Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Journey To A Black Woman’S (Read Black Girl’S) Joy And Her Story Of Coming Home, Brittany Lauren Brock

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is an auto/ethnography about the self-actualizing journey of reclaiming storytelling as my native tongue and my journey to joy. Throughout, using my story and the stories of so many others, I not only lay out the wounds (the pain, the loss, then the hope that comes) within the academy and outside in the world but I also use storytelling as a tool of healing—my tool of healing—to show how I wrote myself free.

When Black women (read Black girls) go through The Reckoning (the moment we realize something isn’t right with how we are perceived by others) …

The Benefits Of Art And Music On Therapeutic Awareness: An Autoethnographic Study, Eric Ouellette

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Awareness is an intrinsic element of an individual's existence that can be formed through acts of self-exploration. Through the application of therapeutic interventions and the utilization of the expressive arts, awareness can be further facilitated and grounded into one’s consciousness. The interdisciplinary fields of music, art, and creative expression possess the potential to augment an individual's level of awareness in profound and transformative ways. This proposition is grounded in my own lived experiences of identity exploration and mental health challenges, as well as seven years of dedicated study aimed at fostering a deeper understanding and support for my own subjective …

Utilizing Flow Arts Movement As An Expressive Arts Therapy Tool To Treat Trauma: A Literature Review And Autoethnography, Shannon Mcgrail

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This expressive arts-based autoethnography research explores the effectiveness of using flow arts movement as a tool of expressive arts therapy to treat symptoms of trauma for individuals who experienced a traumatic event in their lifetime. While research on the use of flow arts movement to treat mental illness is in its early stage, much can be drawn from the literature on expressive arts therapy and dance/movement therapy research with a range of populations addressing trauma. Through exploration of trauma through neuroscience, mind, body, and integrated mindfulness through flow, this work aims to bring an understanding of using intermodal expressive arts …

The Power Of Qualitative Research: Cultivating Autoethnography For Personal Awakening, Humanity, And Transformation, Kien Nguyen-Trung Dr

The Qualitative Report

This article is an autoethnography of how engaging with my previous autoethnographic article facilitated my recovery and self-growth. I wrote my previous piece (Nguyen-Trung, 2022) while stranded in Australia due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which prevented me from visiting my grandfather one last time before his passing in 2021. If my past autoethnography focused on the themes of death, grief, and loss, the current article’s autoethnography revolves around awakening, healing, and self-transformation. In this current article, I reflexively look back on my autoethnographic journey and reflect on how it impacted me as a grandchild and a human being on the …

Teacher, Model, Father: An Autoethnography Of Long-Term Mentoring Between A Male Teacher And A Male Student, Si Chen

The Qualitative Report

This autoethnography offered an opportunity to have an open conversation to explore the nature of the long-term relationship with my mentor, Mr. Jiang, who has guided me to grow since I was a high school student. With confidence being a significant theme, our interaction has changed along with my growth from a boy to an independent adult man, a teacher, and now, a doctoral student. Feelings between us have been complicated and featured as puzzled, doubtful, hurt, happy, guilty, and moved. The nature of the relationship is challenging to define accurately, but it is similar to a father/son-like mutually beneficial …

The Role Of Culture In Coping: An Autoethnography-Lived Experience Of Navigating The Trauma Of Breast Cancer And Treatment, Amanda Yu

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Chinese American women have been part of the United States immigration history since the Gold Rush in 1852. They have experienced physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual challenges with minimal support. The premise of this study is that when facing the hardship of a breast cancer diagnosis, Chinese American women are resilient by adhering to their cultural beliefs and using effective coping styles to cope with their cancer. Based on previous studies, Chinese American women have been considered to have a lower risk of breast cancer and have a 30% lower death rate than non-Asian women. However, breast cancer incidents are …

The Emotional Impact Of Sensitive Topics: An Autoethnographic Account Of An Ovarian Cancer Research, Dinah A. Tetteh

