An Autoethnographic Performance: The Researcher's Story of Hysterectomy and Menopause as Act of Resistance and Activism. Issue 3 (November 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: O' Grady, Grace
• Other Names: de Andrade Marisa guest-editor.; Fang Nini guest-editor.; Murray Fiona guest-editor.; Rodríguez-Dorans Edgar guest-editor.; Stenhouse Rosie guest-editor.; Wyatt Jonathan guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: International review of qualitative research. Volume 14:Issue 3(2021)
• Page Start: 533
• Page End: 546
• Publication Date: 2021-11
• Subjects: autoethnography -- performance -- voice -- activism; Qualitative research -- Periodicals; Social sciences -- Research -- Periodicals; Social justice -- Periodicals; Qualitative research; Social justice; Social sciences -- Research; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 001.42
• DOI: 10.1177/19408447211042802
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1940-8447

Abstract

One year after beginning a large-scale research inquiry into how young people construct their identities I became ill and subsequently underwent abdominal surgery which triggered an early menopause. The process which was experienced as creatively bruising called to be written as "Artful Autoethnography" using visual images and poetry to tell a "vulnerable, evocative and therapeutic" story of illness, menopause, and their subject positions in intersecting relations of power. The process which was experienced as disempowering called to be performed as an act of resistance and activism. This performance ethnography is in line with the call for qualitative inquirers to move beyond strict methodological boundaries. In particular, the voice of activism in this performance is in the space between data (human voice and visual art pieces) and theory. To this end, and in resisting stratifying institutional/medical discourse, the performance attempts to create a space for a merger of ethnography and activism in public/private life.