QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

I feel a strong connection to phenomenology and narrative analysis. Digging deeper, I am most likely a phenomenologist because they are interested in people’s lives and their experiences. “The task of a phenomenologist…is to depict the essence or basic structures of experience” (Merriam 25). I will be tapping into the model of qualitative research because it suits my constructivist and transformative worldviews. I believe, like social constructivists, that “individuals see understanding of the world in which they live and work” (Creswell, 8). 

I recognize that everyone has their own personal point of view so there can be various meanings and complex perspectives. As a woman, who struggled living in a reproductive body, I also have a transformative worldview. As Creswell describes it, I feel that “imposed structural laws and theories did not fit marginalized individuals” (9) and I want to see issues of power, social justice, discrimination, and oppression addressed. He further states that “transformative research provides a voice for these participants, raising their consciousness or advancing an agenda for change to improve their lives. It becomes a united voice for reform and change” (10). My creativity also lends itself to qualitative approaches because “they allow more creative, literary-style writing…for transformative writers, there is undoubtedly a strong stimulus to pursue topics that are of personal interest–issues that relate to marginalized people and an interest in creating a better society for them and everyone” (21). 

My interest for my upcoming project is the use of a single text by Clarissa Pinkola Estés titled Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. I pay heed to the following tools, presented by Merriam, to enhance the qualitative research experience: 

• Epoche is to “refrain from judgment”. The researcher needs to set aside bias and prior knowledge. 
• Phenomenological reduction seeks to “derive the inner structure or meaning in and of itself” (Merriam 26) and is a call to keep coming back to the essence of the experience. 
• Horizontalization is a technique to treat the data as having equal weight and then to organize it into clusters or themes. 
• Imaginative variation asks the researcher to view the data from various experiences. “The reader should come away from the phenomenology with the feeling, ‘I understand better what it is like for someone to experience that’” (Merriam 26). 
• Stories are tools to make sense of our experiences and they are used to communicate with others and make sense of the world around us. Stories can also be data for qualitative research. “First person accounts of experiences told in story form having a beginning, middle, and end” (27). 

CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATION OF AUTOETHNOGRAPHY

I will use the autoethnographic foundation as outlined by Christopher N. Poulos in Essentials of Autoethnography (2021). This text is part of the Essentials of Qualitative Methods Series produced by the American Psychological Association that also includes Essentials of Narrative Analysis (2021) by Ruthellen Josselson and Phillip L. Hammack. In the series forward section of autoethnography, written by Clara E. Hill and Sarah Know, I am drawn into the explanation: “Autoethnography involves a researcher writing about a topic of great personal relevance…situating their experiences within the social context. Autoethnography thus requires deep reflection on both one’s unique experiences and the universal within oneself” (viii). It is made clear that this is not memoir, autobiography, or fiction, but that a good autoethnographer will have narrative awareness and I plan to use tools such as plot development, pacing, rhythm, character development and dialogue to move the findings along like a good story. As noted by Poulos, “The aim, in the end is to describe, evoke, interpret, and critique” my personal journey of writing my story into the second half of my life. 

In summation, “Autoethnography is a qualitative research method used by researchers interested in narrative descriptions and evocations of the richly textured nature of lived experience. Autoethnographers seek to craft compelling tales that shed light on particular phenomena 

encountered in the research scene” (Poulos 6). In this case, I will be both an observer and participant in the culminating activity of combining the text of Women Who Run with the Wolves, SoulCollage®, and Zoom based discussions on particular chapters. 

DOING AUTOETHNOGRAPHY

I plan to consider the design and data collection model:

• Exploring Emotions
• Formulating Research Questions
• Conducting Exploratory Research
• Searching for Stories, Conversations, Artifacts
• Mining Memories
• Engaging in Systematic Reflexive Introspection

 

WRITING AUTOETHNOGRAPHY

Poulos notes that: “In many ways, autoethnography is as much an approach to living life as it is a research method – it is a way of life” (32). I use writing to inquire and then work through things that I am pondering and researching. Maybe it is my age, but I am more cognizant and aware of the issues that are crucial in our society. Politics are personal and impact not only our daily lives but I have greater perspective to ponder how today’s politics will impact my adult children and my future grandchildren. Poulos tells me that “autoethnographers explore the contours, complications, and fascinations of human social life through daily practices of observing, questioning, and living the writing life as a method of inquiry” (33). 

There are assumptions to guide me about story writing that can speak to structure, logic, and motivation about research-driven autoethnography:

• Stories Are Active
• Stories Follow Certain Structural Conventions
• Stories Tap Into the Improvisational Nature of Creative Writing
• Stories Are Provocative
• All Research is Storytelling
• Stories Engage the Heart and the Mind
• Emotions and Memories Are Useful Data
• Stories Are Sites of Identification
• Stories Are Transformative

PROCESS AND CRAFT

Like all writing, I am advised to consider attention getting devices to bring in my reader. Poulos provides a table of Conventions of Narrative Autoethnography (Table 14.1. 57) that includes:

1. Know your audience
2. Raise important questions and respond to them
3. Invite your readers into your world
4. Craft vivid scenes
5. Develop and deploy interesting characters
6. Write compelling dialogue
7. Build a sense of action
8. Attend to the passage of time
9. Evoke and invoke emotion
10. Tie the story to theory
11. Write some sort of coda for analysis or interpretation
12. Write, edit, rewrite, and repeat

 

EVALUATING AUTOETHNOGRAPHY

Beyond trustworthiness and qualitative quality, Poulos provides considerations for the self-evaluation I can perform for my work by providing me a model from the 2000 work of Laurel Richardson (74). 

Substantive contribution: Does this contribute to the understanding of social life? Do I have a human world perspective and understanding? Has this perspective informed the construction of the text? 

Aesthetic merit: Does it succeed aesthetically? Does the use of creative analytical practices open the text and invite interpretive responses? Is the text artistically shaped, satisfying, complex, and not boring? 

Reflexivity: How did I come up with a way to write the text? How did I gather the information? How is my subjectivity as both producer and product of the text? Is there adequate self-awareness and self-exposure for the reader to make judgements about my point of view? Can I hold myself accountable to the standards of knowing and telling of people I have studied?

Impact: Will the text affect the reader? Emotionally? Intellectually? Generate new questions? Move the reader to want to explore the new ideas or start writing themselves? Will it move the reader to action?

Expresses reality: Does the text bring out the sense of a lived experience? Does it seem true? Does it seem like a credible account of a cultural, social, individual, or communal sense of “the real”? 

ETHICS

Poulos introduces me to Stephen Andrew’s idea of intuitionism”. This is the notion that as a researcher, I should know what to do to be ethical while conducting autoethnography. I need to build a conscious awareness of “the ways the work may (or may not) cause harm to self and others” (76). He notes that there are no simple answers but most autoethnographers make ethical considerations.

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