The Qualitative Report

Growing evidence suggests that qualitative research about sensitive topics is emotional work with varied unanticipated risks for researchers. This autoethnographic essay adds to the extant literature by discussing the complexities added when the research topic is sensitive, and the researcher has not personally experienced the topic under study. I reflect on and analyze epiphanies in my research with 28 ovarian cancer survivors in northwest Ohio and southern Michigan in the United States, including how I processed the death of some participants. I suggest that practicing active listening, reflexivity, and flexibility can help manage limitations of a research project of this …

How I Obtained My Phd Admission Letter: A Reflective Interaction-Based Autoethnography, Qing Xu, Kei Wei Chia

The Qualitative Report

This account utilises autoethnography to explore how the “one-child generation’s” cultural context influences behaviours and character traits, focusing on the first author’s experiences during a 5-month doctoral program application. It examines interactions with the employer, unacquainted individuals, intermediaries, and family, encapsulated in three Episodes, to analyse the personality traits of this generation. The findings reveal that, though deeply rooted in traditional culture, character traits such as risk aversion, caution, and family dependency are not immutable. It highlights the potential for personal transformation through inward growth, proactive external engagement, and the support of families who challenge traditional norms. In terms of …

A Path To Food Self-Provisioning And Experiences From Learning New Skills: An Autoethnographic Depiction, Toni Ruuska

The Qualitative Report

In this autoethnographic depiction, I tell a story of change and renewal. In the narrative, I present a story of personal choices and epiphanies that have changed the course of my life. At the turning point, I portray the process of learning new skills regarding food self-provisioning. I come from a privileged, but de-skilled, middle-class suburban background, and the past four years has been a diverse journey of insecurity, alienation, and fatigue, but also of learning, empowerment, and self-realization. From a person with limited skills, to an at least somewhat skilled food neo-self-provisioner, I have partaken in a process of …

Reflection, Reflexivity, Learning And The Influence Of Formalised And Experiential Piano Training, Dorothy Li

The Qualitative Report

This autoethnographic study examines how music learning is influenced by teachers and socio-cultural environments and how this influences not only our musical journeys but the way we view our lives, of the progress we have made, the goals in which we hope to achieve, and the way we perceive we will achieve them. This study explores how my musical background, understanding, learning, music-making abilities, and skills have shaped my present beliefs, attitudes and identity as a musician, educator, and researcher. Focusing on teacher pedagogy and practice, the study reveals how prevailing teacher-centred and didactic approaches to teaching impact the perspectives …

Narratives That Perpetuate, Narratives That Disrupt, And Narratives That Heal: One Teacher’S Exploration Of Decoloniality, Alison Packwood Henry

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The initial question was innocent enough, at least on the surface: How do scholars and practitioners define child centered, developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive education in places distant from my home in the US? I was originally inspired to ask this question by my graduate students—aspiring and practicing Waldorf teachers—who were wrestling with the Eurocentric nature of the curriculum. In researching this question, I never imagined that I would find myself asking questions about the decolonization and indigenization of education, much less about coloniality. In fact, even as I completed the literature review, I was still so unfamiliar with the word …

He Mauka Teitei, Ko Aoraki, The Loftiest Of Mountains: The Names Of Aotearoa’S Highest Peak And Beyond, Joseph B. Lancia

Honors Projects

My thesis discusses the cultural, political, and social dynamics of mountains with separate Indigenous and Western names and identities. Centering on Aoraki/Mount Cook—the highest peak in Aotearoa New Zealand—I integrate personal experiences as ethnographic data through narratives, mainly of my time hiking while studying abroad in New Zealand and during the two recent summers I spent exploring Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Through its name, Aoraki/Mt. Cook maintains Indigenous Māori and Western perspectives: Aoraki being a Māori atua (god) and Captain James Cook being a significant colonial figure in the Pacific. The slash upholds both identities while ensuring that …

