Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 June 2012
My research represents an application of the method of autoethnography to the field of teacher education. According to one definition, autoethnography is ‘an autobiographical genre of writing and research that displays multiple layers of consciousness connecting the personal to the cultural’ (Ellis & Bochner 2000: 739). It is associated with the growing acceptance of the use of the self in research which is characteristic of the postmodern era (Muncey 2010: xii). One of its advantages is that it allows voices that are normally hidden to be heard, including those which are deviant in some way or differ from the official explanations given for a phenomenon (ibid.: 110). Any situation that involves human beings is complex, and the opportunities offered by autoethnography allow the researcher to engage productively with this complexity.