Bio:
Ufuk Keleş completed his PhD studies on a Fulbright grant at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa (2016-2020). Currently, he works as an assistant professor of English language teaching at Bahçeşehir University, Turkey. Before, he taught Advanced EAP, English for specific purposes, and EFL at varying levels at Sabancı University for a year (2021-2022), Yıldız Technical University for over ten years (2006-2017), and Ankara University for three years (2003-2006). He holds one non-thesis MA degree in Gender Studies at İstanbul University (2004 – 2012), and an MA degree with a thesis in TEFL at Bilkent University (2012-2013). Also, he has a BA degree in English Language and Literature at Boğaziçi University (1998-2003).
His PhD dissertation was a critical autoethnography of socialization as an English language learner, teacher, and speaker. His present research interests include L2 Socialization, Social Justice in ELT, Multicultural Education, Transnational Socialization, Autoethnographic Research, and Qualitative Research. He has published papers in internationally renowned peer-reviewed journals including The Qualitative Report; Pedagogy, Culture, and Society; Language Teaching Research; Language Teaching; and International Multilingual Research Journal as well as chapters in edited book volumes published by globally reputable publication companies such as IGI Global, Routledge, Springer Nature, and IAP. He has also presented his work in multiple international conferences such as TESOL Int, AAAL, AERA, GlobELT, and FLEAT. His teaching interests include Ethics in Higher Education, Materials Development and Evaluation, Coursebook Evaluation, Qualitative Research Methods, and Social Justice in ELT. He is married with a son.
Title and Abstract of the Talk:
The Whats, Hows, Whys, and Who(m)s of Autoethnography: A Collaborative Workshop
Based on the nexus of self-study, narrative inquiry and ethography, autoethnography is a qualitative research methodology that focuses on crafting “an academic < - > literary manuscript” in which the researcher turns the spotlights on their personal thoughts/beliefs/emotions and the related experiences and connects these with their society’s norms/ideologies/expectations (Keleş, 2022a, 2022b). It refers to a combination of method, research, and writing (Ellis, 2004) in the field of qualitative research.
Autoethnography, although not very well-received (yet) in Turkey’s social and educational sciences, especially among applied linguistics scholars, has become an established qualitative method of inquiry in educational research (Denzin & Lincoln, 2018). Drawing on critical and postmodern epistemological paradigms, autoethnography denotes a large variety of methodological practices (Ellingson & Ellis, 2008).
Many scholars embrace autoethnography to explore their own transformation stories “in a highly personalized style, drawing on [their] experience to extend understanding about a societal phenomenon” (Wall, 2006, p. 146). While doing so, they assume the dual role of the researcher(s) and the researched (Keleş, 2022a). As opposed to doing research ‘on’ others to understand a given phenomenon, autoethnographers turn to themselves to unveil, interpret, and/or critique the social structures and the underlying power dynamics (Keleş, 2022b) through (re)visiting and (re)constructing their past experiences; (re)conceptualizing and (re)discovering their present practices; and (re)thinking and (re)operationalizing their future performances (Yazan & Keleş, in press).
This workshop has two parts. Part I will be a short introduction to autoethnography; its epistemological foundations, definitions, scope, and types. Part II will be about a compact autoethnographic reflection activity that explores workshop participants’ language learner, user, and/or teacher “mystory” through autoethnographic reflections.
Keywords: Autoethnography, Mystory, Researcher/Participant Dichotomy, Scientific/Literary Binary, Critical Theory, Post-Modern Epistemologies, Narrative Inquiry