An Autoethnographic Dialogue With Motherhood Literature, Maya Autret, Brad Van Eeden-Moorefield

The Qualitative Report

This autoethnography represents the first author’s journey as a mother and doctoral student researching mothers’ experiences in contending with the demands of work and family. Reading across different pockets of empirical motherhood literature (work-family conflict, contemporary motherhood, maternal gatekeeping, and intensive motherhood) I became troubled by how women’s realities were reflected. Pushing back against traditional methods that endorse separating my researcher identity from my maternal self, I draw on autoethnographic method to dialogue with this literature. This approach empowers me to speak out as a novice scholar uncomfortable with aspects of literature, while also navigating training in the use of …

An Autoethnography Journey: Social And Emotional Learning In A Post-Covid Classroom, April Edwards

Masters Theses

In this autoethnography journey, we explore the question, "What resources are available for teachers to use to guide SEL instruction, and how effective are those resources post-pandemic?" Post-COVID-19 pandemic, we noticed that our students needed more social interaction time in the classroom. Student behaviors increased alongside teacher frustration. Districts immediately began to see this struggle in the school systems and the growing concern from parents and teachers. Our children were not taught how to respectfully express their social and emotional needs due to the lack of opportunity to practice with others. During this study, we found that teachers …

The Overture! Then Is Here-And-Now: Hindsight Is Twenty, Twenty?, Elena Kydd

Music Therapy Theses

My existence and presence as a Black woman and graduate scholar in music therapy have allowed me to share my experience of racial trauma and oppression in the hallways of GCSU’s music therapy program. Autoethnography is the method I use to write my thesis on the relationships between Blackness, pedagogy, and music therapy. Thus, I perform an evocative autoethnographic study that allows me to share my personal experience of racial trauma and oppression within the culture of music therapy and to critique the larger social structures of whiteness that disenfranchise and dominate me and other Black student music therapists (SMTs). …

Writing Philosophical Autoethnography: A Review, Niroj Dahal

The Qualitative Report

As a book reviewer, I am penning down my thoughts restlessly on the book, Writing Philosophical Autoethnography, with a diverse audience in mind, encompassing readers, writers, and researchers of all levels from various disciplines in the social sciences and education. This groundbreaking work, edited by Alec Grant and published by Routledge, masterfully blends philosophy and autoethnography (Grant, 2023). The book distinguishes itself through its philosophical depth, with each chapter demonstrating a profound engagement with philosophical debates and theories rooted in Western philosophical traditions. This approach sets it apart from other autoethnographic works where philosophical concepts often appear to be …

Navigating Rigor: An Autoethnographic Exploration Of Templating And Crystallization, Heather Stewart Dr, Harsh Suri, Deborah Delaney, Vishal Rana Dr

The Qualitative Report

In this autoethnographic exploration, we engage in a dialogic investigation to examine how templating and crystallization shape rigor in qualitative research. The use of templates in qualitative research has been widely used as a means of enhancing rigor in organizational research design yet comes with caveats especially when wanting to push boundaries. With the interplay of templates and crystallization, the researcher is encouraged to apply iterative and reflexive modes. The aim here is to inspire and invite researchers to pursue the multiplicity offered by qualitative methodologies and expand the discipline through authentic, trustworthy, and credible approaches. To explore the development …

Review Of Making Livable Worlds: Afro-Puerto Rican Women Building Environmental Justice, Ava L. Corey-Gruenes

Feminist Pedagogy

Making Livable Worlds: Afro-Puerto Rican Women Building Environmental Justice, by Hilda Lloréns, highlights Black Puerto Rican women’s efforts to create equitable futures for their communities in the face of capitalism, racism, colonization, and ecological collapse. This review covers key concepts in Making Livable Worlds, including matriarchal dispossession, decolonizing ethnography, the myth of a homogenous Puerto Rico, and myths of inherent economic self-interest. Analyses of these concepts through an absence lens are suggested to enrich formal and informal feminist learning spaces.

