DOI: 10.4135/9781506374697 Dorner, D., Gorman, G. & Calvert, P. 2015. Information Needs Analysis: Principles and Practice in Information Organizations. London, England: Facet Publishing. Evans, J. 2014. Designing dynamic descriptive frameworks. Archives & Manuscripts, 42(1):5–18. DOI: 10.1080/01576895.2014.890113 Farrell, L., Bourgeois-Law, G., Regehr, G. & Ajjawi, R. 2015. Autoethnography: introducing ‘I’ into medical education research. Medical Education, 49(10):974–982. DOI: 10.1111/medu.12761 Featherstone, R.M. 2012. The disaster information specialist: an emerging role for health librarians. Journal of Library Administration, 52(8):731–753. DOI: 10.1080/01930826.2012.746875 Fidel, R. 2012. Human Information Interaction: An Ecological Approach to Information Behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Fister, B. 2017. The warp and weft of information literacy: changing contexts, enduring challenges. Journal of Information Literacy, 11(1):68–79. DOI: 10.11645/11.1.2183 Foster, K., McAllister, M. & O’Brien, L. 2005. Coming to autoethnography: a mental health nurse’s experience. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 4(4):1–13. DOI: 10.1177/160940690500400401 Fourie, I. 2003. How can current awareness services (CAS) be used in the world of library acquisitions? Online Information Review, 27(3):183–195. DOI: 10.1108/14684520310481409 Fourie, I. 2011. Librarians alert: how can we exploit what is happening with personal information management (PIM), reference management and related issues? Library Hi Tech, 29(3):550–556. DOI: 10.1108/07378831111174477 Fox, R. 2010. Re-membering daddy: autoethnographic reflections of my father and Alzheimer’s disease. Text and Performance Quarterly, 30(1):3–20. DOI: 10.1080/10462930903366969 Gibson, A.N. 2019. Civility and structural precarity for faculty of color in LIS. Journal of Education for Library & Information Science, 60(3):215–222. DOI: 10.3138/ jelis.2019-0006 Gorichanaz, T. 2015. Information on the run: experiencing information during an ultramarathon. Information Research, 20(4):paper 697. Available: http://InformationR.net/ ir/20-4/paper697.html (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive. org/web/20200801162405/http://informationr.net/ir///20-4/paper697.html#. X1oS1El7nIU) [Accessed 10 September 2020] Gorichanaz, T. 2017. Auto-hermeneutics: a phenomenological approach to information experience. Library and Information Science Research, 39(1):1–7. DOI: 10.1016/j. lisr.2017.01.001

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Grace, D.A.N. & Sen, B. 2013. Community resilience and the role of the public library. Library Trends, 61(3):513–541. DOI: 10.1353/lib.2013.0008 Greenall, J. & Sen, B.A. 2016. Reflective practice in the library and information sector. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 48(2):137–150. DOI: 10.1177/0961000614551450 Guzik, E. 2013. Representing ourselves in information science research: a methodological essay on autoethnography. Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 37(4):267–283. DOI: 10.1353/ils.2013.0025 Hepworth, M. 2004. A framework for understanding user requirements for an information service: defining the needs of informal carers. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 55(8):695–708. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ asi.20015 Holman Jones, S., Adams, T.E. & Ellis, C. 2013. Handbook of Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, Calif.: Left Coast Press. DOI: 10.4324/9781315427812 Korin, E. 2020. When we disengaged: a foiled attempt at teaching multimedia through autoethnography. Communication Education, 69(4):448–463. Kramer, E.H. 2020. A close look: roving reference in a community college library information commons. Reference Services Review, 48(2):271–285. DOI: 10.1108/ RSR-08-2019-0051 Lloyd, A. & Wilkinson, J. 2019. Tapping into the information landscape: refugee youth enactment of information literacy in everyday spaces. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 51(1):252–259. DOI: 10.1177/0961000617709058 Lockyer-Benzie, M. 2004. Social inclusion and the City of Swan public libraries in Western Australia. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 21(s2):36–44. DOI: 10.1111/j.1740-3324.2004.00519.x Lopatovska, I. & Smiley, B. 2014. Proposed model of information behaviour in crisis: the case of hurricane Sandy. Information Research, 19(1):paper 610. Available: http:// informationr.net/ir/19-1/paper610 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https:// web.archive.org/web/20200806065903/http://informationr.net/ir///19-1/paper610. html#.X14VFkl7nIV) [Accessed 13 September 2020] Magasic, M. 2014. Travel blogging: an auto-ethnographic study of how online interactions influence a journey. First Monday, 19(7):7–7. DOI: 10.5210/fm.v19i7.4887 Martzoukou, K. & Burnett, S. 2018. Exploring the everyday life information needs and the socio-cultural adaptation barriers of Syrian refugees in Scotland. Journal of Documentation, 74(5):1104–1132. DOI: 10.1108/JD-10-2017-0142 Matteson, M.L., Chittock, S. & Mease, D. 2015. In their own words: stories of emotional labor from the library workforce. The Library Quarterly, 85(1):85–105. DOI: 10.1086/679027 Maynor, A.R. 2019. Libraries & librarians in the aftermath: our stories & ourselves. Collaborative Librarianship, 11(1):66–81. McIntyre, J. 2016. Blank pages, brief notes and ethical double-binds: micro digitisation and the ‘infinite archive’. Archives & Manuscripts, 44(1):2–13. DOI: 10.1080/01576895.2015.1136224 McKinney, P. & Sen, B.A. 2012. Reflection for learning: understanding the value of reflective writing for information literacy development. Journal of Information Literacy, 6(2):110–129. DOI: 10.11645/6.2.1747 Michels, D.H. 2010. The place of the person in LIS research: an exploration in methodology and representation. The Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 34(2):161–183. DOI: 10.1353/ils.0.0001 Miller, D. 2003. Journaling: telling your professional “story”. Library Media Connection, 22(2):32–35.

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Morrison, K.L. 2017. Informed asset-based pedagogy: coming correct, counter-stories from an information literacy classroom. Library Trends, 66(2):176–218. DOI: 10.1353/ lib.2017.0034 Phillips, A.L. 2016. The empathetic librarian: rural librarians as a source of support for rural cyberbullied young adults, Ph.D. dissertation, The Florida State University. Available: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED570615 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20201104062726/https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED570615) [Accessed 04 November 2020] Ross, J. & Shanty, F. 2009. Editing encyclopedias for fun and aggravation. Publishing Research Quarterly, 25(3):159–169. DOI: 10.1007/s12109-009-9126-y Schlesselman-Tarango, G. 2019. Reproductive failure and information work: an autoethnography. Library Trends, 67(3):436–454. DOI: 10.1353/lib.2019.0005 Sen, B. & Ford, N. 2009. Developing reflective practice in LIS education: the SEAchange model of reflection. Education for Information, 27(4):181–195. DOI: 10.3233/ EFI-2009-0884 Sen, B.A. 2010. Reflective writing: a management skill. Library Management, 31(1–2):79– 93. DOI: 10.1108/01435121011013421 Stewart, A. 2014. When disaster strikes: opportunities for community and institutional renewal at Elliot Lake Public Library. Public Library Quarterly, 33(4):304–329. DOI: 10.1080/01616846.2014.970111 Stilwell, C. 2016. The public library as institutional capital. Information Development, 32(1):44–59. DOI: 10.1177/0266666914525063 Tabb, K.M. & Valdovinos, M.G. 2019. Experiencing health services research in the global south: a collaborative autoethnography of two social work researchers. Global Social Welfare, 6(3):189–198. DOI: 10.1007/s40609-018-0124-x Tasha, R., Dunn, W. & Myers, B. 2020. Contemporary autoethnography is digital autoethnography: a proposal for maintaining methodological relevance in changing times. Journal of Autoethnography, 1(1):43–59. DOI: 10.1525/joae.2020.1.1.43 Tu-Keefner, F., Liu, J., Hartnett, E. & Hastings, S.K. 2017. Health information services and technology access during and after a disaster: lessons learned by public librarians in South Carolina. Journal of Consumer Health on the Internet, 21(1):26–39. DOI: 10.1080/15398285.2017.1279895 Vårheim, A. 2014. Trust and the role of the public library in the integration of refugees: the case of a Northern Norwegian city. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 46(1):62–69. DOI: 10.1177/0961000614523636 Werner-Lin, A. & Biank, N.M. 2009. Along the cancer continuum: integrating therapeutic support and bereavement groups for children and teens of terminally ill cancer patients. Journal of Family Social Work, 12(4):359–370. DOI: 10.1080/ 10522150903321314 Wood, J. 2013. Transformation Through Journal Writing: The Art of Self-Reflection for the Helping Professions: Bibliography. London, England: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Xie, B., He, D., Mercer, T., Wang, Y., Wu, D., Fleischmann, K.R., Zhang, Y., Yoder, L.H., Stephens, K.K., Mackert, M. & Lee, M.K. (2020; early cite). Global health crises are also information crises: a call to action. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 71(12):1419–1423. DOI: 10.1002/asi.24357 Zempi, I. 2017. Researching victimisation using auto-ethnography: wearing the Muslim veil in public. Methodological Innovations, 10(1). DOI: 10.1177/2059799117720617

