The traveling researchers’ sisterhood: Four female voices from Latin America in a collaborative autoethnography
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a collaborative (auto)ethnography that has emerged from the meeting of four academic researchers working with and from the heart in various Latin American contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
Our “I’s” have mingled with our very varied participations in different themes, latitudes, and disciplines – health, education and psychosocial approaches. We have worked, variously, in both English and Spanish. At the core of this piece are our own biographies, motivations, senses, academic dreams, international contexts, and the injustices and suffering felt in our bodies.
Findings
We seek to reflect from our experience of traveling as young researchers and as women with Latin souls. Through our stories, we show how crossing cultures as part of our research and work gives us both a privileged position but also the constant stress and questioning that goes beyond the intellectual and appears in our embodied experiences of interculturality.
Research limitations/implications
The limitation of this piece of research is that it is based on personal experiences, that although there may be people who feel identified with these experiences, these are not generalizable or transferable.
Practical implications
Performative autoethnography is an instance to understand the world like a crisol with different faces; self, social, cultural and methodology, which allows us to understand the world from a holistic perspective.
Social implications
With this paper, we hope to contribute for other women in academia to see themselves reflected in the experience of moving through a globalized world.
Originality/value
Through both living in and reflecting on this process, we show how our experiences provide us with new, intercultural “worlds under construction.”
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Pamela Zapata-Sepúlveda would like to thank Professor Norman K. Denzin at the International Center for Qualitative Inquiry – University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign for his support and guidance to encourage me to find my voice. I also would like to thank Michelle, Phiona and Mirliana for their wonderful support in this collaborative piece. Finally I would like to thank the Performance Agreement Project at UTA-MINEDUC. Michelle Espinoza-Lobos would like to thank the Becas Chile scheme which has allowed her to study and live in Australia for the last four years. I would also like to thank my traveling sisters for their endless inspiration. Phiona Stanley would like to acknowledge research funding received from the School of Education, UNSW. This has enabled her to conduct fieldwork in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Peru in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
Citation
Zapata-Sepúlveda, P., Stanley, P., Ramírez-Pereira, M. and Espinoza-Lobos, M. (2016), "The traveling researchers’ sisterhood: Four female voices from Latin America in a collaborative autoethnography", Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 251-262. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-07-2015-0062
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited