SIG in Autoethnography

Call for Participation 

Autoethnography 2024 Special Interest Group (SIG):  

Presence Tense: Moving Collectively into a New History

Wednesday May 15, 2:00-6:00 pm (US Central Time)

SIG Leaders: Durell Callier, Marcelo Diversi, Elissa Foster, Dominique Hill, and Stacy Holman Jones

The theme of this year’s ICQI conference, Qualitative Inquiry in the Present Tense: Writing a New History calls us to critically reflect on and creatively imagine how autoethnographers can write a new history of the present that intervenes into and affects change in everyday life.

In this SIG day, we aim to: 

  • Write and speak and move through space in/with both ‘present/ce’ and ‘tense/time’, troubling the waters to arrive in a new present
  • Build on collectivity, activity, mindfulness and hope to write the new present while gratefully holding the ‘past’ 
  • Honour Norman Denzin in his work and presence to the SIG and autoethnography
  • Celebrate 20 years of ICQI and the presence of autoethnography in our history

Format of the session: 

2:00-2:30 Presencing Time: A performative opening that evokes our ways for presencing tense so that we might arrive in a new (autoethnographic) present.**

2:30-3:45 Pausing Time to (Re)member: Honouring Norman Denizin, his work and importance to this SIG and to autoethnography via a walking/bicycling meditation. This will be live streamed so that folks unable to undertake a physical walk may join us via a virtual journey. 

4:00-5:00 Braiding Time: Celebrating 20 years of ICQI and autoethnography’s central role in the Congress through a storymaking activity in which we’ll share and materially gather past works, memories and favourite moments, building a paper bridge to a shared future. 

5:00-6:00 Writing Time: Closing with a collective writing in which everyone who graced the room contributes something to be performed as part of a collective autoethnography on presence, present tense, futurity. 

**If you’re interested in participating in this, please send an email to [email protected] indicating so.