13 REFLECTION AND CONCLUDING REMARKS All contributing authors

Authors’ voices Why this book and with what purpose? How did it start? Ina Fourie explains: I met with Heidi Lowther at a conference in Washington, DC in October 2018. When asked for topics that might be of value for librarians, one of the first things that came to mind was autoethnography. Based on my work with Theresa Anderson I was aware of the value autoethnography may have for librarians, but also that autoethnography and other narrative research methods do not strongly feature in the literature of library and information science. Heidi thought that it was a great idea. I pondered a bit more. I was hoping that Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson would be able to be involved. She introduced me to autoethnography. This was not possible and I decided to go ahead as sole editor. I was scared. I was uncertain. But my belief in the value of autoethnography with its deep levels of self-reflection and ability to challenge social diversity, inequality and injustice and the opportunities this might open for librarians and information scientists encouraged me to take the first step to put a draft proposal together. I recall how I struggled a full day to draft an email message with a formal letter attached, and all possible details to ensure that the researchers to whom I reached out would not discard my message as spam or fraud. I waited a few days…. And then… early on a Saturday morning I saw the message from Carolyn Ellis that she and Art Bochner would be on board, but they would prefer it if Lisa Spinazola, a former doctoral student, takes the lead as author. Lisa immediately responded to my message of “wonderful news” – I am looking forward to work with you. The fact that three experts in autoethnography agreed to contribute

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to a book outside their comfort discipline, for me, reinforced my belief that this was the right time and place to write about autoethnography in the library and information science literature. I got to learn a little bit of Lisa, Carolyn and Art – and the professional manner in which they shared a challenging and very sad event, but at the same time managed to complete a chapter that I hope will encourage librarians and information specialists to engage with autoethnographic writing; to be brave in sharing deeply emotional challenges. And midway towards the submission date came the COVID-19 global pandemic that changed our lives globally. For some it was more than the uncertainties of COVID that was at stake; they also had to deal with other trauma and finding their (evocative) autoethnographic voice in writing for readers from library and information science that are fairly new to them. Lisa Spinazola explains how the loss of a dear friend became part of her evocative voice and the writing process and the changes that can happen and that needs to be admitted. Writing and specifically deeply emotional writing is not easy. When we first started our project together, I initially thought I’d use excerpts from my dissertation about groups I had facilitated with men struggling with addiction and homelessness to demonstrate evocative autoethnography in action. But each time I settled in to begin writing, I felt overwhelmed, stumped, or blocked. Adding to this pressure, I was new to the study of Library and Information Sciences, and I wondered how I was going to write a chapter that others who were well-versed in the field could take seriously. The icing on my stressed-out cake is that I would be co-creating the project with my mentors. I had to write something that would demonstrate my understanding of and expertise using concepts and theories they taught me. I put off writing for a while hoping I’d get unstuck. Convenient excuses for being delayed kept cropping up—too many classes to teach, the loss of a dear friend, overwhelming grief that came in waves and threatened to drag me under, the holidays, a two-day job interview requiring a month’s worth of intense preparation—and then there was no more time for excuses. As I explored the purpose of writing autoethnography, its goals, impact, and desired effects, I realised there was another story that was consuming me, one that got in the way of writing any other. While tears streamed down my cheeks, words poured from my fingertips onto the computer screen. My grief had been holding me captive. Once I gave in and began writing the story that needed to be told, I discovered it was the perfect narrative to demonstrate the role and power of evocative autoethnography. I was able to set both the story and myself free in the telling and showing for our chapter [co-authored with Carolyn Ellis and Art Bochner]. Having the

Reflection and concluding remarks 189

opportunity to work collaboratively with my mentors was a dream come true for me. Connecting with them through theory, practice, and story to process our shared grief was healing for me and them. Writing, creating new knowledge, is never easy. Making yourself vulnerable through what you write is not easy; it can be very painful. But if you consider the purpose, the value and what might be changed and how quality of life for others might be improved… if you keep pushing, you somehow can see the process through till the end product. You might make a difference to inspire professionals such as librarians and information scientists to reach out to vulnerable people. It is almost natural, to be expected, unavoidable to experience the pressure of not knowing if you will succeed. To not know if your writing will be good enough and if those who introduced you to academic writing and autoethnography will think that the final product is good enough. Lisa was not alone in the external challenges that she faced and the worry (for some it might even be anxiety, angst and fear) she experienced in hoping to meet with the expectations of her mentors, the editor and the publisher. It was Naailah Parbhoo-Ebrahim’s first contribution to a book chapter. It was a new challenge to write with a colleague and supervisor for her doctoral thesis: When I think of books that are published, I think of Professors and Doctors who are highly experienced in the field writing those books. So as a young researcher it’s an amazing opportunity to write a chapter on autoethnography, law enforcement and libraries. It’s an experience I never thought I would have at such an early stage of my academic and research career. When writing the chapter, it was both stressful and exciting, due to the literature available and the direction my co-author and I intended for the chapter. Doing the research and formulating ideas and content had me quite stressed but once my co-author and I found the structure and knowing that it will be referenced by others helped me build my confidence and skills in writing which I implemented in my own doctoral research. I believe that young researchers should seize every opportunity to establish themselves. I also believe that opportunities this big are increased when you have a great supervisor that sees their student’s potential and pushes them in the right direction. I am thankful that I have such an excellent doctoral study supervisor and co-author. I am grateful to Routledge for the opportunity. Although Naailah is referring to me (Ina Fourie), her words on using opportunities and for experienced researchers to give opportunities can literally be transferred to the writing experience of Lisa Spinazola and her mentors and supervisors for her doctoral research – Carolyn Ellis and Art Bochner and the pride they experienced in Lisa’s work and the privilege of entering into a new relationships and embracing opportunities for collaboration.

190  All contributing authors

Art Bochner explains: As a recently retired emeritus professor, I greatly enjoyed the “collaborative” nature of the process in which we engaged. Our former student, Lisa, took command of the project, writing the first draft and then responding to extensive feedback she received from the two of us. I felt proud of the way she responded to feedback from us, developing a unique mixed genre form for a handbook essay/story, one that not only reviewed and told, but also showed what autoethnography can look like and do. I was especially delighted by the “human touch” of Lisa’s story of grieving the loss of her (and our dear friend), Ariane. Evocative autoethnography is a form of scholarship that attempts to put more people and fewer concepts on the pages of our journals and to make research accessible and readable. Too often, I think emotional and bodily experiences lose out to experiences that can more easily put into words. Librarians have feelings and they have bodies. Indeed, the services that librarians provide bring them quite often into relationships of caring with people, information, and technologies and the connections they manifest are likely steeped in moral values and ethics associated with human subjectivity. One question that arose in my mind is how differently the discipline would have evolved if it had been called “library humanities” rather than “library sciences” and if there was greater appreciation for the idea that there is no such thing as “information” pure and simple. I imagine archivists, for example, are surely aware of the role their own subjectivity plays in decisions regarding the archiving and organisation of materials. Art’s perceptions of the emotions that librarians experience are so true. We also hear this in the words of Anne-Marie Deitering who wrote from her experience as an authoethnographic writer and a librarian. We will also hear the echoes for care and sensitivity to others in the voices of Fiona Blackburn as a culturally sensitive librarian and Olívia Pestana as a health librarian who turned to academia. Librarians and information scientists should understand the emotional challenges of their professions and should be willing and ready to embrace these on an emotional level. They should consider new methods of research and reflection. Anne-Marie Deitering’s story captures her experience from the lenses of both an authoethnographic writer and a librarian – and with coping with the challenges of living with the “new normal” (a phrase widely used when COVID-19 hit the world). In 2016, I sat on a panel about autoethnography at a conference. While my fellow panellists were all practicing librarians, it was very clear that this conference was primarily attended by library and information science educators — people on the faculties of library and information science schools — and PhD candidates hoping to join them. It is an interesting

