1st Edition
Meaningful Journeys Autoethnographies of Quest and Identity Transformation
Meaningful Journeys is an edited collection of autoethnographies underpinned by the conceptual, philosophical, and etymological origins of ‘journeying,’ ‘questing,’ and traditional and modern understandings of ‘pilgrimage.’
The volume contains chapters on the ways in which all these concepts intersect with identity and identity transformation. These range across narratives of sport; adventure; preferred identity; curative religion; revered location; nostalgia; grief resolution; ‘out of suitcase’ travels; and pilgrimage journeys understood in more traditional senses. The collection showcases and promotes the identity transformational quest as an important conceptual nuance of narrative autoethnography. Readers will engage with the ways in which contributing authors craft their emerging selves into preferred identities, which showcase personal and relational change in action.
This book is essential reading for students and practitioners of autoethnography and qualitative research internationally and others interested in identity transformation in narrative inquiry.
1. Meaningful Journeys, Identity Transformation, and Autoethnographic Selfhood
Alec Grant and Elizabeth Lloyd-Parkes
2. Running Towards Death: A tale of an old man in trainers
Alec Grant
3. The Red Carpet Quest: An ironman competitor’s transformational journey
Tina Thomas
4. A Motorcycle Pilgrimage on Icelandic F-Roads
Jason Wragg
5. Solo Trails/Trials for this Unlikely Hiker: Purpose, purity, and quest
Phiona Stanley
6. The Pilgrimage to Manhood: An autoethnographic account of transition from female to male as a journey of self-discovery
Alexander Boswell
7. A Scot an’ a Sassenach Scrieve Aboot Leid: A three pairt Scotoethnography (A Scot and an English person write about language: A Scotoethnography in three parts)
Alec Grant and Susan Young
8. Curative Encounters: Representations of the transformational journey of the pilgrim to Lourdes
Simon Thomas, Elizabeth Lloyd-Parkes, and Rebecca Hedd Thomas
9. Welsh Pilgrimage: A quest for a reaffirmed national identity and a secular journey to a spiritual locus
Elizabeth Lloyd-Parkes
10. A Journey Through Prolonged Grief: Transforming identity to heal and reconcile loss
Linita Eapen Mathew
11. Professor Out of a Suitcase (or Ferris Bueller’s Year Off)
Reinekke Lengelle
12. Paying Respects to The Greatest: Ziyarat in Louisville, Kentucky
Sophia Arjana
13. Pilgrimage to a Shared Site: A Buddhist scholar and Muslim scholar visit Borobudur
Blayne Harcey and Sophia Arjana
Biography
Alec Grant, PhD, is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Wellbeing, University of Bolton, England, UK.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Lloyd-Parkes, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of South Wales, Newport, Wales, UK.
"This an intriguing book. Apart from being scholarly, it is of huge interest. I found myself transfixed by many of the journeys described. The book can be read at several levels. Two were more apparent to me. First, there are the individual journeys and stories. In themselves these are fascinating. I wanted to know more about the authors than was present in even these more authentic autoethnographic accounts. Second, there are the implications for the reader and their own life journeys. Bono intoned, ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.’ I wondered, have these authors found it? As readers we are indebted to Professor Grant and Dr Lloyd-Parkes for such a thoughtful collection of ‘travel’ accounts." -- Jerome Carson, PhD, Professor of Psychology, University of Bolton, UK