Violinmaking Apprenticeship: A Qualitative Investigation Of Learning As Embodied Familiarization, Isaac Calvert, Melissa Noel Hawkley, Samantha Swift

The Qualitative Report

This case study examines Yanchar, Spackman, and Faulconer’s “Learning as Embodied Familiarization” (hereafter LAEF) framework in the case of a violinmaking apprenticeship. Its purpose is to critically examine each facet of the LAEF framework as manifest in the lived experience of both master and apprentice. While previous studies investigating this framework have used various qualitative and hermeneutic methodologies, none have done so from a prolonged, ethnographic perspective. This perspective comes from an immersive autoethnography in which I apprenticed under a master violinmaker in an informal, one-on-one workshop environment for six months working four to five days a week for three …

A Journey To A Global Scholar Identity: An Autoethnography Of Agricultural And Extension Faculty’S Experiences, Lacey Roberts-Hill, Richie Roberts, T. Grady Roberts

Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education

Working in the academy can be a very rewording career, but more and more faculty and graduate students are considering non-academic careers. Understanding the career journey of faculty in academic positions working in international agricultural and extension education (AEE) could be insightful to better understand this niche discipline and be informative to other faculty and graduate students along their own journeys. This article explores the journeys of three faculty members in international AEE. We used an autoethnography to our stories. We are an assistant professor, an associate professor, and a professor. We conducted a focus group and then examined: (a) …

"Where Is Your Accent From?": The Voice Of My Identity, Robert Northman

Amplify: A Journal of Writing-as-Activism

This essay probes the role of language in how it contributes to the construct of one's identity. The author discusses lived experiences centered on the the perceptions of accented English that is actually African American Vernacular English. The essay explores how these experiences were formed and how they developed over the course of the author's lifetime. The author also discusses ways in which language has caused both comfort and conflict, and provides a glimpse into a unique perspective that can contribute to a greater understanding of the power and importance of language.

Communicating Climate To Ourselves And Others, Connor Bernier

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

My Summer Fellows experience has focused on the essential importance of communication in the climate crisis, and on personal exploration to reconnect with the natural world. Grounding practices such as hiking in the woods and gardening mitigate climate anxiety, renewing environmentalists’ ability to continue their work. This presentation will discuss why how we talk about communication matters and review the climate communication scholarship. Throughout I will incorporate reflection and analysis of my outdoor experiences.

Lived Experiences Of Academic Librarians Of Color: A Bibliography, Jody Condit Fagan

Libraries

The scholarship in this bibliography offers wisdom for all academic library workers about the experiences of academic librarians of color. My initial purpose in exploring the literature was to combat my own ignorance and to help me be a better colleague to non-white librarians in predominantly white academic institutions. These works also inform diversity, equity, and inclusion programming in academic libraries, especially when primarily theory-based approaches might fall flat for a given audience.

I have tried to provide links to open access full-text where possible. Where a book chapter has no open access online, I provide a link to the …

Thank You, Tony E. Adams, Stacy Holman Jones, And Carolyn Ellis, For Offering The Handbook Of Autoethnography, Niroj Dahal

The Qualitative Report

I offer this review on autoethnography for various social science disciplines for readers, writers, and novice and experienced researchers. The second edition of the Handbook of Autoethnography, edited by Tony E. Adams, Stacy Holman Jones, and Carolyn Ellis (2022b), includes contributions from more than 50 authors representing more than a dozen disciplines and writing from different parts of the world and published on year 2022. The book attempted to develop, enhance, and broaden qualitative research and autoethnographic inquiry. This review is based on the section on Doing Autoethnography, which provides examples of diverse, considerate, practical, innovative, and applied …

Crossing Boundaries: Autoethnography Of Subjective Experiences During Meditation, Anna-Katharina Kothe, Stefanie Vochatzer, Christian Oesterle, Steffen Philipp Ruf