Reflection and concluding remarks 191

experience to attend a conference when you identify more with the subjects of the research being presented than with the presenters. I am the type of person who comes away from conferences re-thinking my work in new and interesting ways. Even bad presentations — and this is important — can get my brain moving in productive directions. This conference did not have that effect. With the exception of three inspiring talks, I came away from these presentations with more questions than answers, because the researchers didn’t ask about the things I needed to know. When I was invited to write for this volume, I initially resisted. I felt that I had said a great deal of what I needed to say in The Self as Subject, a book on autoethnography for librarians, I co-edited, and that there were others out there with more to add to the conversations. But then I remembered this conference experience and realised that I had a few more things to say. I used a variety of reflective writing exercises to remember, examine and analyse that experience, and to integrate the reading I’ve done in the three years since The Self as Subject into my thinking. I set aside six weeks to write this essay; I even blocked it on my calendar, which is a public commitment. And then, in the first week of that six week block the COVID-19 pandemic hit my state. We had to close the library and shift to all-digital services, without regular physical access to our collections, on a few days’ notice. I did not think about this essay for weeks. When I returned to it, it was honestly only because the deadline was too close to let me ignore it any longer. I did not have the sustained time I needed to do it, not really. Even more important — I was nowhere near mentally ready to do academic writing. Epistemology and objectivity seemed impossibly distant from the world I was immediately experiencing and trying to understand. Writing is always hard work, but this was different. I reflect a lot on my own thinking and writing processes, and I am used to knowing what works for me. Those strategies and that knowledge failed me here; I had to try all kinds of new ways of getting to the things I wanted to say. In the end, the only way I could get to that place, to what I wanted to say, was to write through the world I was experiencing at the time. And so I started from there. If you commit openly and publicly to do something through signing a contract for a book chapter, submitting a conference paper or even just putting it in your diary where a secretary or personal assistant may see the entry, there is more pressure to see the commitment through. Writing is never easy. Autoethnographic writing is not easy. If the writing does not flow, we need to draw on other techniques of stimulation, reflective techniques and if nothing else help, we should just try to see it through. And it often does as you could see in the chapters of this book. The authors all had so many challenges to overcome. Some related to COVID-19 such as losing family members or recovery from medical conditions. Not all is admitted here, because we (as writers, academics and practitioners)

192  All contributing authors

often keep our private lives separate from our professional lives. But should we? Or should it be acknowledged in some way? The reader can decide. Emotion, uncertainty and the context of the time and place and public prior commitment to address social injustice can ran strongly in the experience of the writer. Kathy-Ann Hernandez describes her experience in writing for this book: If there is one thing, I know for sure about myself it is that I am writer. Yet, I struggled to find my writing voice for this chapter. On one hand, I was dealing with the uncertainty surrounding living through a global pandemic during the time I was expected to draft this chapter. Then as a mother to two young girls, navigating the new normal of schooling from home as well as doing my best to maintain some sense of normalcy for them taxed me in ways I did not imagine. Then, as if things could not get any worse, they did. The brutal killing of George Floyd at the hands of police officers on May 25 in Minneapolis, almost crippled me at a personal and professional level. As a Black woman in a predominantly White US academy I continue to work in spaces that are complicit in systematic patterns of institutional racism. My professional work has become a platform for me to advance conversations that uncover the ugly truth about racial injustice and inequity in higher education and beyond. I grieved this loss of life at a heart wrenching personal level. I needed time to work through my own raw emotions around these events— “to unwrap my bruised and bloodied heart”. I needed time to be able to frame the conversation in a way that my two young daughters could understand. I needed time to educate them on the role of the scholar- activist and why our work matters. Then, together, our family joined the protest. However, my positionality as a scholar also comes with an obligation to write and to give voice to concerns about this kind of injustice and the need for change. And so, after I had compartmentalised my grief and emotions around the uncertainty of the time in which we are living, I returned to my craft, and I completed the chapter. My protest continues today, long after the marches have ended— through the printed page. I believe in the utility of autoethnography and its many applications across various disciplines to give voice to the experiences of people like myself. This work has the capacity to add to our understanding of social phenomena, but more importantly, it has potential to effect transformation of self, others and organisations thorough meaningful introspection. Writing is not easy. Autoethnographic writing is not easy, but it can open a new world of thinking and dealing with the challenges and trauma of society and personal experiences and moving a discipline (library and information science) and the services offered by librarians forward.

Reflection and concluding remarks 193

Fiona Blackburn reminds us about the rewards and challenges: As we note the challenges and the practical realities of autoethnographic writing, we must also remember the joys of autoethnographic writing – when it comes together, and when it is time to look back at both the product of autoethnography and the process of autoethnographic writing. Tim Gorichanaz captures his experiences: Since early in my doctoral studies, my research has focused on understanding people’s experiences with information—not just looking for information, but engaging with it. This is a relatively new area in the field, with much to explore and a need for methodological development. New kinds of questions require new ways to answer them. The first paper I published was a study of my own experience with information during a 100-mile footrace. Working on that paper was a great joy: from devising the methods to responding to the peer reviewers and beyond. A few years later, in writing my chapter on rigour for this volume, I was able to return to my thinking in that early project. This, too, was a source of joy: reading my past self ’s writing again, remembering who I was then, considering whether I still agree with this or that. And so, in addition to the work of writing this chapter for future researchers, I also got the chance to reflect on my past, better understanding my own journey as a researcher. For some their contribution to this book was a new and different experience – moving beyond awareness of the method (autoethnographic writing) and former relationships. Anika, Naailah and Lisa co-authored with their academic mentors. Unlike Lisa, Anika and Naailah knew less about the method. Anika Meyer draws attention to the change in her professional view of her world as an academic. I can vividly recall the first time I heard the term “autoethnography.” It was in 2016 at an international conference, attending a paper presented by Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson and Ina Fourie (also a colleague and mentor) on information behaviour, palliative care, collaborative autoethnography. I saw and felt the power of autoethnography to reveal vulnerable hearts, putting emotions on display and sharing deeply personal experiences in evocative and artful form of expression. In 2017, I was part of a group of scholars to create an interactive session focusing on the ethical concerns for autoethnographic research. I remember the feeling of nervousness and excitement to venture into a new field of research. I also recall asking myself, “should I spell autoethnographic with or without a hyphen?”. My latest contribution to autoethnographic research was co-writing a chapter

194  All contributing authors

for this book. When the time arrived to start with this chapter, I had a moment where I thought to myself, “I hope I can say something meaningful that is up to the quality of this book.” I suppose this feeling never goes away when you start a new piece. Writing this chapter, I can truly say that autoethnography is not merely a way of knowing about the world; it has developed into a way of being in the world, one that requires living reflexively, consciously, emotionally and being ethically minded. A next step for those who are new to autoethnography would be to embrace the social responsibility. The cultural awareness stressed by Fiona, the pain experienced by the self and others. Carolyn Elis highlights the experience of crossing disciplinary boundaries and the need to acknowledge the power of our relational lives – be that professional or personal relationships: Doing this chapter introduced me to research in library science and led me to consider the lived experience of being a librarian. I think it would be interesting to hear more from librarians about the work they do and their daily lives of interacting with other researchers. I especially appreciated the lead that Lisa took on our chapter and reading about how she was experiencing the loss of our dear friend, Ariane. It was also helpful for the three of us to be able to share our grief in a collective way as we worked together. We hope that this chapter piques readers’ interest in how an autoethnographic perspective might contribute to their research, writing, and relational lives. Olívia Pestana, as a health librarian who turned to academia had the opportunity to experience the potential of autoethnography as methodology and might continue to meet with the hopes of Carolyn and Art when they contributed to this book: Writing a text using an autoethnographic methodology is both challenging and demanding. It is challenging because it opens our minds to think and analyse our own experiences in a more thoughtful way. When applying to the observation of our professional activity, it allows us to put things in context, and the way we relate to others is highlighted. Demanding because there is still limited literature applying this methodology in the information science disciplinary field. “Traditional” trends in scientific research and writing have probably limited the development of this approach. But, as we can see through these texts, autoethnography is a valuable methodology for the analysed topics. Although there was limited library and information science literature on autoethnography available at the time of writing this book, Autoethnography for

