Pedagogies, positionality and power: maximising the mutual meanings of autoethnography and educational research

In introducing this Routledge International Handbook of Autoethnography in Educational Research, this chapter brings together two key ideas. The first idea is that the burgeoning scholarly publications about autoethnography encapsulate distilled insights into existence and experience that generate crucial understandings of educational policy-making and provision. The second idea is that rigorous educational research constitutes a framework for reflecting critically on autoethnography, and where appropriate and possible for assisting in extending the influence and reach of autoethnography.

These two ideas coalesce around the three organising principles of pedagogies, positionality and power. “Pedagogies” distils the relational dimension of learning and teaching, which mostly require the alignment of interests of a number of mutually dependent stakeholders. Similarly, both autoethnographers and educational researchers have a profound interest in the “positionality” of those stakeholders. Equally, the bridge between autoethnography and educational research constructed in this handbook provides increased understanding of “power”.

These ideas and principles are taken up in the subsequent chapters in this handbook with regard to four distinct research subfields: teaching and teacher education; doctoral study and supervision; identity work and relationship-building; and social justice. In concert, the result is a distinctive contribution to maximising the mutual meanings of autoethnography and educational research.