Working Autobiographically: Encountering My Ethical Responsibilities as a Researcher

• In Event: 35.082 - Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: 35.082-12 - Autobiography as Postfoundational Curriculum Research: Toward an Ethics of (Im)Possible Representation

Abstract

Cases of conflict and natural disasters continue to impact the world all over, particularly bringing various types of hurdles in providing quality educational experiences in some regions (INEE, 2013). To address such concerns, there has recently been an increase in research contributing a solid theoretical framework to the evidence based pool of knowledge in providing quality education in such contexts. Much of these research aim to study lived experiences to inform improved practices. Despite such an aim, the post-modern assumption speaks to the limits of representation (Miller, 2005). While acknowledging the growth of such research and the study of experiences, I grapple here with the question of how I as a researcher engaging in a supposedly post-disaster context, more specifically, post 3-11 Fukushima, Japan can represent the experiences of educators who are currently in displacement. How do I with multiple, often contradictory and/or conflicting subjectivities give an account of myself and the “other” in this encounter?

To this point, Butler (2005) speaks of the challenges of giving an account of oneself in relation to others. I take as one of my primary point in exploring what it means to embrace my ethical responsibilities as a researcher while recognizing the incompleteness of my self and “other”. In this presentation, I hope to interrogate the “I” as “I” “work autobiographically” (Miller, 2006) to work through my multiracial, bi-national, female, heterosexual, Buddhist, and such-and-such subjectivities. More specifically, in doing research in post 3-11 Fukushima, Japan, I wrestle with my multiple subjectivities in relation to the geopolitical space, which I maneuver as I ask myself--how do I act responsibly as a researcher while acknowledging the limits of my own knowing?

While I choose to “work autobiographically” to grapple with this idea of ethical responsibilities, I take up writing as a mode of inquiry to help me work through my meanderings and wonderings. Richardson (2000) calls writing as a method of inquiry to find out about “yourself and your topic” (p. 923) because it allows the writer to interrogate their multiple subjectivities throughout their inquiry. In engaging with writing as a mode of inquiry, I recognize that the stories I present here are partial and incomplete representations. For the purpose of this presentation, I will utilize autobiographical data to trouble my subjectivities as I engage in research and represent data from my encounters with educators in Fukushima, Japan. The goal of this paper is not to provide best practice approaches to research. I hope to open a conversation as we observe crevices and opportunities to “see things differently from what they are, differently from how one has seen them, and differently from what one is” (Trinh, 2011, p. 41). How do I know what I know and how can I as a researcher act responsibly in this encounter called research?

Author

• Patricia Gibson, Teachers College, Columbia University