Making an appearance on the shelves of the room we call research: autoethnography-as-storyline-as-interpretation in education

Autoethnography is an approach to research and writing in the social sciences, which simultaneously steps inside and outside the self to experience, embody and express cultural meaning. It is at once a performative, political and pedagogical genre of research writing and it holds the potential to uncover the heart of the world, if only just for a moment. Framed around the metaphor of autoethnography as storyline, the aim of this text is to explore autoethnographic practice as interpretation in the context of social justice and the power it holds for not only imagining a more socially just world, but for making such a place possible in educational research. The text is written playfully as a theoretical-experential-ethical story, taking the reader in and out of ethnographic and educational moments to consider the personal-is-pedagogical-is-performative-is-political imperatives which ground our work in relation to issues of researching and writing within and against colonial narratives of race, relationships and representation in educational research