Women in Powerful Conversation: Collaborative Autoethnography and Academia

Working as women in academia may still be regarded as 'complex and fraught with myths, gross generalisations and mixed emotions' (Barakat, 2014, p. 1). In this paper, we articulate the collaborative autoethnographic process in which we have been engaged over some time and through which we have challenged generalisations, explored emotions and illuminated further our complex identities as women in academia. Sharing and making visible our collaborative autoethnographic conversations and writing to other readers is risky and exposes us to possible censure. We realise that we are susceptible to being disparaged for being self-indulgent -- a common criticism of autoethnography -- yet we contend that our conversations and writing are both self and socially luminous as we connect our 'selves' with the UK higher education context. The paper's main focus is the collaborative autoethnographic process in which we have been engaged. Examples from our conversations and writing are included in order to demonstrate the power of this process and its potential and wider relevance for research.