Centring reflexivity, positionality and autoethnographic practices in creative research

In this chapter, I argue that different forms of personal, reflective writing can be central to creative research methods. Indeed, I suggest that diverse practices of personal, reflective writing can be creative research methods in themselves. The chapter offers three sets of resources in support of thinking, writing and research which permits use of the first person ‘I’. First, I highlight the practical value of researching reflexively and being a critically self-reflective researcher. Second, taking this commitment to reflexivity a little further, I develop an argument about the political significance of considering positionality and acknowledging our situatedness, intersectional identities and extrasectional social-materialities. Third, for readers inspired to invest more of yourself (your ‘I’) in academic work, I signpost a proliferating range of openings for creative autoethnographic (or somewhat-autoethnographic) practices. In each section, I provide resources and reflections from my own autoethnographic work, and the chapter concludes with a worked example revealing some of the processes and decisions through which I wrote the preface to this chapter.