Purpose
The authors, seven women–writers–performers–artists–academics, have been working collectively for a year, storying, de-storying and re-storying the experience of our lives. The authors write to “taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect” (Nin, 1976), to uncover and learn ourselves through writing (Richardson, 1997), to take the “risky” steps of talking to each other about our inner lives (Palmer, 1998). Cognisant of the limitations and masculinities of traditional academic discourses, in form and content, and heavily confined by neoliberal expectations to count and be counted, we write and express the stories of lives the authors did not choose or imagine – lives we are given and live through. Our expression inhabits aesthetic, contemplative and sensory ways of knowing and employs poetry, image, song and story to create a polyvocal account of women’s lives, voices, struggles and learning. The authors share here part of our collective memoir and its development. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is designed as a collective memoir.
Findings
The authors write and express the stories of lives we did not choose or imagine – lives we are given and live through. The expression inhabits aesthetic, contemplative and sensory ways of knowing and employs poetry, image, song and story to create a polyvocal account of women’s lives, voices, struggles and learning. The authors share here part of our collective memoir and its development.
Research limitations/implications
The research focuses on autoethnography and lived experience.
Originality/value
Auto-ethnography/lived experience offers rich insights into the personal and political actions and actors within higher education.
Violence, emotion and place: The case of five murders involving sex workers
