A Critical Discussion of the Work-Life Experiences of Scholar Practitioners

Abstract

The ability to understand how our work-life experiences impact our pursuits as emerging scholars, parents, and individuals is critical to our successful performance in each role. We explore the intricacies of our work-life systems using collaborative autoethnography, a technique in which several autobiographical ethnographies are analyzed in a group. We use a critical lens to better understand our experiences as a consequence of socially acceptable norms and challenges to the status quo. It is our hope that by better understanding and discussing our work-life experiences as emerging scholars, others balancing these multiple identities will also find useful lessons. Self-reflection questions grounded in our findings and a free-write prompt from our initial data collection are shared as a starting point for others to begin their own autoethnographies.