Writing My Way through Italy: Arts-Based Autoethnography for International Adult Education

The purpose of this autoethnographic study is to share the power of writing as a transformative research method (Custer, 2014). This study draws from the life of a nontraditional adult learner doctoral student, who while traveling through Italy alone, embarked on a journey of self-discovery and transformation. Using a narrative voice, the researcher blogs her way through a month of travel in which "writing a way through" becomes a metaphor for life. Framed in a seven lens autoethnographic model (Custer, 2014), the researcher's writing touches universal themes of loss, longing, and loneliness as the traveler anticipates personal challenges and changes along with academic coursework. Through critical reflection, meaning-making, engagement with self and the world, and in the context of a transformative learning theory disorienting dilemma (Mezirow, 1978, 1991), writing as a way to self informs the researcher in both academic and personal ways. Implications for students and faculty in adult education programs, as well as for practitioners, include the benefits of intersecting arts-based approaches with adult learning and research methodology. Art is universal and crosses international boundaries. Autoethnography is about researcher vulnerability to aid not only individual suffering, but society's (Custer, 2014). [For the full proceedings, see ED597456.]