{

Writing about Crisis:

Creating Turning Points as an Educator of Native American Students

Shepard Symposium on Social Justice 2011 Mary D. Wehunt

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This study demonstrates how auto-ethnography facilitates perceptual shifts that open creative pathways to fully understanding Native American learning styles. This presentation is an auto-ethnographic performance of one such turning point that took place while conducting research of Native American college students on the Wind River Reservation.

Witness* Embodied Listening* Sensual Tune-up*Relive Events* Internal Dialog* Critical Pedagogy*Mental Clarity by Willingness to be Confused andChallenged to Resolve Feelings of Incongruity*

{What do we mean by Crisis?

Defined as Juncture = a particular or critical moment in the development of events; crisis Webster’s New World Dictionary

{

Narratives are shaped by history and institutional forces

Hegemonic structures becomenaturalized and unresponsive

Makes the invisible visible

Selfhood feels under attackBeing in the presentBecoming

Mismatches in Ideology

{

Ethnography is writing about people andrefers to methods of observation and data collection that maps the contexts of culture.

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If ethnography is fundamentally a theory of contexts then what is auto-ethnography?

And does it have a legitimate role in social action?

Auto ethnography maps personal contexts through storytelling that is partial and perspectival.

{ {Follow IRB Rules Be Reflexive

“Autoethnography is . . . research, writing and method that connect the autobiographical and

personal to the cultural and social. This form usually features concrete action, emotion, embodiment, self-

consciousness, and introspection.” (Ellis

2004, xix)

“Autoethnography is . . . a self narrative that critiques the situated-

nessof self and others in social context.”

(Spry 2001, p. 710)

{

“Auto-ethnographic texts . . .

democratize the

representational sphere

of culture by locating the

particular experiences of

individuals in tension with

dominant expressions of

discursive power.”

(Neumann 1996,

189)

< A Critical Pedagogy > “Auto-ethnography is both

dial and instrument.”

(Denzin & Giardino, 240)

{

By exploring our

inner selves through

words and stories,

we come to

understand the

"real" us that lives

inside the body.

 

Thick description goes beyond what is visible to understand the things that people do: notice gestures, tone of voice, inconsistencies in arguments.

A Balancing ActMake Connections, Gain Clarity

and Change

“Indigenous Peoples: A Decade for Action and Dignity” Poster of the Second International Decade of

The World's Indigenous People 2010-2015

Global, Creative, Reflective

Embodied Listening

References (1)

Denzin, N.K. (2007). The politics and ethics of performance pedagogy. In N.K. Denzin & M.D. Giardina (Eds.), Contesting empire, globalizing dissent: Cultural studies after 9/11. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.Denzin, N.K. (2006). Analytic autoethnography, or déjà vu all over again. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 35(4) 419-428. 10.1177/0891241606286985 Ellis, C. (2004). The ethnographic i: A methodological novel about teaching and doing autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. Gilliland, H. (1999). Growth through Native American learning styles. Teaching the Native American (4th ed.). IO: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co.

References (2)

Goodall, Jr., H.L. (2008). Writing qualitative inquiry: Self, stories, and academic life. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press Inc. Google.com/images Jones, S. H. (2005). Autoethnography: Making the personal political. The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Neumann, M. (1996). Collecting ourselves at the end of the century. In C. Ellis & A. Bochner (Eds). Composing ethnography: Alternative forms of qualitative writing, 172-98. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Spry, T. (2001). Performing autoethnography: An embodied methodological praxis. Qualitative Inquiry 7,706-32.