Developing autobiographical accounts as a starting point in research

Abstract

Teaching and research are an academic's two main responsibilities. The performance of these two roles (teacher and researcher) can be clearly separated or noticeably interwoven in a continuous reflective process that shares and interchanges positionalities and references. Research projects, in the context of the quality research group ESBRINA - contemporary subjectivities and learning environments (2009SGR 0503) - are usually started by making explicit the group's personal viewpoints regarding the topic they are scrutinising. As a result, different autobiographical accounts have been developed which provide complex and in-depth explanations of the process of constructing the research topics and relationships that are delved into. This article starts by offering a context for the research group's epistemological frame and argues for the need to conduct autobiographical accounts as a research strategy. This approach is illustrated by looking into the narratives recently written for two research, development and innovation projects. The first one was aimed at understanding how novice teachers are learning to become teachers under post-Fordist working conditions, and the second endeavoured to explore how teenagers are learning from multiple literacies inside and outside of school. The article concludes by pointing out the European dimension of the research and the lessons learnt regarding the dilemmas on writing autobiographical accounts as part of a research process.