Exploring Our Perceptions of Key Events in a Qualitative Research Course: Applying Principles of Analytic Collaborative Autoethnography in Practice

Little research portrays analytic autoethnography in practice. Our presentation offers this information through a dramatic enactment. At the end of the term, when our memories were still vivid, we, a professor and a doctoral student in an advanced qualitative methods course, utilized principles of a collaborative analytic autoethnography to construct new understandings about key events that occurred during the semester. Using asynchronous e-mail communication, we shared, affirmed, and questioned each other’s and our own storied recollections of moments of joy and learning intertwined with some challenging issues. Heeding the advice of seasoned collaborative autoethnographers, in the first phase of our inquiry, we planned and negotiated our responsibilities, voiced our concerns and questions pertinent to the project, and avowed our willingness to risk emotional vulnerability and discomfort as we confronted our truths. We also studied the extant literature to learn as much as we could about the emerging genre of analytic autoethnography. In the second phase of our work, we recalled and documented what we believed were significant moments in the course and responded to each other’s assumptions. Our stories help to establish the value of principles of collaborative analytic autoethnography to make sense of personal experiences. Moreover, the research contributes needed information about how analytic autoethnography might be applied in practice. Philosophically, we had reservations generalizing our discoveries to broader social phenomena as recommended by Anderson (2006).