Exemplifying Collaborative Autoethnographic Practice via Shared Stories of Mothering

Abstract

In this piece, we articulate the “collaborative autoethnographic practice ” we utilized to illustrate the complexities of mothering that involved: (a) individually writing autoethnographic narratives on mothering, (b) sharing these autoethnographic narratives in a public forum, (c) publicly discussing the heuristic commonalities across these autoethnographic narratives, (d) tying those commonalities back to the literature, and (e) revisiting the autoethnographic narratives for aspects of social critique where our autoethnographic narratives (intentionally or unintentionally) hegemonicaly reproduced cultural scripts. We argue that presenting knowledge of mothering in this way, through collaborative autoethnographic practice, creates a myriad of opportunities for growth and self-reflexivity, and our stories illuminate a part of our existence that often remains