Session Type: Workshop Accepted by MIG(s): Development Time Allotted: 90 Description: Leaders need to act! How can they ground their actions in a clear understanding of self and their relationships with others? This workshop engages participants in a variety of collaborative autoethnographic processes that promote self-reflection, socio-cultural self-analysis, and self-narration for the development of individual leaders and leader communities. Abstract: Leaders need to act! How can they ground their actions in a clear understanding of self and their relationships with others? This workshop introduces and engages participants in a variety of collaborative autoethnographic processes that promote self-reflection, socio-cultural self-analysis, and self-narration for the development of individual leaders and leader communities. Three major goals are as follows: 1) to introduce participants to the characteristics, various models, benefits, and examples of collaborative autoethnography; (2) to engage the participants in different models of collaborative autoethnography—sequential, concurrent, and partial collaboration models—with hands-on exercises; and (3) to co-create with participants a list of potential applications of collaborative autoethnography which can be used in diverse leadership contexts to promote critical personal self-reflection necessary to transform future leadership practices.
Autoethnography is a qualitative research method that engages researchers in self-reflection, self-analysis, and self-writing to understand themselves in relation to others in their immediate and distanced socio-cultural contexts (Chang, 2008; Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Meneley & Young, 2005 ; Reed-Danahay, 1997). Self-reflection and autobiographic narration have been embraced by leadership scholars and practitioners (Bennis, 2003). While these are important exercises for leaders, mere self-reflection and self-narration do not necessarily help leaders gain a clear understanding of their positionality of self in relation to others in their organizational and broader socio-cultural context. Such an in-depth understanding of self as a socio-cultural being requires cultural analysis and interpretation. Autoethnography helps researchers move beyond mere self-reflection to achieve the level of understanding of self and others necessary to develop authentic ad effective leadership practices. Traditionally, autoethnography process is viewed as a solitary research process of self-reflection and analysis in which individual researchers undergo separately. While the individual process of autoethnography is useful to leaders, this solo dance is limited in creating synergy for collaborative action through ensembles. Autoethnography is to a solo dance as collaborative autoethnography is to an ensemble.
Collaborative autoethnography (Chang, Hernandez, & Ngunjiri, forthcoming) is a type of autoethnography that engages two or more autoethnographers. Duoethnography involves two parties and often presents their self-narratives in a dialogue format (Norris, 2008). Community autoethnography (Toyosaki, Pensoneau-Conway, Wendt, & Leathers, 2008) involves more than two researchers who collaborate on collecting, analyzing, and interpreting their autobiographical data and/or writing autoethnographies. Collaboration can take different shapes and formats at different stages. At the data collection stage, researchers may take turns to contribute to the collective “pot” of autobiographic data (sequential collaboration model) or collect their autobiographical data independently and share them at the same time (concurrent collaboration model). Researchers may opt to stop their collaboration at this point, and move on to analysis and interpretation of collective data to gain an understanding of self and others. Or they can continue collaboration at the subsequent stages of data analysis to produce a collective autoethnography (coauthored by all participants) or individual autoethnographies (singled authored by each autoethnographer). However, far researchers end up collaborating, the shared process in a community of leaders enables them to gain a deeper understanding of self, each other, and others beyond this community.
In this workshop, participants will learn about and participate in collaborative autoethnography as a method that can facilitate self-reflection and empowerment, and yield meaningful insights into current leadership practices with a view to informing and transforming both leaders and followers.
References
Bennis, W. (2003). On becoming a leader: Leadership Classic. New York: Basic.
Chang, H. (2008), Autoethnography as method. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Chang, H., Hernandez, K., & Ngunjiri, F. (forthcoming), Collaborative autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Elllis, C., & Bochner, A. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, and personal reflexivity. In. N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincolm (Eds.) Handbook of qualitataive research (2nd ed.) (pp. 733-768). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Norris, J. (2008). Duoethnography. In L. Given, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods, Volume 1 (pp. 233-236). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Meneley, A., & Young, D. J. (2005). Autoethnographies: The anthropology of academic practices. Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press.
Reed-Danahay, D. E. (Ed.) (1997). Auto/Ethnography: Rewriting the self and the social. Oxford, UK: Berg.
Toyosaki, S, Pensoneau-Conway, S. L., Wendt, N. A., & Leathers, K. (2008). Community autoethnography: Compiling the personal and resituating whiteness. Cultural studies <=>Critical Methodologies, 9(1), 56-83.
Kathy-Ann C. Hernandez, Loeb School of Education, Eastern University
Bio: Kathy-Ann C. Hernandez is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and Assessment at Eastern University and the Director of Research for the Loeb School of Education. She serves as a reviewer and special issue co-editor of serveral peer reviewed journals including International Journal of Multicultural Education and Journal of Research Practice. She is co-author of the book "Collaborative Autoethnography" forthcoming in Fall 2011.
Faith W. Ngunjiri, Eastern University
Bio: Faith Wambura Ngunjiri is Assistant Professor of Organizational Leadership at Eastern University. She is the author of "Women’ s Spiritual Leadership in Africa: Tempered Radicals and Critical Servant Leaders" (2010, SUNY). Dr. Ngunjiri has served as reviewer and special issue co-editor for several peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Research Practice and Global Media Journal. She is also the coauthor of the book "Collaborative Autoethnography" forthcoming in 2011.
Heewon Chang, Eastern University
Bio: Heewon Chang is Professor of Education and Organizational Leadership at Eastern University, serves the International Journal of Education as Editor-in-Chief, and has authored two books including Autoethnography as Method (2008, Left Coast Press). Her coauthored book, Collaborative Autoethnography, and coedited book, Spirituality in Higher Education: Autoethnographies, are forthcoming in 2011.
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