It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post, which isn’t to say that I haven’t been writing. Over the summer I completed three article drafts, which are in various stages of the editorial process for future publication – a new milestone that I’ve been very proud to pursue. Simultaneously, my colleagues and I have been thinking about the ways that we measure our success as librarians and are experiencing some frustration at the differences between librarian and faculty acknowledgement and promotion. For example, faculty on our campus are promoted when they demonstrate dedication to service, scholarship, and teaching – librarians are not. My own investment in these areas is not leading me to additional financial stability. I am interested in participating, but should I be compensated for this work? Is my interest in pursuing compensation or recognition a drive towards neoliberal values and the cult of productivity or am I advocating for change in an inequitable system?
My questions have led me to begin to think in earnest, again, about assessment. How can I advocate to for the representation of the work my colleagues that increases visibility and demonstrates value? How can I assess students and instruction in a way accounts for the value of diverse human experiences and ways of knowing and being?
This past year, I’ve been turning towards some methodologies that appear (to me) to be outside the standby methods of the social sciences, but have value in representing the complexities of what is occurring in life and education: autoethnography and narrative inquiry. I have a lot to learn, but I’m aiming to grow towards the regular creation of field texts and in greater understanding of the tensions in creating research texts from them.
My first reading about narrative inquiry was Clandinin’s (2006) “Narrative inquiry: A methodology for studying lived experience.” Clandinin (2006) provides an easy-to-read, engaging overview that has me excited to read more. Next I’m going to explore the dimensions of field texts that Cladinin and Connelly (2000) uses to situate a narrative (interaction, continuity, and place) and consider the differences in methodologies in order to determine what will suit our/my library needs (Clandinin & Rosiek, 2006).
Clindinin (2006) refers to Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri, who says, “We live stories that either give our lives meaning or negate it with meaninglessness” (pg. 51). I believe that there is meaning in the experiences that lead us to location of ourselves, our need to know, and our path to growth. Here I am, once again, standing in a place where I do not know – declaring my current motivations, position, and inspiration and where I hope this drive leads me.
Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Clandinin, D. J. (2006). Narrative inquiry: A method for studying lived experience. Research Studies in Music Education, 27(1), 44-54. DOI: 10.1177/1321103X060270010301
Clandinin, D. J., & Rosiek, (2006). Mapping a landscape of narrative inquiry: Borderland spaces and tensions. In D. J. Clandinin (Ed.), Handbook of narrative inquiry: Mapping a methodology (pp. 35-75). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
