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Featured in this article is a psychotherapy case study recounted from the lived experience of the psychotherapist working with an asylum seeker from Afghanistan, with the help of a translator. The method applied is an aesthetic inquiry adapted from Autoethnography which engages the practitioner as the researcher who enters the 'field' of the therapy situation. The reflexive writing of the case story, which is integral to the method, sets off a heuristic process, integrating research and practice. Reading this case study, one may grasp the nuances and the atmosphere of an otherwise linguistically challenging therapeutic situation. The story and Gestalt therapy theory are weaved together, which makes palpable, intangible aspects of the therapeutic process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project explores a visual-social narrative from an autoethnographic perspective by focusing on a series of colour slides taken by a Greek-Australian immigrant - my father, while on holiday in Greece, in the late 1960s. Usage of 35mm colour slide film was immensely popular, in the 1950s and 1960s. The case study is a typical immigrant return trip. Greek immigrants have a long history of ‘homeland’ pilgrimage holidays, and documenting it is part of the ordeal. The slides chosen are part of my father’s narrative, producing a sort of personal visual diary, and were crucial to the construction of his immigrant identity. The findings conclude that my father constructed two visual narratives, for different audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the lens of a critical autoethnography, this article explores how a postcard, an artefact produced in the context of the French-Algerian war, creates an opening in the transmission of the colonial past between generations. Discovered several decades ago in the family house, the postcard in question, although now physically lost, resurfaces in the present time and interrogates both reception and filiation of our colonial legacy. Relating to this image-object becomes a starting point for a process of recreating and reconstructing; it results in a singular and evolving narrative, a step in curating our colonial memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reacts to the recent call for a narrativisation of maps' life in post-representational cartography, proposing 'cartographic fictional writing' as a means to move geography's 'creative (re)turn' from a place-centred to a 'carto-centred' perspective, and as an epistemological tool to go on rethinking maps from post-representational perspectives. First, 'carto-fiction' is defined as a self-reflexive (autoethnographic), ethnofictional, creative carto-centred product/practice of research. Second, by including the entire short story entitled 'Unfolding Berlin' and an autoethnographic account on how it emerged, this study strives to both theorise and perform carto-fictional writing as an embodied and trans-subjective mapping experience. My goal is to propose 'carto-fiction' as a prolific tool to let emotional, subjective cartographies emerge and to narrativise maps as mapping practices. The article further strives to focus on the mapping power of creative writing, and carto-fictional writing and reading will be interpreted as mapping performances, in which subjects are bodily and emotionally engaged. The inclusion of original illustrations aims to involve readers in a visual experience and to further stimulate their spatial imagination: each reader is asked to reflect on his/her own mapping experiences to interpret the fictional story and, thus, the paper itself attempts to unfold unpredicted creative cartographic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been a great deal of attention given to the potential increased risk of vicarious traumatisation (VT) for clinicians with a history of childhood sexual abuse. I am curious about whether the silencing, which has been ubiquitous within society, is also prevalent within the therapeutic profession. I wonder if therapists with a history of abuse feel they have to bracket their experience, and if this limits the potential for positive transformation. In this paper, I draw upon my narrative study of therapists with a history of abuse. The methodology followed was narrative inquiry with two therapists in addition to an autoethnography. I used ‘narrative analysis’ to analyse the data. The findings of the study covered themes of transgenerational trauma, ‘the wounded healer’, caregivers’ responsibility in communal cultures and dissociation. In this paper, I will consider the part dissociation plays when there is a shared history of trauma, and the ways in which dissociative enactments within the consulting room themselves may be part of the mutual healing. For this paper, only extracts from interviews with one of my participants will be included. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is a first-person account of gender violence that utilizes auto-ethnography as a methodological and narrative tool. In the article, the author analyzes a relationship with a violent man in which two differences, class and gender, functioned as hierarchies. By analyzing certain moments of this relationship from the perspective of gender theory, the author intends to provide insight into the complex and often contradictory features of the gender violence suffered by women in different regions of the world and in a range of social and cultural contexts. This personal story and the connections with the stories of other women in her family - themselves victims of gender violence and the same social hierarchies - allow the author to analyze the mandates for women in a patriarchal society. Finally, the article narrates the strategies of empowerment that she was able to construct in certain contexts, distinguishing individual and collective empowerment as a key analytical but also political concept in the struggle against gender violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a story of writing, revising and publishing an autoethnography of sporting injury. Using extracts from peer review comments and personal reflections both on these reviews and on the process more broadly, the article shows that although autoethnography can be a very challenging, even troubling, experience for the author, it can also be rewarding and empowering when editors and reviewers offer supportive and constructive comments and suggestions. The article argues that greater consideration needs to be given to the aftermath of publication of autoethnographic accounts and calls for wider debate about the ethics of asking authors to reveal more about their personal lives and weaknesses in the pursuit of academic goals. The article offers would-be autoethnographers one account of the writing, revising and publishing process in order to explore a number of relevant issues that arise when an author chooses an autoethnographic approach for conducting and presenting research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Auto-ethnography, an alternative method and form of writing, can make for uncomfortable reading. A transgressive account in the context of professional practice opens out a professional’s life, remaking power relations in the process. Relational ethics is an emerging growth area for auto-ethnographers, given the ethical implications for everyone represented in a transgressive telling. Future directions include fresh juxtapositions of layered auto-ethnographic texts and collaborative accounts that break with the self–other dichotomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I offer an autoethnographic inquiry into the process of finding one's way out of the maze of mental illness; it is an examination of how in the course of creating music to express my suffering from bipolar disorder, 1 found a poetic and musical expression for my soul. Making music gradually moved my focus away from illness toward imagination and creativity and brought about a major shift in my positioning in terms of my identity, helping me to construct the selfhood of an artist rather than that of an ill person. This transformation is explored in the context of India's music and spiritual tradition and the Western framework of resource-oriented music therapy, an approach that prioritizes participant empowerment and uses music for self-care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autoethnography offers a promising methodology to illuminate information experiences, yet it has been relegated to the margins of information science. This paper reviews examples and critiques of autoethnographic research and supports the idea that autoethnographic approaches increase information professionals' awareness of their cultural assumptions and provide a framework for analysing such assumptions when developing programs and services (Michels 2010, 166). By showcasing an exemplary autoethnographic study (Michels 2010), this paper presents autoethnography as a useful methodology that acknowledges the researcher's subjectivity, accounts for the affective aspects of information experiences, and focuses on how personal stories can teach us about information behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few decades, ethnicity, amongst third generation and beyond descendants of European immigrants in America, is thought to have evolved from a group-oriented protectorate to a more individualized form of identity. ‘Symbolic ethnicity’ is the name given by sociologists, who, working in the 1980s and 1990s within the confines of traditional assimilation theory, thought this to be the final step in that process. More recently, however, research within the social sciences has moved on, not just in how assimilation is considered, but also to newer immigrant and ethnic groups. In this study, I return to the concept of symbolic ethnicity and to those ‘older’ ethnics who, despite the assimilation process, continue to construct and maintain powerful links to an ethnic ancestry and homeland. From my observations of and interviews with dozens of individuals learning the Irish language throughout North America, I attempt to uncover why this connection persists, beginning with the subjective nature of symbolic ethnicity and ending with concepts of performance and performativity. I argue that these Irish not only knowingly construct their ethnic identities, but also unconsciously conform to a discourse of Irishness based on their perception of authenticity and tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]