An a/r/tographic métissage: Storying the self as pedagogic practice

Abstract

This article traces the experience of four arts educators as they consider ‘self as subject-matter’ through living inquiry. Anchored in arts-based approaches, storying the self four ways offers both an individual perspective and an a/r/tographic métissage of becoming through the weaving of narratives that derive from sociocultural and historical contexts. The practice of narrative as research considers the following questions: how does the presentation/communication component of life writing colour a narrative? What common and potentially universal experiences occur within life writing research? Through the collaborative exchange of four narratives, a fifth emerges: in response to the creative journey of others, and in documenting our entanglements with them, we open spaces. Illustrating how the introspective and extrospective interact with the visual or performative as a vehicle for revealing the self, this article posits that the self-in-relation to theory and practice becomes a way of knowing that broadens educational discourse among artists/researchers/teachers.