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Creative approaches to autoethnography

Using visual narratology to explore seeing and knowing

Dr Anna Hunter

University of Law

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Background

PhD research: Holocaust narrative, testimony, ‘frames of seeing and knowing’
Research interest in Academic Identity
Methodological interest in Visual Autoethnography
Bringing the two together to explore my own academic identity through visual autoethnography

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In the beginning….

“Since the Enlightenment, observation of the visual world has enjoyed a privileged epistemological status: it is a precondition and guarantee of knowledge and understanding. Being an ‘eyewitness’ automatically implies that one apprehends or comprehends the observed situation or event”

Van Alphen, 2002 p,164.

“Try to look, just try to see”

Delbo, 1995, p.11

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Academic Identity: Becoming and Un/becoming

‘academia is a contested territory that entails constant struggles over the symbols and boundaries of authenticity’ (Archer, 2008:386)

‘ ‘becoming’ an academic is not smooth, straightforward, linear or automatic, but can also involve conflict and instances of inauthenticity, marginalisation and exclusion’ (ibid., 387).

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Cutup and collage produces unexpected juxtapositions that can lead to insight, and that allow for subconscious thoughts to come through. They help the researcher to reflect on connections and questions in ways that draw on intuition and metaphor, unsettling the linearity of written records (Vaughan, 2005)… Most excitingly, they open up possibilities for challenging hegemony: the meanings they represent are provisional, multiple and situated
Bager-Elsborg and Loads, 2016, p.78

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Academic Developer Identity

Border crossers, inhabiting liminal spaces
Academic developers are located in institutional cultures that can both empower and inhibit their scope of agency. For example, Land (2008) describes academic development as having multiple orientations, and Whitchurch (2008) uses concepts such as ‘blended professional’ and ‘third space professional’; these paradoxes illustrate how our institutional roles can be puzzling for those trying to understand our positions in the binary academic/non-academic context of higher education. (Kensington-Miller et al, 2015: 2)
Insider/Outside

The notion of authenticity, and the lack of it, it central to much of the discussion around academic identity over the last ten years, speaking as it does to the well-documented experience of ‘imposter syndrome’ (Parkman, 2016; Brems et al 2016; Knights and Clarke, 2014).

Often academic development, which according to Samuels (2013) has achieved the status of a discipline in Higher Education, inhabits a physically liminal or marginalised space within higher education structures. Centres for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, or alternatively titled discrete academic development units, are increasingly common within the organisational structures of HEIs, but again there is little consistency across the sector in terms of whether these units are considered academic departments in their own right, professional services units, or, in my own case, a blend of the two (echoing Whitchurch’s conception of the ‘third space’ academic professional).

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Visual Autoethnography

Drawn from

Autoethnography
Visual Narratology

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Autoethnography

a reflexive, qualitative research process within which the researcher becomes his or her own subject, writing reflectively and autobiographically (auto) in order to draw conclusions about a particular culture or experience (ethnography)
Originated in the 1970s as a means of distinguishing “between cultural insiders and outsiders” (Adams et.al, 2017)
‘congruent with a study framed by intersectionality’ (Jones et.al., 2012)

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Visual Narratology

“what we see is before our mind’s eye, it has already been interpreted” (Bal, 1997)

William Hogarth, “Gin Lane”, 1751

Interesting in visual narratology from my PhD -

Mieke Bal (1997), writing on visual narratology, calls for ‘the analysis of visual images as narrative in and of themselves’ (162), distinguishing visual forms of storytelling from the use of images as illustration to linguistic narratives. Bal discusses the way in which visual narratives are open to multiple interpretations, and are indeed already interpreted even at the point of consumption: ‘what we see is before our mind’s eye, it has already been interpreted’ (163). It could be argued that visual narratives are particularly well suited to autoethnographic approaches as the focalisation of the narrative is more open, more flexible than that of a linguistic text. In a reflective journal, for example, the narrative is only available through the filtered lens of the author; in a photograph, the intent of the photographer is one possible interpretation, but the viewer is also able to engage with the visual narrative through his or her own lens

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Images

I was interested particularly in how I use images and visual narrative to curate my own academic identity and share it with the world, so I chose to focus on images that I have shared on social media.

