Collective Autoethnography

Tiffany Karalis Noel, PhD, is Director of Doctoral Programs and Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Learning and Instruction at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. She also serves as Associate Chair of Curriculum and is an institutional delegate for the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate. Her scholarly expertise spans qualitative research methods, narrative inquiry, curriculum studies, teacher education, and educational leadership, with a particular emphasis on collective and relational approaches to research and inquiry.

• About the Author, A Note on Structure, Acknowledgment of Collective Origins, Preface, PART I: FOUNDATIONS OF COLLECTIVE AUTOETHNOGRAPHY, Introduction: Collective Autoethnography as Method and Praxis, What This Introduction Does, Two Origin Stories, Defining Collective Autoethnography, Method and Praxis: Why the Distinction Is Not Optional, The Six Phases as Events, Who This Book Is For, Chapter 1: Methodological Foundations, Locating CoAE within Qualitative Research, Epistemological Foundations: What Kind of Knowledge CoAE Produces, The Autoethnographic Lineage, Collaborative Autoethnography: The Immediate Predecessor, Relational and Duoethnographic Traditions, Narrative Inquiry: Temporality, Sociality, and Storied Meaning, Participatory Action Research: Democratic Knowledge Production, Feminist and Relational Epistemologies, The Question of Rigor, Chapter 2: Why Now?, Collective Autoethnography in a Time of Crisis and Reckoning, The World in Which This Method Is Practiced, Post-Pandemic Institutional Transformation: When Continuity Became Performance, Burnout and Moral Injury: When Care Collides with Structure, Racial Justice and Epistemic Burden: Who Carries the Work of Knowing, Institutional Inequity and the Grammar of Neutrality, Technological Rupture and the Shifting Ground of Knowledge, Care, Reckoning, and the Ethics of Staying, Why CoAE Belongs to This Moment, What These Conditions Mean for How CoAE Is Practiced,, PART II: THE SIX PHASES OF COLLECTIVE AUTOETHNOGRAPHY, Chapter 3: Asking Together, Co-Constructing Research Questions and Protocols, The Purpose of Phase One, Building the Research Question: From Tension to Inquiry, Building the Interview Protocol: Questions That Invite Story, Working Agreements: The Ethical Infrastructure of Collective Inquiry, The Worked Example: Phase One in the 2020 Founding Project, A Second Worked Example: Phase One in a Healthcare Setting, Common Problems in Phase One and How to Respond, Readiness Check: Is the Group Ready for Phase Two?, Chapter 4: Meeting in Story, Conducting Acquaintance Interviews and Navigating Researcher Roles, The Purpose of Phase Two, The Acquaintance Interview: Relational Proximity as Analytic Resource, Role Rotation: What Each Role Requires, Practical Logistics: Scheduling, Technology, and Data Stewardship, A Second Worked Example: Phase Two in a Faculty Advising Context, Common Problems in Phase Two and How to Respond, Readiness Check: Is the Group Ready for Phase Three?, Chapter 5: Listening on the Page, Transcription as Collective Interpretation, The Purpose of Phase Three, Transcription as Interpretation: What the Words Cannot Hold Alone, The Transcription Process: Refinement Rather Than Production, The Interviewee Review: Consent and Accuracy, A Second Worked Example: Phase Three in an Organizational Inquiry, A Third Worked Example: Phase Three in an Academic Department Setting, Common Problems in Phase Three and How to Respond, Readiness Check: Is the Group Ready for Phase Four?, Chapter 6: Seeing with Many Eyes, Coding and Thematic Analysis in CoAE, The Purpose of Phase Four, Building the Codebook, The Independent Coding Process, The Alignment Meeting, The Independent Theme Search, A Second Worked Example: Phase Four in a Community-Based Research Setting, A Third Worked Example: Phase Four in an Academic Department Setting, Common Problems in Phase Four and How to Respond, Readiness Check: Is the Group Ready for Phase Five?, Chapter 7: Finding Our Through-Lines, Achieving Consensus and Deepening Interpretation, The Purpose of Phase Five, What Consensus Is and What It Is Not, The Consensus Meeting: Structure and Facilitation, A Second Worked Example: Phase Five in a School District Setting, A Third Worked Example: Phase Five in an Academic Department Setting, Common Problems in Phase Five and How to Respond, Readiness Check: Is the Group Ready for Phase Six?, Chapter 8: Weaving the Narrative, Producing the Co-Authored Story, The Purpose of Phase Six, Writing Modes: How to Distribute the Narrative Labor, Working with Transcript Excerpts in the Narrative, The Final Consent Review, A Second Worked Example: Phase Six in a Graduate Seminar Context, A Third Worked Example: Phase Six in an Academic Department Setting, Common Problems in Phase Six and How to Respond, Readiness Check: Is the Narrative Ready for the Final Consent Review?, PART III: PEDAGOGIES AND APPLICATIONS OF COLLECTIVE AUTOETHNOGRAPHY, Chapter 9: Collective Autoethnography as Pedagogy, Teaching Reflexivity, Collaboration, and Care, The Pedagogical Argument for CoAE, CoAE in a Graduate Research Methods Course, Syllabus Design Principles, A Semester Arc: Mapping CoAE Onto a Fifteen-Week Course, Assessment in CoAE Pedagogy, CoAE in a Dissertation Research Seminar, The Single Authorship Tension in Dissertation Contexts, Preparing the IRB Application for a Dissertation CoAE Project, Preparing for the Committee Defense Conversation, CoAE in Professional Learning Communities, Facilitation Challenges and How to Address Them, Chapter 10: Practicing CoAE Across Contexts, Research, Advising, and Organizational Inquiry, CoAE Across Contexts: What Stays Constant and What Adapts, CoAE in Dissertation Research: The Scholar-Practitioner Context, Framing CoAE for Institutional Review Boards, Managing Power in Dissertation CoAE Groups, CoAE in Faculty Advising: Studying the Doctoral Experience, CoAE in Healthcare Settings, CoAE in Social Work and Community-Based Settings, CoAE in Organizational Inquiry, What All Contexts Share — and What CoAE Has Found, PART IV: TRANSFORMATION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS, Chapter 11: Ethics, Care, and Collective Accountability in Research, Ethics as Method, Not Compliance, The Five Ethical Dimensions of CoAE, Iterative Consent: Returning to the Agreement at Every Phase, Power, Equity, and the Ethics of Collective Voice, Ownership of Experience: What Belongs to Whom, Authorship and Credit: Making Labor Visible, Representation, Harm, and the Ethical Reach of CoAE Narratives, Collective Accountability After Publication, Ethical Edge Cases: When the Framework Is Not Enough, Conclusion: Collective Autoethnography as a Transformative Research Methodology, What Collective Autoethnography Produces, The Collective as Analytic Instrument, Ethics as Method, Research as Relational Practice, Frontier Questions: Where CoAE Is Still Being Made, A Note on Where This Methodology Comes From, To the Reader Who Is About to Begin, Glossary of Key Terms in Collective Autoethnography, Master References