Judge Preston, Annmarie
(2019)
The Man with the Bag:
An Autoethnographic Exploration into Practitioner
Experience of Working in the Activation Paradigm
During Ireland’s Housing Crisis.
Masters thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
Abstract
This research is a living inquiry into my experience of working as a guidance
counsellor, in a contracted government employment service, within the
activation paradigm. A housing crisis has engulfed Ireland. The future of the
service where I work lies in limbo. It is deeply unsettling times.
Presented in three parts, Part 1 begins in 2017 as a battle, as I struggle to work
in a person-centred way, within the closing walls of the neoliberal system in
which I work. Charged with making sense of it, I reluctantly open myself up to
writing through it, using the methodology of autoethnography as a vehicle for
reflexivity. Using evocative vignettes, I share stories of the people I am meeting
through the course of my job, documenting the hopelessness and anger I feel
towards the system. Contemplating leaving my profession, I seek out a learning
space on a M.Ed. Guidance & Counselling programme. Part 2 then lowers me
into my education journey and my own story. In Part 3, I reflect upon what I
have learned.
My ontological view of the world is that there is value in people’s stories. My
epistemological perspective is that these stories need to be interpreted, in order
to discover the underlying meaning. I am telling the story of my unfolding
meaning making through my living inquiry. I am trying to understand the
experience I have lived through. Am still living through.
And how autoethnography, story and narrative can play a pivotal role in
practitioner reflexivity and development. The narrative method of inquiry, which
I used in this research, was narrative writing, as it focused on researching into
an experience (Clandinin & Connolly, 2000, p.50). Narrative writing allows
researchers to question internal conditions such as feelings and emotions. I
then used the methodology of autoethnography to explore my own emotional
experience.
Equipped with a deeper understanding of myself, I can battle onwards in this
challenging work, resourced with hope and resilience.
| Item Type: |
Thesis
(Masters)
|
| Additional Information: |
Submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements
for the M.Ed. in Guidance & Counselling |
| Keywords: |
Guidance counselling;
Autoethnographic Exploration; Practitioner
Experience; Practitioner development; Activation Paradigm;
Ireland; Housing Crisis; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Adult and Community Education |
| Item ID: |
14592 |
| Depositing User: |
IR eTheses
|
| Date Deposited: |
05 Jul 2021 11:48 |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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