An autoethnographic study of my experience with breast cancer.

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.