In this research I am exploring my own, autoethnographic interpretation of the images under discussion, however the images remain open to alternative interpretations as the object of another’s gaze. This multiplicity closely aligns visual autoethnography with identity work, as noted by Scarles (2010):

Visual autoethnography offers pathways to realising the situatedness of self alongside others that encourages self-reflexivity and critical agency… [it] strives to access the multiplicity of truths that exist within a mesh of power relations. In embracing the multiplicities of self and other, it strives to move beyond discursive productions, productions of power and the propagation of knowledge that potentially limit expressions of self and other. (910)

In drawing on visual autoethnography’s power to access, identify and mobilise multiplicities of self, through the subsequent analysis of my images I will be reflexively exploring how my own self is realised through the intent, composition and interpretation of each image. The analysis will inform further discussion around the nature of academic developer identity.

I will be examining each of the photographs in turn, using the following questions as a framework for analysis:

Why was this picture taken?

What narrative is created within this picture?

What does this tell me about myself and my identity?

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Attempting to analyse the photograph with some objectivity, it strikes me that the positioning of the badge on top of the conference programme is telling. The focus of the photograph is supposed to be the post-nominal lettering, indicating the “belonging” described above, but there are other things that draw the eye as well. In a sense, I’m displaying my belonging in relation to two bodies – SEDA and my University; this belonging also carries some linkage to a sense of being, given that one ‘is’ a Fellow of SEDA (or of any organisation), there is an element of ontological shift about ‘becoming’ a Fellow. The positioning of the badge with the conference programme in the background suggests a location and a context for the picture, that being an academic conference, which perhaps adds a sense of prestige to the badge as well. The narrative of the picture is a story of belonging and value, clearly stating “I am here, I belong here, I am active in this community and I have the badge to prove it”.

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This is a narrative of growth and development, and it also signals continuity, centred to some extent on place. The rainbow flows from the left to the right of the picture, on a slightly upwards trajectory, which perhaps recreates a sense of positivity and ongoing opportunity to advance my practice. Certainly, the continuous lines of the rainbow create a dynamic movement within the image that suggests this process will continue. Juxtaposed against these lines however are the pin badge, and less noticeably the university logo which reminds the viewer that this is an advancement of practice that is located within, and facilitated by, a particular context. Like the SEDA conference badge, the university name and logo offers an additional layer of identity, situating the continuous flow of the rainbow within a bounded entity. The pin badge draws the eye to the centre of the rainbow and represents personal development within the professional; my development through Aurora has been very much introspective. By situating what is essentially another marker of belonging that (to me) symbolises personal growth within the symbol of professional growth, the two are brought together in a synthesis that denotes the full range of transformational opportunities that this last year has brought.

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Of particular interest here is my reaction to this image, which provoked a strong response in terms of how I see my own academic identity. It is probably not surprising that my identity is to a large extent shaped by how I perceive that others see me and my work; this photograph gave me an insight into that and I was surprised by how it felt. Imposter syndrome is rife in all aspects of academia and academic developers are by no means immune from it; the surprise contained within this photograph was that, when viewed through the photographer’s lens, I seem to ‘belong’ in this academic sphere. Having the opportunity to direct my own gaze at myself as a subject was essentially an act of affirmation: I knew that my conference presentation had been well received, I experienced it as a positive event and a moment of academic success, the image of myself mid-flow served to recall that feeling and acts as a recurrent reminder of my own capability and ‘belonging’ whenever I see it. But what does it say about my academic identity that I need a photograph of myself ‘performing’ academically, in order to feel that sense of pride in my professional self? Perhaps what is revealed most starkly by my reaction to this image is the persistent need for re-affirmation that arises when one’s academic identity is constantly in dispute.

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When I review this picture at some temporal distance, the clear juxtaposition of the antiquated sign with the bright blue sky behind seems to indicate a sense of hope or optimism, signalling good times ahead. This juxtaposition is heightened by the presence of a modern high rise building composed of glass and steel, rising behind the sign and reflecting the blue of the sky; in this way the image encapsulates both my own past and the future. The vertical lines of both the station sign and the modern high rise building behind it suggest an upward dynamism, a future direction of travel that implies continued growth. The sign itself features the familiar “British Rail” logo of two opposing arrows, this speaks not only to a past that is long gone and dissolving from conscious memory, but also the incessant movement of railway stations, the constant arrival and simultaneous departure that marked my years of travel in and out of Manchester, at a time when I did not have a clear future direction or a sense of where I might be going. In this image I clearly state “This is it. I have arrived”.

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Challenges

Feeling exposed
Objectivity is difficult
Reliability/ Generalisability?

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Questions/Prompts

Is the level of interpretation/filtration of meaning greater in visual autoethography than in other forms?
Is this a problem?