The Man with the Bag: An Autoethnographic Exploration into Practitioner Experience of Working in the Activation Paradigm During Ireland’s Housing Crisis.

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.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

masters

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

National University of Ireland Maynooth

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Judge Preston, Annmarie

Language dc:language

en