Revise, resubmit and reveal? An autoethnographer’s story of facing the challenges of revealing the self through publication

Abstract

This article presents a story of writing, revising and publishing an autoethnography of sporting injury. Using extracts from peer review comments and personal reflections both on these reviews and on the process more broadly, I show that although autoethnography can be a very challenging, even troubling, experience for the author, it can also be rewarding and empowering when editors and reviewers offer supportive and constructive comments and suggestions. I argue that greater consideration needs to be given to the aftermath of publication of autoethnographic accounts and call for wider debate about the ethics of asking authors to reveal more about their personal lives and weaknesses in the pursuit of academic goals. The article offers would-be autoethnographers one account of the writing, revising and publishing process in order to explore a number of relevant issues that arise when an author chooses an autoethnographic approach for conducting and presenting research.

‘Do horses cause divorces?’ Autoethnographic insights on family, relationships and resource-intensive leisure

“…otherwise able to avoid in everyday life. Autoethnography is a challenging research approach that can force the researcher to address issues that she otherwise manages to push away (Dashper, 2013(Dashper, , 2015b. Others are always involved in autoethnography, and in this project we have tried to explicitly include our partners in an attempt to make this interconnectivity more apparent, and to overcome some of the critiques of autoethnographic methods and avoid slippage into 'navel gazing' and silencing others within the researcher's story (Delamont, 2008).…”

“…All research projects involve difficult and ongoing ethical considerations and this may be exacerbated in relation to autoethnography (Ellis, 2007). Introspection and autoethnography differ from more established research methods, and when using this approach researchers go into personal exploration which can be uncomfortable, and this project was no exception (Tamas, 2011;Dashper, 2013Dashper, , 2015bDashper, , 2016. Although we did receive ethical approval from one of our institutions at the outset of the project, and our partners gave consent to take part, this did little to address the underlying ethical issues and potential tensions within such a project.…”

Adjuvant chemotherapy: an autoethnography

“…Dashper (2015) has written about how an instruction to ''revise and resubmit'' her autoethnography served as a significant existential threat. But there is also a converse threat: to what extent might editors and reviewers feel pressurised, consciously or unconsciously, to accommodate the account of a deeply ill academic rather than risk doing damage with a harsh rejection letter?…”

“Dear International Guests and Friends of the Icelandic Horse”: Experience, Meaning and Belonging at a Niche Sporting Event

“…Autoethnography is a method of linking personal stories and experiences to wider social and cultural issues (see Anderson, 2006;Coghlan, 2012;Dashper, 2013). Personal experiences are valuable sources of data that can help to capture the nuances of event experiences 'from the inside' which can then contribute to understanding the lived realities of events from different perspectives (Coghlan & Filo, 2013;Dashper, 2015).…”