Reflection and concluding remarks 195

librarians and information scientists opens the opportunity for this body of literature to grow – if librarians and information scientists will take up the “call to arms” to embrace autoethnography as a qualitative research process and an end product that might be analysed to change lives and quality of life. It is also important that autoethnography is not seen as separate from other research methods and methodologies. Librarians also need to turn to their home disciplines, library and information science, to see how they can contribute to the scientific reputation of autoethnography. Christine Urquhart coming with expertise from library and information science explains: My first reaction on being asked to contribute was surprise, as I was not aware that I had consciously read much autoethnography. As I was working at the time on an update to a contribution on sense-making/sensemaking for the Oxford Bibliographies on Communication, I began to wonder whether Dervin’s Sense-Making Methodology (SSM) might have something to contribute to autoethnography. I was also reminded after some background reading on autoethnography that when I ran a library for nursing students, my sociologist colleague had alerted me to a series of books on living with chronic diseases. For many of the nursing students these books provided a vivid insight into the ways people lived, coped, and suffered with different conditions. The books were not written in the “how to do” mode but explained how some patients with a condition learned to cope with the smaller and larger problems of adjusting to living with a condition. Often big medicine can deal with the big problems but the little problems are often more vexatious to the individual patients. Other patients dealing with a condition, and their carers could reflect and learn from such patient stories. I was comforted by the possibility that SenseMaking Methodology might contribute to autoethnographic research through helping to make meaning for personal learning, and started to work on the chapter. Brenda Dervin read a late draft of the chapter and commented that “so many people have treated SMM as the approach to ethnography, which it is never intended to be. It is intended to be a flexible communicative methodology for all communicative purposes potentially helpful with other approaches….it helps, it informs, but it cannot resolve because there is no such thing as complete resolution.” Louisa Lam and I trust that our chapter will help and inform readers. We thank Brenda Dervin for all her work on SMM and the many dialogues over the years that have certainly enhanced our personal learning. Louisa Lam agreed that these words also express her feelings about contributing to this book. In our work and research, we can never stand alone. We are inspired by others and we can resonate with the experiences of others; we have colleagues we

196  All contributing authors

respect for their work and for the passion they present. For how they push the boundaries to move forward. We all started – perhaps a very long time ago – as novices being mentored by somebody. Autoethnography might put a new challenge to librarians and information scientists, but it is a challenge worth taking on. I hope that Autoethnography for librarians and information scientists will achieve what it set out to do: inform, equip and inspire. In the words of Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson: Beyond analysis, however, our evolving practice of collaborative autoethnographic writing has given us permission to write in ways that we do not often allow ourselves to do enough as academics. Emotion is something that we are permitted to study and intellectualise, but how often are we encouraged to display it in our work? We might go so far as to suggest that putting emotions on display in our work is discouraged because so often an objective stance is expected if one’s research findings are to be believed (Anderson & Fourie 2017). In addition, there are the words by Anne-Marie Deitering in Chapter 2: We live our lives, every day, guided by norms like these. Living without norms is not a choice we can make. However, that does not mean we cannot notice, question, and trouble them. Noticing is one of the things that the autoethnographer does, or should do. After re-reading the book and this particular chapter, I realise how much more there is to be done to fully open autoethnography for librarians and information scientists: there are many other contexts that can be explored in combination with findings from information behaviour studies – thus analytical autoethnographic studies. Some examples were noted in the Preface, but there are many more. Like Anderson and Fourie (2017), more information behaviour researchers can combine their expertise in information behaviour with an autoethnographic lens to their own experiences in challenging contexts. More need to be said about the link between autoethnography, ethnography, autobiography, storytelling and narratives, and how combinations can be used to enrich the work done by librarians. More need to be said about the training of library and information science students to embrace interpretative and reflexive research methods. Most importantly: more needs to be said about indigenous studies, queer studies, feminist studies, black studies and other critical studies and how these can infuse autoethnography and raise awareness for the context and challenges where autoethnographic studies might make a difference. On a practical note, guidelines are needed on reading and interpreting autoethnography and incorporating insights into the planning of library services, the curricula and research projects of library and information science students.

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Ina Fourie: Even if I knew all of this, I would not have been able to include more in this manuscript. Time and reflection open our minds for new possibilities and new needs: there is much more that needs to be done!

Reference Anderson, T.D. & Fourie, I. 2017. Falling together – a conceptual paper on the complexities of caregiver information interactions and research gaps in empathetic care for the dying. In Proceedings of ISIC, the Information Behaviour Conference, Zadar, Croatia, 20–23 September, 2016: Part 2. Information Research, 22(1):paper isic1622. Available: http:// InformationR.net/ir/22-1/isic/isic1622.html (Archived by WebCite® at http:// www.webcitation.org/6oGf3kN6W) [Accessed 07 September 2020]

GLOSSARY

Action research: A research approach in which the researcher and the client

collaborate in the diagnosis of the problem and in the development of a solution. It can involve the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data and may be an iterative process. Alerting services: See the explanation for current awareness services. Analytic autoethnography: Shares the definitions for autoethnography, but

marked by the following characteristics: full member visibility of the researcher in the research setting or group, clear acknowledgement of researcher visibility in any published texts and clear acknowledgement of consideration of the voices of others such as other people and the literature, underlying theories, commitment to developing theoretical understanding of broader social phenomena. Autoethnography: A personal approach to qualitative research, involving

introspection, writing, reflection and connection to the wider social, political, and cultural understandings of the meanings made of personal experience. It can also be: “… a form of critical reflexive self-study, or critical reflexive action research in which the researcher takes an active, scientific, and systematic view of personal experience in relation to cultural groups identified by the researcher as similar to the self (i.e., them)” (Hughes & Pennington 2017: location 687). sensibility: Butz and Besio (2004:354) describe autoethnographic sensibility as “an attentiveness to the autoethnographic characteristics of things that are going on in our research settings,” i.e., “the process whereby our research subjects intentionally create [their own autoethnographic] representations” (Butz & Besio 2004:355). Besio and Butz (2004:434) point out that an autoethnographic sensibility “requires that we expand our understanding of autoethnography beyond text and verbal expression.” This expanded Autoethnographic

Glossary 199

understanding, this application of a sensibility to an environment, rather than a practice only of self-reflexivity, enables us to see people acting according to their own cultural norms and not just complying with expectations. Collaborative autoethnography (CAE): A variant of autoethnography in which

two or more researchers work in community to conduct an autoethnographic study collaboratively making use of their collected autobiographic data to aid in the understanding of sociocultural phenomena. Cross-cultural provision: The delivery of services shaped by a particular

worldview, e.g. information services shaped by Western systems such as the Dewey Decimal Classification organisation of knowledge and by the Resource Description and Access descriptive standard, to patrons with another world-view, e.g. the Aboriginal people of Central Australia. In this instance, the services would be delivered mainly by people of the dominant culture to people of a minority culture. Cultural competence: The ability to recognise the significance of culture in

one’s own life and in the lives of others; to come to know and respect diverse cultural backgrounds and characteristics through interaction with individuals from diverse linguistics, cultural and socioeconomic groups; and to fully integrate the culture of diverse groups into service work and institutions, in order to enhance the lives of both those using services by the library profession and those engaged in service (Overall 2009:176). Current awareness services: A selection of one or more systems that provide

notification of the existence of new entities added to the system’s database or of which the system took note such as documents, websites and events. Current awareness services can automatically notify users or may require regular checking. The term is often used interchangeably with “alerting services” (Fourie 2003:184) Evocative autoethnography: A type of autoethnography that focuses on

making emotional as well as intellectual connections with the readers. An evocative autoethnography begins with the researcher’s personal life; takes into account the researcher’s physical feelings, thoughts and emotions; and uses sociological introspection and emotional recall in an effort to better understand and contextualise a particular event the researcher has lived through (Ellis 2004). Generalisability: This is an aspect of rigour with the question of whether a

study’s findings apply in other cases. Indigenous autoethnography: Grounded within a resistance-based discourse,

indigenous autoethnography aims to address issues of social justice and to develop social change by engaging Indigenous researchers in rediscovering their own voices as “culturally liberating human-beings” (Whitinui 2017).

