Abstract
The whakapapa (ancestry) of autoethnography Haunts our becoming.
And perhaps a note to serendipity…
A Māori whakatauki (proverb)
The whakapapa (ancestry) of autoethnography
Haunts our becoming.
We are walking where others have paved a way.
We are walking on ‘giants’ shoulders’.
We are walking in the shoes of our AE ancestors.
We have been given permission to tell our story.
So (aka Derrida) in learning to live,
In learning to be an autoethnographer,
We must talk with or about some [AE] ghost (Derrida, 1994, p. xviii).
We must write in collaboration with our scholarly ghosts (St Pierre, 2014).
We must tell our stories through collaborative engagement with theory (Holman Jones, 2016).
We must be brave.
“But how can you be brave” they asked.
Because Laurel said I could (Richardson, 1994),
Because Norman said I should (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000),
Because Elliot painted a picture (Eisner, 2002),
Because Dorothy performed a play (Bolton, 2003),
Because Tami danced her story (Spry, 2011),
Because Soyini pointed out positionality (Madison, 2012),
Because Art and Carolyn showed us how (Ellis et al., 2010),
Because Linda decolonized the mahi (work) (Smith, 1999),
Because Claudio and Marcelo followed Linda (Diversi & Moreira, 2009),
And because, my Grandfather was a storyteller.
And I too want to make change.
I am not brave.
I just walk in a ‘braves’ shoes.
Note: A thank you to these following scholarly collaborators and many more.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
