UKZN Educationists Launch Book on Academic Autoethnographies

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Academics at the School of Education - Dr Daisy Pillay, Dr Inbanathan Naicker and Dr Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan - have launched their insightful book: Academic Autoethnographies: Inside Teaching in Higher Education (Sense Publishers, 2016).

The book invites readers to experience autoethnography as a challenging, complex, and creative research methodology that can produce useful understanding of teaching and researching in Higher Education on personal, professional, and social levels. 

Pillay explained: ‘The idea for Academic Autoethnographies was inspired by conversations about our lives and work as academics in Higher Education Institutions.  We realised that we wanted a deeper, more nuanced understanding of autoethnography and, in particular, its potential as a self-reflexive research methodology for higher education academics such as ourselves. 

‘We would particularly like to acknowledge support and grant funding for the book from the UKZN University Teaching and Learning Office (UTLO).’

The book will be useful to specialists in the field of Higher Education and to those in other academic domains who are interested in self-reflexive and creative research methodologies and methods. The sociocultural, educational, and methodological insights communicated by this book will be valuable for scholars both within and beyond South African university contexts.

Discussing the book, UKZN's Professor Nithi Muthukrishna said: ‘This compelling book foregrounds autoethnography as an innovative and creative research methodology to generate reflexive sociological understandings of teaching and researching across disciplines in Higher Education.’

The book can be ordered directly from Sense publishers online at http://tinyurl.com/zshru2b for US$ 54.00. Alternatively it can be ordered through book stores.

 Melissa Mungroo