200  Glossary

Indigenous ethnography: This seeks to remedy the problems of ethnography

among Indigenous peoples where the Indigenous have been seen as “the other.” It aims at combining traditional ways of sharing and legitimising knowledge with established academic research. Indigenous people: Practicing unique traditions, [Indigenous people] retain

social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live. Spread across the world from the Arctic to the South Pacific, they are the descendants - according to a common definition - of those who inhabited a country or a geographical region at the time when people of different cultures or ethnic origins arrived. They have historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies; strong links to territories and surrounding natural resources; distinct social, economic or political systems; distinct language, culture and beliefs; they are from nondominant groups of society and they resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and communities. Indigenous people can self-identify at the individual level and can be accepted as members of indigenous communities (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2014; United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 2006). Informants: They are participants in research who can provide expert or

specialised knowledge to researchers. Narrative and storytelling research: Usually written or performed in the first

person with the researcher making themselves one of the subjects of research; makes use of a narrator, characters, dialogue, plot and storyline similar to the genre of biography and novel; often discloses hidden details of lived experience including emotional experience and inner thoughts and reflection; and captures the ebb and flow of relational experiences, dramatising the motion of connected lives through time (Bochner 2012). Neutrality: A neutral service can be interpreted as a service that is no different

for any particular group, and that should not be any different. Some consider a library a neutral space for Indigenous groups, meaning that such groups would not encounter in the library the problems and tensions that pertained “outside” the library. Such views might be valid or not (as Blackburn hope to demonstrate in Chapter 9). Organisational sense-making: This describes the processes by which people

within an organisation react to and interpret equivocal, ambiguous events and coordinate their actions in response to meanings and understandings that are produced. Reflective: In qualitative research, this refers to thinking about and thinking

back, and considering the future implications of the research process and experience.

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Reflexive: This is used in research methodology to refer to careful consideration

of the implications for knowledge concerning the methods used, the researcher’s values, implicit bias, and how a researcher’s presence in the situation may affect the research findings and attitudes of participants. Relational ethics: Ethical concerns that arise in autoethnographic and

autobiographic work around researchers’ responsibilities to protect the rights of others who are knowingly and/or unknowingly implicated in their work. These concerns often fall outside the purview of Institutional Board Ethical Guidelines but are critical to the relational impact that such work can have on relationships beyond the completed work. Reliability: This is an aspect of rigour, with the question of whether the study

would yield the same findings if it were conducted anew. Rigour: Rigor concerns the quality of a piece of research, its central question

being whether and how the research met its objectives. Self-narrative: Often this refers to an introspective account of self-development

that helps make meaning. Sense-making: In Dervin’s (2015) definition and usage of the term, sense-making

and unmaking of sense involves sometimes uniquely situated and sometimes across time-space habitual human movements through time-space from past, to present, to future and is exemplified in its central organising metaphor. The foundational constructs in this metaphor include attention to context, timespace; movement (force, power, energy); gaps (constraints, barriers); situation, history; horizons (past, present, and future); bridges; flexibility (fluidity, change, chaos); rigidity (constancy, stability, inertia); outcomes; helps and hurts. Sense-making methodology (SMM): Dervin’s (2015) SMM assumes that

“theorising” about human conditions and behaviours involves intertwined and tangled interconnections between philosophic assumptions and research implementations (i.e., theorising, research designing, data collecting, and conclusion drawing). SMM emphasises the importance of thinking and acting dialogically in trying to bridge gaps to make meaning, and the methods within SMM support those communicative processes. Solo autoethnography (SAE): A variant of autoethnography in which one

researcher assumes the dual role of researcher and participant making use of their collected autobiographic data to aid in the understanding of sociocultural phenomena. Storytelling: Storytelling and narrative research are usually written or

performed in the first person with the researcher making themselves one of the objects of research; makes use of a narrator, characters, dialogue, plot and storyline similar to the genre of biography and novel; often discloses hidden details of private life highlighting emotional experience and inner thoughts and

202  Glossary

reflection; and captures the ebb and flow of relational experiences, dramatising the motion of connected lives through time (Bochner 2012). “The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head” ( O’Brien 2009:218). Unidirectionality: Instead of a definition, an example is given. D’Arcangelis (2018)

describes realising that her perception of the benefits of her relationship with an Indigenous woman, was one-way and that the benefit flowed to the Indigenous woman, that her activism about Indigenous issues was of benefit to Indigenous people but not herself – and that Indigenous people did not have a similar role to play for non-Indigenous people. Similarly, the benevolent caregiving role in the aged care home, impeded my (Fiona Blackburn) realising that the Aboriginal women residents were incorporating me into their worldview. In Alice Springs Public Library, the staff’s unidirectional perceptions of the benefits of the services we were providing to library patrons, prevented us from seeing that Aboriginal patrons were expanding and diversifying our workspace – and making it easier for us to work there. Validity: This is an aspect of rigour, with the question of whether a study’s

findings show what a researcher claims they show.

References for glossary Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2014. 1200.0.55.008 - Indigenous Status Standard, 2014, Version 1.5, Available: https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/Lookup/ 1200.0.55.008main+features32014,%20Version%201.5 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200112052238/https://www.abs.gov.au/ ausstats/[email protected]/Lookup/1200.0.55.008main+features32014,%20Version%201.5) [Accessed 27 April 2020] Besio, K. & Butz, D. 2004. Autoethnography: a limited endorsement. The Professional Geographer, 56(3):432–438. Bochner, A.P. 2012. On first-person narrative scholarship: autoethnography as acts of meaning. Narrative Inquiry, 22(1):155–164. DOI: 10.1075/ni.22.1.10boc Butz, D. & Besio, K. 2004. The value of autoethnography for field research in transcultural settings. The Professional Geographer, 56(3):350–360. D’Arcangelis, C.L. 2018. Revelations of a white settler woman scholar-activist: the fraught promise of self-reflexivity. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 18(5):339– 353. DOI: 10.1177/1532708617750675 Dervin, B. 2015. Dervin’s sense-making theory. In Information Seeking Behavior and Technology Adoption: Theories and Trends, edited by M.N. Al-Suqri & A.S. Al-Aufi. Hershey, PA: IGI Global:59–80. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8156-9.ch004 Ellis, C. 2004. The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel About Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Fourie, I. 2003. How can current awareness services (CAS) be used in the world of library acquisitions? Online Information Review, 27(3):183–195. DOI: 10.1108/14684520310481409

Glossary 203

Hughes, S.A. & Pennington, J.L. 2017. Autoethnography: Process, Product and Possibility for Critical Social Research. New York, NY: Routledge. O’Brien, T. 2009. The Things They Carried. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Overall, P.M. 2009. Cultural competence: a conceptual framework for library and information science professionals. The Library Quarterly, 79(2):175–204. DOI: 10.1086/ 597080 United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. 2006. Fact Sheet 1 Indigenous Peoples and Identity. Available: https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/ 5session_factsheet1.pdf (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/ web/20200901124445/https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/5session_ factsheet1.pdf ) [Accessed 27 Apr 2020] Whitinui, P. 2017. Indigenous autoethnography: exploring, engaging and experiencing ‘self ’ as a native method of inquiry. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 43(4):456–487. DOI: 10.1177/0891241613508148

APPENDIX A: BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AUTOETHNOGRAPHY IN LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE

DATABASES AND SEARCH TERMS SEARCHED (6 SEPTEMBER 2020) Search terms: autoethnography, auto-ethnography, auto ethnography Databases and number of references in different fields: •• •• ••

Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA): title: 10; subject heading: 0; abstract: 42 Library and Information Source: title: 10; Subject heading: 29; abstract: 28 Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA): title: 9; subject heading: 29; abstract: 30

Removing duplicates: 68 Removing book reviews (except for reviews of books relevant to libraries and autoethnography), letters to the editor, indexes to journal volumes, announcement of book launches and incomplete references: 36. Total left: 42

Adler, K. & Sloniowski, L. 2020. Introduction. Library Trends, 68(3):369–378. DOI: 10.1353/lib.2020.0006 Anderson, T.D. & Fourie, I. 2015. Collaborative autoethnography as a way of seeing the experience of care giving as an information practice. In Proceedings of ISIC, the Information Behaviour Conference, Leeds, 2–5 September, 2014: Part 2. Information Research, 20(1):paper isic33. Available: http://informationr.net/ir/20-1/isic2/isic33.html (Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/6WxJAP1HL) [Accessed 07 September 2020]

