From Currere to Duoethnography: Understanding Self in the Face of the Other

• In Event: Advancing Curriculum Studies Through Duoethnography: Adapting a Research Methodology to a Form of Pedagogical Inquiry

Abstract

Objectives

This paper analyzed duoethnography as an emergent methodology to determine its basic emerging precepts. By examining current duoethnographies, tacit aspects of the methodology can be made explicit and articulated for others to emulate and adapt. This paper will set the frame for the papers that follow.

Perspectives

Building on Pinar’s concept of currere (1975 and 1994), duoethnography frames an individual’s life experiences as a curriculum. One’s present knowledge, and beliefs were acquired/learned in both formal and informal situations. Currere as defined by Pinar is regressive, progressive, analytical, and synthetical that is “temporal and conceptual in nature” (1994, p. 19).

Duoethnography (Norris, Sawyer & Lund, 2012 and Sawyer & Norris, 2013) advances currere through a form of dialogic inquiry in which two or more researcher/participants juxtapose their lives in order to learn from the Other (Peperzak, 1989). As duoethnographers recall, reexamine and restory their lives new insights emerge as they begin to see their life through another’s eyes and use the present to reconceptualize the past and the past to reconceptualize the present. Their conversations, written in a script format, are compilations of many organic conversations that are edited to achieve an organic flow. In tandem with each other, duoethnographers enter an “in-between” space where they dialogically reimagine and restory their narrative perceptions.

Methods/Data Sources

Through a content analysis of a number of duoethnographic studies on a variety of topics over the past ten years of salient features became apparent. These studies served as data sources to explore what each had in common and their differences.

Results

The following is a list of basic tenets that underpin the methodology:

• (Re)storying in the face of the Other (Levinas)
• Emphasis on difference not universals
• Duoethnographers are research sites NOT topics
• Each duoethnographer’s voice is made explicit (script formats)
• Don’t position oneself as hero or victim but a quester
• Readers witness the duoethnographers searching for meanings rather than preaching pre-established ones
• Analysis and interrogation are embedded into the storytelling/conversation; trust the story. Don’t move too quickly and overdo abstraction
• Identity is fluid not fixed. Enter with commitment to change. Through the Quest(ion), juxtapositions and acts of unpacking and repacking conceptualization occurs. Researchers transform as they reconceptualize. Readers witness such changes.
• Use past to reconceptualize one’s present; use present to reconceptualize one’s past; use both to reenvision the future
• Due to its temporal and geographical positionings, duoethnography is ethnographic
• Trust among co-researchers is vital. Openness is essential to reveal and learn with the recognition that ‘storming’ can occur
• Literature review is integrated throughout
• The methodology is implicit and integrated throughout
• The tenets are guidelines. Each duoethnography will take on a different structure, emphasizing different elements due to the emergent conversations.

Significance

Duoethnography has emerged as a curriculum studies methodology that examines lived-experiences through the lens of currere. By restorying their lives duoethnographers model self-reflection for the purpose of reconceptualization, a major precept of curriculum studies. Duoethnography is a curriculum.

Authors

• Joe Norris, Brock University

• Richard D. Sawyer, Washington State University - Vancouver