The Qualitative Report

In this autoethnographic quadrologue, the authors aim to show how meditation experiences defy verbalization in a qualitative research setting. This leads to the insight that an autoethnographic approach may be a much better fit for such an experience, where complex and inexpressible things can be found. This is especially the case since autoethnographic texts include and immerse the reader in the experience. Even though in the case of meditation this can hardly be achieved, this quadrologue aims at conveying some of the struggles and peculiarities of meditation practice. It focuses on the research process leading to the decision to employ …

How Creative Arts Journaling Offers A Holistic And Humanizing Container For Chronic Pain Experiences: A Literature Review And Autoethnography, Courtney Putnam

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This expressive arts therapy capstone thesis explores the efficacy of using a creative arts journal in the exploration and management of chronic pain, as well as the correlative mental health issues that arise from chronic pain experiences. Using a biopsychosocial perspective with an awareness of racial health disparities related to chronic pain, I have provided information about chronic pain from medical and humanistic perspectives with a critical review of the literature that showcases the usefulness of the arts for reducing pain, hopelessness, and depression, and increasing mood, self–understanding, and hope. While research on visual journaling for chronic pain is in …

Breaking Me Down And Lifting Me Up: An Autoethnography Of Being A Black Autistic Woman Online, Morgan Harper-Nichols

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This autoethnography investigates the diverse challenges associated with being a Black, undiagnosed autistic woman coming of age on the internet, and examines how online experiences shaped my identity over the past twenty years. Early encounters with racism and cautious self-expression on platforms such as forums, GeoCities, Myspace, and YouTube are explored as my initial efforts to "fit in" in virtual spaces. I discuss how engaging with platforms like Instagram and Etsy enabled my participation in the gig economy while grappling with my pre-diagnosis social struggles. I also share how I navigate post-2020 experiences as a Black autistic online creator, how …

The Erasure Of Rural West Texas Voices In Higher Education Institutions An Autoethnographic Study Of Minoritized Students Of West Texas In Their Journey To Obtain Success In Higher Education Institutions, David Whaley-Weems Sr

All Dissertations

I was once told there is a person in the world who has locked within his or her mind the framework for the cure for cancer or even the ability to create an energy model that will revolutionize how society consumes natural resources. Now imagine if I told you I have seen that person alive and well working as an oil well driller on a rig in Mentone, Texas. The first question most people would ask is, “Why is the person drilling in the middle of nowhere Texas instead of impacting the world by way of displaying his or her …

Liberating Self: An Autoethnographic Inquiry Into Black Male Mental Health, Phillip J. Roundtree Sr., Dsw, Lcsw, Ms

Social Work Doctoral Dissertations

This autoethnography offers a first-person perspective on Black male mental health experiences. It incorporates personal narratives and academic research to explore the intersectionality of race, gender, and mental health, as well as the impact of historical and contemporary systemic racism and discrimination on Black males' psychological and emotional well-being.

The Black Liberation Psychology theoretical framework and Africana Studies Conceptual framework examined how cultural norms, hip-hop culture, stigma, and societal factors, including racism, discrimination, and stereotypes about Black masculinity, shape Black male mental health experiences. The study also highlights Black males' development of coping mechanisms and resilience strategies to navigate these …

Incarcerated Bodies – Embodied Autoethnography In Prison, Shulamit Kitzis‬‎

The Qualitative Report

Prison is a study field in which everyone – inmates, guards, and prison researchers – experiences powerful sensory stimuli comprised of sounds, sights, and smells in a crowded, closed space. Yet traditional academic research has socialized researchers to “wash away” their physical and emotional feelings for fear they would jeopardize the scientific nature and validity of their studies. Nevertheless, at times in a prison setting, the researchers’ bodies are the only tool that enables them to document what goes on; so much so that ignoring their bodies and emotions leads to a loss of valuable information. Using embodied autoethnography (EA), …