Understanding and expressing academic identity through systematic autoethnography

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article describes an autoethnographic approach that can be used by academics in higher education to better understand how their academic identity is constructed. The article emphasizes considerations for academics with non-traditional roles that are not discipline-focused, while also providing relevant methods for academics with any role who wish to explore their academic identity at its core. A detailed systematic approach to autoethnography is outlined, with data collection, data analysis, and methods of creating expressions of academic identity described. This approach to autoethnography provided new understandings regarding how the author’s academic identity has been constructed over time in ways that extended and deepened insights from reviewing the literature and writing unstructured reflections alone. The creation of expressions of academic identity from this study represent valuable professional development outcomes, which can also help to bring professional goals into better focus. Overall, this article demonstrates that the use of autoethnography to explore academic identity can not only lend clarity and depth to one’s conceptualization of this, but can also transform the perception of oneself as an academic as a result.