Much Louder Than I Am: A Musical Collaborative Autoethnography

Abstract

One challenge of performative research is that a performance is a one-time unique event. It cannot be preserved or returned to in its own form. Here, we offer a more durable artifact to preserve some aspects of the collaborative performance autoethnography we performed at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI) in 2018. We write to communicate not only what we performed during the session but also our sentiments concerning singing and playing music as autoethnography. Because so often in our work we use songs, songwriting, music, and performance; we propose rhythm, melody, and harmony as alternative acts of autoethnographic collaboration. In this way of doing autoethnography, it may be that no words are spoken. But the burden of work is shared. This is the kind of collaboration we seek … in the here and now.