An autoethnographic study of my experience with breast cancer.
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Date
2020
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Abstract
My breast cancer experience facilitated the exploration of my intersectional identities
within an autoethnographic framework. I contextually reflected on my personal and
professional identities within the interactional lens of silence and vulnerability. The qualitative
methodology of autoethnography allowed me to use autobiographical self-reflective data
collection that included self-narrative, poetry, photographs, presentation, intersecting academic
and community spaces. The data collection informed the analytical intersecting chapters that
reflect the research question and the associated three objectives: (1) to explore the
transformative nuances of my breast cancer in relation to my intersecting identities, (2)
examine how my profession as an academic and psychologist had an influence on meaningmaking
of my illness and healing and (3) investigate the contextual contributions of
interconnectivity within communities. The concluding chapter reasserts the intersecting matrix
of my identities as I navigated through my breast cancer experience. This elaborate
autoethnographic process ultimately contributes to existing knowledge and the national
narrative of breast cancer within the South African context.
Description
Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.