Appendix A: Bibliography of autoethnography 205

Anderson, T.D. & Fourie, I. 2017. Falling together – a conceptual paper on the complexities of caregiver information interactions and research gaps in empathetic care for the dying. In Proceedings of ISIC, the Information Behaviour Conference, Zadar, Croatia, 20–23 September, 2016: Part 2. Information Research, 22(1):paper isic1622. Available: http:// InformationR.net/ir/22-1/isic/isic1622.html (Archived by WebCite® at http:// www.webcitation.org/6oGf3kN6W) [Accessed 07 September 2020] Blackburn, F. 2014. An example of community engagement: libraries ACT and the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 45(2):121–138. DOI: 10.1080/00048623.2014.908497 Blackburn, F. 2015. The intersection between whiteness and cultural competence in libraries. In The Library With The Lead Pipe (blog), December 01, 2015. Available: http://inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2015/culturalcompetence (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20200716000153/http://www. inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2015/culturalcompetence/) [Accessed 11 September 2020] Blackburn, F. 2017. Community engagement, cultural competence and two Australian public libraries and indigenous communities. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, 43(3):288–301. DOI: 10.1177/0340035217696320 Blackburn, F. 2019. Cultural competence: toward a more robust conceptualisation. Public Library Quarterly, 39(3):229–245. DOI: 10.1080/01616846.2019.1636750 Bordonaro, K. 2020. Adult learning theories and autoethnography: informing the practice of information literacy. IFLA Journal, 46(2):163–171. DOI: 10.1177/0340035219874046 Burns, C.S. 2014. The Scholarly Journal and Disciplinary Identity: An Autoethnographic Reading of The Library Quarterly, paper presented at the Association for Library and Information Science [ALISE] Annual Conference (21–24 January 2014: Philadelphia, PA). Cooke, N.A. 2019. Impolite hostilities and vague sympathies: academia as a site of cyclical abuse. Journal of Education for Library & Information Science, 60(3):223–230. DOI: 10.3138/jelis.2019-0005 Crooks, R.N. 2013. The rainbow flag and the green carnation: Grindr in the gay village. First Monday, 18(11):9–9. DOI: 10.5210/fm.v18i11.4958 Cunningham, S., Nichols, D., Hinze, A. & Bowen, J. 2016. What’s news? Encounters with news in everyday life: a study of behaviours and attitudes. International Journal on Digital Libraries, 17(3):257–271. DOI: 10.1007/s00799-016-0187-1 Deitering, A.M., Schroeder, R. & Stoddart, R.(eds.) 2017. The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association. Evans, J. 2014. Designing dynamic descriptive frameworks. Archives & Manuscripts, 42(1):5–18. DOI: 10.1080/01576895.2014.890113 Fister, B. 2017. The warp and weft of information literacy: changing contexts, enduring challenges. Journal of Information Literacy, 11(1):68–79. DOI: 10.11645/11.1.2183 Gallin-Parisi, A. 2018. An academic librarian-mother in six stories. In The Library With The Lead Pipe (blog), May 30, 2018. Available: http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe. org/2018/academic-librarian-mother/ (Archived by the Internet Archive at https:// web.archive.org/web/20201124083217/http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe. org/2018/academic-librarian-mother/) [Accessed 26 November 2020] Gibson, A.N. 2019. Civility and structural precarity for faculty of color in LIS. Journal of Education for Library & Information Science, 60(3):215–222. DOI: 10.3138/ jelis.2019-0006

206  Appendix A: Bibliography of autoethnography

Gorichanaz, T. 2015. Information on the run: experiencing information during an ultramarathon. Information Research, 20(4):paper 697. Available: http://InformationR.net/ ir/20-4/paper697.html (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive. org/web/20200801162405/http://informationr.net/ir///20-4/paper697.html#. X1oS1El7nIU) [Accessed 10 September 2020] Gorichanaz, T. 2017. Auto-hermeneutics: a phenomenological approach to information experience. Library and Information Science Research, 39(1):1–7. DOI: 10.1016/j. lisr.2017.01.001 Grace, D.A.N. & Sen, B. 2013. Community resilience and the role of the public library. Library Trends, 61(3):513–541. DOI: 10.1353/lib.2013.0008 Guzik, E. 2013. Representing ourselves in information science research: a methodological essay on autoethnography. Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 37(4):267–283. DOI: 10.1353/ils.2013.0025 Jefferson, D. 2017. When worlds collide. In The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship, edited by A-M. Deitering, R.A. Stoddart & R. Schroeder. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association:105–114. Konata, L.L. 2017. Looking through a colored lens: a black librarian’s narrative. In The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship, edited by A.M. Deitering, R.A. Stoddart & R. Schroeder. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association:115–128. Koot, S. 2016. Perpetuating power through autoethnography: my research unawareness and memories of paternalism among the indigenous Hai//om in Namibia. Critical Arts-South-North Cultural and Media Studies, 30(6):840–854. DOI: 10.1080/02560046.2016.1263217 Kramer, E.H. 2020. A close look: roving reference in a community college library information commons. Reference Services Review, 48(2):271–285. DOI: 10.1108/ RSR-08-2019-0051 Lopatovska, I. & Smiley, B. 2014. Proposed model of information behaviour in crisis: the case of hurricane Sandy. Information Research, 19(1):paper 610. Available: http:// informationr.net/ir/19-1/paper610 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https:// web.archive.org/web/20200806065903/http://informationr.net/ir///19-1/paper610. html#.X14VFkl7nIV) [Accessed 13 September 2020] Magasic, M. 2014. Travel blogging: an auto-ethnographic study of how online interactions influence a journey. First Monday, 19(7):7–7. DOI: 10.5210/fm.v19i7.4887 Maynor, A.R. 2019. Libraries & librarians in the aftermath: our stories & ourselves. Collaborative Librarianship, 11(1):66–81. McBride, N. 2008. Using performance ethnography to explore the human aspects of software quality. Information Technology & People, 21(1):91–111. DOI: 10.1108/ 09593840810860342 McIntyre, J. 2016. Blank pages, brief notes and ethical double-binds: micro digitisation and the ‘infinite archive’. Archives & Manuscripts, 44(1):2–13. DOI: 10.1080/ 01576895.2015.1136224 McKemmish, S., Burstein, F., Manaszewicz, R., Fisher, J. & Evans, J. 2012. Inclusive research design. Information, Communication & Society, 15(7):1106–1135. DOI: 10.1080/ 1369118X.2012.707225 Michels, D.H. 2010. The place of the person in LIS research: an exploration in methodology and representation. The Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 34(2):161–183. DOI: 10.1353/ils.0.0001

Appendix A: Bibliography of autoethnography 207

Morrison, K.L. 2017. Informed asset-based pedagogy: coming correct, counter-stories from an information literacy classroom. Library Trends, 66(2):176–218. DOI: 10.1353/ lib.2017.0034 Patin, B. 2015. Through hell and high water: a librarian’s autoethnography of community resilience after Hurricane Katrina. Media Tropes, 5(2):58–83. Phillips, A.L. 2016. The empathetic librarian: rural librarians as a source of support for rural cyberbullied young adults, Ph.D. dissertation, The Florida State University. Available: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED570615 (Archived by the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20201104062726/https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED570615) [Accessed 04 November 2020] Polkinghorne, S. 2012. Caught in the act: an autoethnographic analysis of the performance of information literacy instruction. In Proceedings of the Annual Conference of CAIS/Actes du congrès annuel de l’ACSI, edited by A. Quan-Hease, V.L. Rubin and D. Chaves. Waterloo, ON: ACSI/CAIS, 2012. DOI: 10.29173/cais656 Polkinghorne, S. 2013. Come Sail Away With Me: Harnessing Auto-Ethnographic Observations to Inform a Multi-Method Study of librarians’ Reflections on Teaching, paper presented at the Annual Conference of ACSI/CAIS ( June 2013: Victoria, BC: Canada). Ross, J. & Shanty, F. 2009. Editing encyclopedias for fun and aggravation. Publishing Research Quarterly, 25(3):159–169. DOI: 10.1007/s12109-009-9126-y Schlesselman-Tarango, G. 2019. Reproductive failure and information work: an autoethnography. Library Trends, 67(3):436–454. DOI: 10.1353/lib.2019.0005 Schoeder, R. 2017. Evaluative criteria for autoethnographic research: who’s to judge? In The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture and Academic Librarianship, edited by A.M. Deitering, R. Schroeder & R. Stoddart. Chicago, Illinois: Association of College and Research Libraries:315–346. Swanson, J., Tanaka, A. & Gonzalez-Smith, I. 2018. Lived experience of academic librarians of color. College and Research Libraries, 79(7):876–894. DOI: 10.5860/crl.79.7.876 Zhao, L. & Minns, M. 2019. Librarians and academics building capacity on research impact and metrics for creative disciplines. Journal of the Australian Library & Information Association, 68(3):290–296. DOI: 10.1080/24750158.2019.1649789

