Applied utility and the auto-ethnographic short story: persuasions for, and illustrations of, writing critical social science

Gilbourne, David; Jones, Robyn; Jordan, Spencer

Abstract

In some quarters it is argued that, narrative researchers might be classified as being either storyanalysts or storytellers. They go on to suggest that one feature of storytellers is that they undertake a form of analysis as the process of writing unfolds. With these sentiments in mind, in the present paper, we consider how auto-ethnographical accounts of traumatic and challenging life events might, through the analysis contained within, demonstrate value within the realm of applied pedagogy. In making our case we embrace and adapt the literary genre of storytelling, more specifically, the short story. The story presented here, ‘Travel Writer’, offers an opaque, multicontextualised and lifelong view of career transition. The present paper, in more general terms, considers the capacity of auto-ethnography and, more specifically, the short storied version of it, to engender critical reader engagement, to encourage personal reflection in others, and to act as a point of stimulus for the enactment of applied debate through the lens of critical social science. With regards to the assumptions of critical social science, the final discussion also considers how the auto-ethnographic text, as a pedagogic tool, might help others to contest and challenge the meta-narratives that, we argue, risk stagnating established thinking.

Citation

Gilbourne, D., Jones, R., & Jordan, S. (2014). Applied utility and the auto-ethnographic short story: persuasions for, and illustrations of, writing critical social science. Sport, Education and Society, 19(1), https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2011.632405

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 10, 2011
• Online Publication Date: Nov 21, 2011
• Publication Date: Mar 2, 2014
• Deposit Date: Aug 11, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 11, 2016
• Journal: Sport, Education and Society
• Print ISSN: 1357-3322
• Electronic ISSN: 1357-3322
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 1
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2011.632405
• Keywords: Short story, Critical social science, Pedagogy, Sport, Auto-ethnography
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/725923
• Publisher URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13573322.2011.632405
• Additional Information: The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published and is available in Sport, Education and Society (2014) http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13573322.2011.632405