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In this paper, I first discuss what autoethnography is elaborating on an autoethnographic spectrum. Then, I draw on several scholars' understanding of what a \"good\" autoethnography is and propose a list of suggestions to contribute to autoethnography's conceptualization and operationalization in qualitative educational research in the future. Believing that a good autoethnography is the work of a scholar who aims for the witty hand of an artist and the sharp/critical mind of a social scientist, I suggest that a good autoethnography (a) creates a sense of transformation through a story of illumination, healing, understanding, and/or learning, (b) engages readers as a companion rather than passive audience through commonalities and particularities, (c) goes beyond personal confessions by mindfully offering autobiographical and background information, (d) uses appropriate tools and sources and explains why using them makes sense, (e) denaturalizes social issues by making invisible power dynamics visible, and (f) embraces the subjectivity of memory and interpretation. I explain each suggestion in more detail in subsections and provide some guiding questions for future autoethnographers to help them make mindful decisions before and during their autoethnographic endeavors.

Purpose The purpose of this opinion piece is to present a case for the potential of positive autoethnography (PosAE) as a new autoethnographic approach. Design/methodology/approach This work resulted from on-going discussions between the authors as to the practicalities and benefits of associating the qualitative approach of autoethnography with the field of positive psychology. Findings PosAE is proposed to encourage writers to actively reflect on the importance for themselves, and their readers, of including positive narrative elements, prospective visions and exploratory trajectories in their work. Research limitations/implications This research builds on existing research that has included positive psychology in autoethnography. As positive psychology is grounded in empirical research, the authors are suggesting that PosAE is allied to pragmatic autoethnography. Practical implications PosAE offers to facilitate positive thought, affect and strategies that could improve well-being. For example, some people struggling with serious health issues, and those helping them, may find it useful for articulating conditions and envisioning, even experiencing, positive change. Social implications With so many lives impacted by mental health issues globally, and with rapidly changing societies struggling to provide stability and purpose, an autoethnography that provides tools such as PERMA (Positive emotions, Engagement, Positive Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishments/Achievements) to communicate the positive seems timely. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time the creation of an autoethnographic approach explicitly linked to positive psychology has been proposed.

PurposeThe authors’ aim in this commentary is to critically assess the potential benefits and limitations of collaborative autoethnography (CAE) as a research tool to be used by qualitative researchers during this unprecedented, methodologically challenging time when physical isolation and distancing are the best strategies to prevent spread of the virus.Design/methodology/approachThe authors probe into the potential of collaborative reflection on self-narrative as an alternative and perhaps timely research approach.FindingsThe COVID-19 pandemic has altered our experiences of conventional teaching, learning and research. It is a scholarly challenging time, particularly for qualitative researchers in the social sciences whose research involves data collection methods that require face-to-face human interactions. Due to the worldwide lockdowns, self-isolation and social distancing, qualitative researchers are encountering methodological difficulties in continuing with their empirical fieldwork. In such circumstances, researchers are exploring alternative methodological approaches, taking advantage of telecommunication and digital tools for remote data collection. However, the authors argue that qualitative researchers should consider utilizing self-narratives of their experiences during the pandemic as a rich source of qualitative data for further delving into the socioeconomic, political and cultural impacts of the pandemic.Originality/valueThe authors’ focus might be secondary in the minds of many social scientists who are directly contributing to our understanding of how the pandemic has upended communities. However, despite some limitations and ethical concerns, we urge qualitative researchers to embrace the potentials of CAE to study society, especially, but not only, in this unprecedented time.

In this essay, I argue for an engagement with students’ embodied knowledge as a means by which to rethink what it means to “do anthropology” as well as produce knowledge. I center auto-ethnography and photovoice as emancipatory teaching strategies that ask students to think about their own lived experiences as knowledge, their own communities as sites of theory making, and their own voices as the authority. This essay takes seriously the classroom at the academic margins as integral to the renewed calls to decolonize anthropology.

Large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT have sparked extensive discourse within the medical education community, spurring both excitement and apprehension. Written from the perspective of medical students, this editorial offers insights gleaned through immersive interactions with ChatGPT, contextualized by ongoing research into the imminent role of LLMs in health care. Three distinct positive use cases for ChatGPT were identified: facilitating differential diagnosis brainstorming, providing interactive practice cases, and aiding in multiple-choice question review. These use cases can effectively help students learn foundational medical knowledge during the preclinical curriculum while reinforcing the learning of core Entrustable Professional Activities. Simultaneously, we highlight key limitations of LLMs in medical education, including their insufficient ability to teach the integration of contextual and external information, comprehend sensory and nonverbal cues, cultivate rapport and interpersonal interaction, and align with overarching medical education and patient care goals. Through interacting with LLMs to augment learning during medical school, students can gain an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. This understanding will be pivotal as we navigate a health care landscape increasingly intertwined with LLMs and artificial intelligence.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to provide a practical guide and checklist for newcomers to autoethnography. Design/methodology/approach The approach is grounded in autoethnographic methodology, functioning as a comprehensive teaching resource. Findings When used as a learning resource, this study will enhance the work of beginning autoethnographers. Social implications As an arts and humanities and social science-based research approach, autoethnography is a vital, creative methodology in advancing social justice in mental health. Originality/value This study, written by an experienced teacher, mentor and supervisor of the approach with an international reputation, is original in its provision of a comprehensive teaching resource in article form to assist the development of beginning autoethnographers.