APPENDIX B: ADDRESSES FOR WEBSITES MENTIONED IN THE CHAPTERS

Journal titles are in italics. AltaMira Press: http://www.altamirapress.com Annual “Doing autoethnography” conference: https://qualpage.com/2019/ 04/11/doing-autoethnography-2020-call-for-participation/ Art/Research International: https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/ari/index.php/ ari/ The Association for Qualitative Research: https://www.aqr.org.uk/ Australian Library and Information Association: https://www.alia.org.au/ British Autoethnography Conference: http://boomerang-project.org.uk/ events/23-july-2018-british-auto-ethnography-conference/ Canadian Health Libraries Association/Association Des Bibliothèques De La Santé Du Canada: https://www.chla-absc.ca/ Contemporary Ethnography Across the Disciplines: https://www.facebook. com/groups/iCEAD/ Critical Autoethnography (conference): https://www.facebook.com/groups/ 708668335919178/ Cultural StudiesCritical Methodologies: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ csc#:~:tex t =About %2 0Th is%2 0Jou r n a l,%2C%2 0 a nd%2 0creat ive%2 0 non%2Dfiction. Departures in Critical Qualitative Research: https://online.ucpress.edu/dcqr Doing Autoethnography Conferences: https://qualpage.com/ The Ethnographic Edge: https://tee.ac.nz/index.php/TEE European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry: https://10times.com/ecqi-troms (this address changes according to the hosting venue; this is the address for 2021 conference) German Medical Libraries Association: https://accucoms.com/events/agmbgerman-medical-library-association/ Guildford Press: https://www.guilford.com/

Appendix B: Addresses for websites  209

Health Communication: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hhth20/current Health Sciences Libraries Group: https://www.libraryassociation.ie/healthsciences-libraries-group/ Information Research: http://informationr.net/ir/ International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry: https://icqi.org/ International Institute for Qualitative Research: https://www.ualberta.ca/ international-institute-for-qualitative-methodology/index.html International Journal of Multicultural Education: https://ijme-journal.org/index. php/ijme International Journal of Qualitative Methods: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ ijq International Review of Qualitative Research: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ irq Journal of Autoethnography: https://online.ucpress.edu/joae Journal of Contemporary Ethnography: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/jce Journal of Loss and Trauma: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/upil20/current Journal of Organizational Ethnography, Storytelling, Self, Society: https://www. jstor.org/stable/41948941?seq=1 Left Coast Press: https://www.leftcoastpress.com/ Library and Information Science and Technology Abstracts: https://www. ebsco.com/products/research-databases/library-information-science-andtechnology-abstracts Library Trends: https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/library-trends Liminalities: http://liminalities.net/ Medical Library Association (MLA): https://www.mlanet.org/ Methodological innovations: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/mio Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender: https://osclg.org/ Oxford University Press: https://www.oxford.co.za/ The Qualitative Report: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/ QualPage: https://qualpage.com/ Qualitative Inquiry: https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/afr/journal/qualitativeinquiry Qualitative Research Journal: https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/ issn/1443-9883 Peter Lang: https://www.peterlang.com/ Routledge: https://www.routledge.com/ Sage Publishing: https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/afr/home Text and Performance Quarterly: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rtpq20/ current

APPENDIX C: FURTHER READING FROM RELATED FIELDS

References Baer, A., Cahoy, E.S. & Schroeder, R. 2019. Libraries as Dialogic Spaces: Limits & Possibilities. Chicago, IL: Association of College and Research Libraries. Hermes, M. 1998. Research methods as a situated response: towards a first Nations’ methodology. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11(1):155–168. DOI: 10.1080/095183998236944 Huntley, E., Knowles, Z., Cropley, B., Gilbourne, D. & Sparkes, A. 2014. Reflecting back and forwards: an evaluation of peer-reviewed reflective practice research in sport. Reflective Practice, 15(6):863–876. DOI: 10.1080/14623943.2014.969695 Kovach, M. 2009. Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations and Contexts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Smith, L.T. 2012. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. 2nd edition. New York, NY: Zed Books. Sparkes, A.C. 2013. Introduction: autoethnography as a mode of knowing and a way of being. In Handbook of Autoethnography, edited by S. Holman Jones, T.E. Adams & C.S. Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press:511–517. Sparkes, A.C. 2013. Qualitative research in sport, exercise and health in the era of neoliberalism, audit and new public management: understanding the conditions for the (im)possibilities of a new paradigm dialogue. Qualitiative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 5(3):440–459. DOI: 10.1080/2159676X.2013.796493 Sparkes, A.C. (ed.) 2017. Researching the senses in physical culture and producing sensuous scholarship: methodological challenges and possibilities. In Seeking the Senses in Physical Culture: Sensuous Scholarship in Action. London, England: Routledge:174–197. DOI: 10.4324/9781315657585-10 Sparkes, A.C. (ed.) 2018. Autoethnography comes of age: consequences, comforts, and concerns. In The Wiley Handbook of Ethnography of Education. London, England: Wiley:479–499. DOI: 10.1002/9781118933732.ch21 Sparkes, A.C. (ed.) 2018. Creating criteria for evaluating autoethnography and the pedagogical potential of working with lists. In International Perspectives on Autoethnographic Research and Practice. London, England: Routledge:256–267.

Appendix C: Further reading 211

Sparkes, A.C. & Smith, B. 2009. Judging the quality of qualitative inquiry: criteriology and relativism in action. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10(5):491–497. DOI: 10.1016/j.psychsport.2009.02.006 Sparkes, A.C. & Stewart, C. 2016. Taking sporting autobiographies seriously as an analytical and pedagogical resource in sport, exercise and health. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise & Health, 8(2):113–130. DOI: 10.1080/2159676X.2015.1121915 Wilson, S. 2008. Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods. Black Point, N.S: Fernwood Pub.

Website Sparkes, A.C. https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/staff/professor-andrew-sparkes/

INDEX

Aboriginal and Strait Islanders 131–2, 143n1–7 action research 198 alerting services see information monitoring alternative: methods see sense-making methodology; voices (including others) 52 amalgams see identity and identifications analytical autoethnography 31, 49–58, 198; arguments for 54; examples 52, 56; vs evocative ­autoethnography 49, 50, 54; see also collaborative autoethnography Anderson, Leon 50; interpretation, 49 Anderson, Theresa Dirndorfer 187, 193, 196 arguments and debates, analytical autoethnography 52–5 assessment and assessment guidelines 63, 84 Australian library services 131–43 autobiographies 35 autoethnography 3–11; ­a lternative ­methods see sense-making ­methodology; challenges 10, 61, 63, 77; choices 31, 55, 67; coined 62; ­continuum 8, 67; evaluation, 84; nuances 53; process 3, 9; purpose 96, 97; sensemaking 119; ­sensibility 141, 198; skills 9; types 8, 31, 36, 141; see also analytical a­ utoethnography; ­collaborative autoethnography;

criticism; definitions; evocative autoethnography; examples; rigour; sense-making methodology autoethnography for librarians 16, 26, 35, 38, 44, 57, 178, 179, 180–1; academic librarians 15–28; health librarians 162–70; public librarians 131–43 awareness of research needs and ­opportunities see information monitoring background and origin 6, 35, 49 background and position, 86 benefits see value bias, researcher 83, 85 bibliography, autoethnography in library and information science 204–7 Bochner, Arthur (Art), 5, 8 books: Autoethnography as Method 70; Collaborative Autoethnography 65; Handbook of Autoethnography 62; The Self as Subject 16 bulimia see examples, eating disorders challenges in society see social challenges characteristics: analytical a­ utoethnography 50–2; autoethnography 7, 36, 61; ­collaborative autoethnography 63 characters see informants, dialogue; vulnerability code of ethics 102 collaborative autoethnography 32, 56–73, 182, 199; alternative terms 61;

