Hello and welcome to the homepage of Stuart Napier. This site is dedicated to the deconstruction of my identity. Through the use of autoethnography I will present and interpret stories from my life in terms of four axes of identity; gender, race, religion and class. These stories will also relate to my interpretation of home and issues of community identity and my exploration into what has led me to wanting to become a teacher.

In using oneself as an ethnographic exemplar, the researcher is freed from the traditional conventions of writing. One’s unique voicing – complete with colloquialisms, reverberations from multiple relationships, and emotional expressiveness – is honoured. In this way the reader gains a sense of the writer as a full human being. (Gergen and Gergen as cited in Etherington, 2004, p. 137)

According to Austin (2006) if we brake down the word autoethnography we get ‘auto’ which means self, ‘ethnos’ which means people, cultures, foreigners, others and ‘grapho’ which means to write. Therefore an autoethnography is a piece of work about self with relation to ones culture and the people who make up that culture. Autoethnography is a qualitative type of research method. “…qualitative inquiry is based on communication—on the collection of stories, narratives, and descriptions of others’ experiences” (Morse, 2005). It is useful research tool, as the researcher has an endless supply of information which can be located via memory work. “As a qualitative research method, autoethnography is useful for making connections between researcher and participant, deepening interpretive analysis of both common and differing experiences, and producing knowledge drawn from compassionate understanding and rigorous reflection” (Foster, Mcallister and O’Brien, 2005).

This autoethnography is based on a trip my partner Belinda and I took some years ago. It was an invaluable learning experience for us both and that is why I chose to use it as my base for this website. Throughout this trip I learned many things about myself, some of which have shaped me into the person I am today. Our journey is mapped out on the map below. The coloured circles represent places on our expedition that impacted greatly on my identity. Please click on the above links which correspond to the colours on the map. They will open the narratives which make up my autoethnography.

 Please note: some of the narratives are set before this trip took place but are still important events that contributed to my identity.