This article presents 15 autoethnographical texts detailing student experiences at Beijing Normal University in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Contributions have been collected over 6 weeks between 15 February and 1 April 2020, edited by Hejia Wang (assisted by Moses Oladele Ogunniran and Yingying Huang), and supervised by Michael Peters. Through shared in-depth empirical feelings and representations from a wide variety of cultural, historical, and social contexts, the article outlines an answer to the question: How do students, connected virtually but separated physically in an internationalized university, deal with disruption brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic? Student testimonies offer reflections on Covid-19 and Chinese international education, experiences of online teaching and learning, reflections on university coping mechanisms, an account of realities and feelings related to changes in academic life, and discussions on coping strategies in Chinese international higher education. Contributors expose their individual feelings, effects, benefits, challenges, and risk management strategies. Collected at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, these testimonies are unable to offer systemic answers to challenges facing the whole world. However, these experiences and feelings will provide important inputs to global discussions about the future of the world, after Covid-19.

[...]though my family and I were no strangers to the medical establishment, the past twelve months have provided a crash course in its cultural mores. The structure of the performance helps produce this layered effect, with each scene performing repetition as if spiraling fibers into an interwoven thread. The coats, emblazoned with official names and titles, add to the considerable weight of the medical voices-spoken with a cold credibility at the start but softening with experience by the third scene, when a nurse speaks vulnerably and an audience member responds with newfound, reflexive authority.

Abstract We draw from our personal insights as foreign-born female faculty in the U.S. to explore how our minority status in the U.S. has affected our experiences/identities in the field of aging. We practiced intersectionality by considering how our understandings of “foreignness” in academia and the aging field are intertwined with other markers of difference, including race, national origin, language, and academic programs. We also draw from tenets of collaborative autoethnography to engage two autoethnographies from two countries in Asia to pool their lived experiences and collaboratively analyze and interpret them for commonalities and differences. We begin by sharing stories about graduate study pursuits and becoming faculty in the U.S. We note how our foreignness shapes our lives as aging scholars in the U.S. academy and our personal views on aging. After exchanging our first set of writings, we identified key experiences to focus on in the subsequent writing periods. Our minority backgrounds, teaching aging subjects, and using qualitative methodology are shared identification. Moreover, the themes that deal directly with identity development and the perception of aging of non-white women can be added to promote a deep understanding of aging among the non-native-born population. This study highlights the value of collaborative autoethnography as a method of inquiry and reflection. Findings demonstrate that non-native-born female faculty members in the field of aging faced multi-faceted challenges in both professional and personal realms. Implications for supporting foreign-born female aging scholars are discussed.

Reflexivity is a key expectation that researchers in transdisciplinary and transformative research for sustainable development need to meet. Its aim is to enable researchers to deal with normativity, to contribute to identifying and balancing different actors’ interests in processes of knowledge production, and to strengthen a pluralistic view of implicit assumptions. When designing and realizing transdisciplinary and transformative studies, researchers face a central question: How can we develop reflexive practices and live up to the demands of such work? Considering the important role that reflexivity plays in transdisciplinary approaches, it is surprising that only few approaches have explored the specific characteristics of reflexive practices empirically and analyzed how these practices are cultivated when doing transdisciplinary and transformative research. In this article we address this research gap by presenting and discussing a case in which researchers attempted to professionalize their reflexive practices at the science-policy interface (SPI). As part of the national Monitoring of Education for Sustainable Development in Germany, we used the method of collaborative autoethnography to systematically reflect on our own thinking and actions as researchers at the SPI over a period of 11 months. Based on an analysis of 66 situations in which we took field notes, we synthesized core topics of reflection and challenges encountered throughout the process (roles, relationship patterns, and normativity) in six collaborative interpretation sessions and analyzed them to understand our own practices of engagement within the field. Grounded in this analysis of our own selves as researchers looking in the mirror, we develop hypotheses about how our specific methodological approach helped us on a practical level to foster different kinds of reflexivity. With this two-fold approach, we aim to contribute to a better understanding of possible topics, challenges, and pathways of (increased) reflexivity among researchers working at the SPI.