Index 213

analytical autoethnography 50, 63, 65, 67; choices and orientation; continuum 67; dependability 63; ­evocative autoethnography 63, 67; ­pedagogics 70–1; praxis 61; ­t ypologies for analytic approaches 65; vs solo autoethnography 64, 71–2; see also analytical autoethnography; ­autoethnography; definitions; ethical research conduct; examples; value combination with other methods 56 communication as procedure framework 125 communities of practice and community building 61, 69, 73 see also librarians, communities of practice complete member research 51 contexts 129–30; caregiving 161–79; consciousness 7; culturally sensitive 131–43; health librarians 161–79; law enforcement 146–56; public libraries 131–43 correctional services see law enforcement COVID-19 15–6, 19, 73, 179, 188, 191 credibility 63 crime see law enforcement critical reflective action research 57 criticism 10, 11, 80–2, 86, 92, 96; see also autoethnography cross-cultural: competence 134, 140–1; service provision 134, 199 cultural 8, 10, 11; competence 129, 131, 133–4, 136, 139–40, 142, 199; ­contribution 5; interface 136, 139; frameworks for western studies 143; interface 136–8; sensitivity 131–43 current awareness see information monitoring data collection 9, 37, 86; analysis 87; co-current methods 66; collaborative autoethnography 66 definitions: analytical autoethnography 50; autoethnography 4, 62, 148, 198; collaborative autoethnography 199; cultural competence 134; evocative autoethnography 199; law e­ nforcement 148; rigour 80; relational ethics 201; sense-making 114; sense-making ­methodology 114 democratisation see social inquiry Denzin, Norman 53 deontological formalism 98 Dervin, Brenda, 112, 114, 121, 195 see also sense-making methodology

dialogue see informant dialogue disciplines and disciplinary focus 3, 61–2, 69 Ellis, Carolyn 5, 16, 68 Emic 5, 72 emotion 53, 64, 116; pain 64; see also vulnerability end-to-end rigour see rigour epiphany 84 epistemology 23 etic 5 ethical research conduct 64–5, 82, 85, 92–107; accountability 106; agency 105; analysis 106; anonymity 104–5; author’s voice 106; challenges 64, 68, 96; clearance 93, 98; confidentiality 105; conventional challenges 77; details of sharing 68; ethical clearance 77, 98, 100, 104; failures 98; implications for others 106; privacy 104–5; procedures 100, 104; quality 105; relational ethics 41, 64, 68, 101; respect 106; risks 97; situations 104; writing 105–6; see also examples; informed consent; protection of privacy; rigour; situatedness and situated knowledge ethics advisory board 98 ethnography 7, 9, 35, 36, 49, 196 evaluation heuristics see assessment and assessment guidelines evocative autoethnography 31, 33–45, 188, 199; emotional appeal 50; writing 34, 43; see also examples examples: analytical autoethnography 52, 55–6; autoethnography 3, 148–9; ­collaborative autoethnography 61, 64–70; crime 149; critical reflection 15–9, 24, 28; eating disorders 66–7, 96; ethical research conduct; evocative autoethnography 33, 40, 42–4; friendship 34–5, 39, 42, 194; i­ nstitutional racism 67; law e­ nforcement 148–50, 152; leadership and mentoring 66, 69–70; librarians and libraries 25, 38; organisational autoethnography 113–4; politics 62, 72; reflections 33–4, 40–4, 167; ­relationships (e.g., mother, friend) 68, 95, 118; sense-making 120–3; ­sponsorships 66, 69; trauma 149 feminists, 19, 22, 23, 196 First nations, Australia see Aboriginal and Strait Islanders

214  Index

formalism see deontological formalism fragmentation of experiences, 17, 26 gap-bridging 123–4 generalisability 21, 83, 199; see also rigour harm 98, 102 health librarians see librarians, health librarians heuristics 87 honesty 103 identity and identification 64, 119; ­a malgams 64; hiding strategies 64; identification strategies 64 implication of others 92 Indigenous studies 9; ­autoethnography, 133, 199; communities 138–9; ­ethnography, 200; people 129, 132, 136, 200; Indigenous vs western 134–7 informant dialogue 51, 115–7, 200 information behaviour and information needs, 150–2, 180 information monitoring 178–9, 181, 198–199 information needs, inmates see ­information behaviour and information needs informed consent 93, 98–9, 103–4; see also ethical research conduct inmates, information needs see ­information behaviour and information needs insider knowledge 7, 62, 99–100 interpersonal and intrapersonal focus see research methodology, interpersonal and intrapersonal focus interviews 117; autoethnographic 71, 115; critical incident interviews 116–7; interviewing 115; micro-moments 115; sense-making methodology 115 institutional racism see racism involvement of others 51 Journal of Autoethnography 177 journaling 181 law enforcement 146–56 law enforcement, librarians see librarians leadership and mentoring see examples librarians 15; autoethnography 15–28, 141; communities of practice 19, 27; health librarians 161–70; law

­enforcement and prison 154–5; oral histories; research 18–9; theory 24 libraries: challenges faced 5; cultural ­sensitivity 131–43; health 194; ­information services and work 131–43, 152–4, 178; prison 152–3; see also ­cultural interfaces library and information science 190, 195; research methods 37 literature searches and synthesis 64, 120 lived experience, academic 147, 161, 167–8; culturally sensitive 131–43; health librarians 161–70; law ­enforcement and prison librarians 154–5; researchers 167–8 methodology see research methodology micro-moments see interviewing, micro-moments momentum keeping 177–83 moral challenges 101 myself as subject 62 narratives 92, 102, 119, 140, 200; ­personal stories 6, 8, 11, 22, 25–6, 36, 41, 71, 103, 112, 131–43, 150; power 103; research methodology 3, 10, 93; skills 50; storytelling 200–1; truth 82; ­v isibility 51; voices; see also stories, crafting navel-gazing see criticism neutrality in services 137–8, 180, 200 objectivity 21, 23, 35, 36, 43 organisational sensemaking 113, 121, 124, 200 organisational autoethnography see examples ownership, stories 6; see also stories, crafting participants see informant dialogue pedagogics see collaborative ­autoethnography, pedagogics permission see informed consent personal growth and learning 119, 177 personal identity see representation, author and characters personal stories see narratives, personal stories police work see law enforcement politics see examples position and background see orientation positivistic research 27, 62, 67

Index 215

power, sensemaking 120; see also narratives prisons, see law enforcement privacy protection 92, 98; protective actions 64; see also ethical research conduct qualitative research 3, 8, 18, 63, 66, 71, 85, 87–8; interviews; methodology 79; see also rigour question asking 79–80, 85, 87, 112 racism 192; blackness 67; whiteness, 27, 132–4, 136, 139–40 reading autoethnography 9, 67, 133, 140, 146, 155, 196, 178 reflection and reflective practices 5, 15–28, 36, 41, 71, 84–5, 100, 112, 131–143, 182, 200–1; writing 10 relationships see relational ethics relational ethics 65, 68, 106, 137, 201, 95; amalgams of individuals 64; strategies (to take) 64; see also definitions reliability 63, 83, 201; see also rigour representation, author and characters 95 research methodology 65–8, 80, 88; ­challenges 18; choices 57, 65, 88; competency 55; demarcation 87; ­interpersonal and intrapersonal focus 68, 70; orientation and choices 87; see also ethical research conduct; rigour researcher visibility see narrative, visibility revealing the self 85 rigour 22, 63, 64, 77, 79–88, 201; ­communicating research 88; data ­collection 88, 79; evaluation 84; publication 88; question asking 79, 85; see also definitions; ethical research conduct; generalisability; reliability; research methodology; validity self-development 118 self-disclosure 8 self-indulgence see criticism self-reflection and self-reflexivity see reflection and reflective practices self-relating-to-self and self-­relating-toothers 118 sense-making see sense-making methodology sense-making methodology 77, 112–25, 201; interviewing 113; sense-making triangle 117; processes 117; verbings

118; see also definitions; Dervin, Brenda sensemaking 39, 119; Weick’s view 113 sharing details see ethical research ­conduct, challenges single authored autoethnography see solo autoethnography situatedness and situated knowledge 22–3, 72; see also ethical research conduct, ethical clearance situational relationships see also relational ethics social challenges (e.g., digital divide, ­literacy, social justice) 63, 177–80 SMM see sense-making methodology social inquiry 73 solo autoethnography 32, 201; ­characteristics 63 solopism see criticism stories, crafting 84, 99, 101, 102, 135–6; storylines, style 41, 101; see also ­narratives; ownership, stories subjectivity, research 5, 84 supplementary methods see sense-making methodology teleological views 98 theorising 22, 25–7, 52 theoretical analysis see theorising timelines 122 touching lives, 36 transformation 118 traumatic experiences 6 trolling see criticism truthfulness 6, 52, 95, 106 unethical see rigour unidirectionality 137, 202 validity 10, 83, 202; see also rigour value – general 4, 5, 8, 61, 63–4, 66–7, 69–70, 178; value for librarians 21, 35, 37, 38, 147, 178–9, 181 vulnerability, 23, 24, 41, 64, 68, 93, 96, 100, 104, 140, 189, 197; see also emotion websites Weick, Karl, organisational sensemaking 113, 119, 120–1; see also sensemaking, Weick’s view writing autoethnography 9, 19, 21, 23, 34–6, 40, 178