Reading autoethnography: The impact of writing through the body

Abstract

In this paper, we explore alternative ways in which academic writing can have impact, specifically in how it can move from the clearly measured to the deeply felt. We do this by writing a creative nonfiction narrative of our experimentation with autoethnography, detailing our responses to four published autoethnographic articles. We found that reading and engaging with these papers meant that we also had to listen and reconnect to our bodies in ways that initially seemed foreign to us as academics. But we persevered, and this project strengthened our resolve to create time/space to engage writing/research that deeply moves and transforms us. Within our experience, this writing offers alternatives to the dominant techno-rationalistic certainty of academic discourses that work to artificially separate mind from body.