Abstract:
In this presentation, Dewi presents her doctoral writing journey in a language which is not her own. Using the autoethnographic lens which allows her to write the subjective ‘self’ through reflections, she explores the tensions and struggles alongside the joys and pleasures of writing the embodied ‘self’. Writing itself is foreign and Dewi was convinced by Cixous (1993) that writing uses different languages. Helene Cixous showed her an alternative logic of thinking otherwise which is different from phallocentric masculine writing. Writing like this means freedom with no limits. Being confronted with this new and foreign territory of writing, she cannot help but wonder whether she is capable of writing this way. Is she capable of being so playful and free in her writing? Can she play harmoniously with words from a language which is not her first language?She then follows the path of feminist scholars who are also “post” scholarship researchers. They showed her, performatively, a way to write against the conventional style of academic thesis writing. She then met Laurel Richardson (1997) who gave her permission to experiment with writing. Liz Mackinlay (2019) encouraged her to write with heartlines. However, St Pierre (2018, p. 604) warns her that such experimental writing is risky as it is creative, surprising, and remarkable. St Pierre further states that such writing, “cannot be measured, predicted, controlled, systematized, formalized, described in a textbook or called forth by pre-existing, approved methodological processes, methods and practices” (p. 604). From those feminist scholars she goes through her academic journey to challenge the rules and seek to write differently by experimenting with new forms and genres in writings.ReferencesCixous, H. (1993). Three steps on the ladder of writing. Columbia University Press.Mackinlay, E. (2019). Critical writing for embodied approaches: Autoethnography, feminism and decoloniality. Springer International Publishing.Richardson, L. (1997). Fields of play: Constructing an academic life. Rutgers University Press. St Pierre, E. (2018). Writing post qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(9), 603-608. doi:10.1177/1077800417734567