By taking an introspective look into my beliefs, perceptions, and life experiences this study will use an autoethnographical approach to examine the researcher’s evolution from street life, to prison life, to academic life. This study will examine the urban life experiences of the author, tracing a forty-six year span of Black male urban life to examine the potential value of America’s Urban youth. Critical pedagogy will be used as the theoretical framework for this narrative. This research is important because it will explore how Urban and African-centered literature was pivotal in inspiring the researcher to move from a criminal mentality to one of resilience, self-determination, and community uplift.

Liminal space serves as a metaphor in defining the in-between places I feel as an artist/teacher and the in-between places I live in because of the intermixing of images from memory and daily life. As an artist embarking on a career as an educator, I have difficulty visually portraying my identity in my art and feel my future students will find it difficult to define who they are without proper guidance and knowledge of what could define a person. I will be a teacher who will not propose a concept or lesson to students without undertaking the project myself. Identity evolves and incorporates elements of where we live and what we see every day. The liminal, in-between, blurry, and distorted perceptions that define my identity are expressed through arts-based research, autoethnography, and mapping. In this research I create and connect paths that lead to a further definition of the artist/teacher.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Educational Leadership / Kakali Bhattacharya / Royce Ann Collins / How can an adult make meaning from and develop through experiences of mental illness, spiritual awareness, and death? The purpose of this autoethnographic bildungsroman is to explore how a male in the general population describes how life events have influenced his identity development over a period of 23 years, spanning three decades. The researcher-participant asks two primary questions: 1) How does the individual describe his adult development in terms of life events or “individual and cultural episodes” (Smith & Taylor, 2010, p. 52) related to mental illness, spiritual awareness, and death over time? and 2) How does the individual describe his possible selves in constructing a new sense of identity? Addressing these questions contributes to the literature of adult and continuing education by providing a glimpse into stories of lived experiences over time in the light of adult development.

A autoetnografia tem sido utilizada em pesquisas em musicologia e, especialmente, em etnomusicologia, na busca de formas contemporâneas de aproximação entre a experiência artística e as exigências acadêmicas. Este trabalho apresenta uma autoetnografia em diálogo com os artistas que se juntaram a nós, o que permitiu a descrição de quatorze anos de existência do NUO-Opera. Portanto, o objetivo desta investigação é narrar, contextualizar e situar nos campos das artes (teatro, música, dança e performance) e sociedades (contexto político, econômico e social em que vivemos) o que me levou a construir uma proposta de criação e produção artística em ópera na cidade onde nasci, cresci e onde escolhi ser artista. Esta narrativa foi destinada não apenas a uma visão geral do trabalho realizado pela NUO, mas, tomando-o como eixo, proporcionou a identificação de questões retóricas ao longo das descrições que, por sua vez, nos levaram a dialogar com historiadores e diretores que escreveram sobre o conceito e o significado da ópera. Esses processos reflexivos nos levam a acreditar que a existência de uma casa-teatro e que o fazer ópera em uma perspectiva transdisciplinar permite a realização de um percurso singular no campo das artes e especialmente da ópera. A ideia da ópera como gênero transdisciplinar surge em nossas escolhas artísticas, mas também é apresentada nas descrições de pesquisas e no fazer de artistas que têm concebido e proposto espetáculos e performances operísticas ao longo do tempo. Ao final nós podemos conceber que a ópera não é apenas a adição ou a sobreposição de outras práticas artísticas, mas transita entre elas e isso está de acordo com nossas escolhas e propostas artísticas no NUO-Opera Laboratório. / Autoethnography has been used in research in musicology and, especially, in ethnomusicology, in the search for contemporary forms of approximation between the artistic experience and the academic exigences. This work presents an autoethnography in dialogue with the artists who were join with us, what allowed the description of fourteen years of NUO-Opera Laboratory. Therefore, the objective of this investigation is to narrate, contextualizing and situating in the fields of the arts (theater, music, dance and performance) and societies (the political, economic and social context in which we live) what led me to build a proposal of creation and artistic production in opera in the city where I was born, grew up and where I chose to be an artist. This narrative was intended not only to give an overview of the work carried out by the NUO but, taking it as axis, it was possible to identify rhetorical questions throughout the descriptions that led us to dialogue with historians and directors who wrote about the concept and the meaning of opera. This, in turn, leads us to believe that the existence of a house-theater and to do opera in a transdisciplinary perspective allows the realization of a singular course in the field of the arts, and especially of the opera. The idea of opera as a transdisciplinary genre emerge in our artistic choices, but also it are presented in the descriptions of researches and artists that conceives and stages the operatic spectacle over time. In this way, we can conceive that opera is not only the addition or the overlapping of other artistic practices, but it transits between them and that this is in line with our choices and artistic proposals at the NUO-Opera Laboratory.

Creative Journeys contribute to our knowledge of how practical ontology navigates multi-perspectives through an auto-ethnographic journey with material. I investigate how it may be possible to navigate geographic locations – Norway, Britain and Spain – through knitting as an approach to practical and philosophical exploration. In Creative Journeys I am in a process of reflexive practice, engaged in external and internal dialogue, haptic encounters, challenges and creative action. My thesis suggests that engagement with material is a fluid process and understanding evolves, so too does my journey in life. In such circumstances material functions as a mediator; creates a bridge between hand, movement, time and space. Material transcends boundaries, assists orientation and facilitates articulation of aesthetics, reminiscence, symbols, patterns, colour, sensory appreciation; all of which contribute to an understanding of relationships. Body is material and being conscious of body movement with the rhythm of diverse locations enables me to make connections through daily events, to attune to different atmospheres. In such a journey there are moments of harmony and misunderstanding, discord and adjustments; interruptions occur with energy and disrupt patterns of life. These are crossing points which enable me to experience myself through the perspective of the other; to understand how situated knowledge changes in relation to diverse perspectives; and to understand how I may contribute to the social fabric of life of diverse locations through the art of paying attention to detail. Creative Journeys are investigated through three questions: How do I relate to the world? How do art subjectivities manifest themselves through art practice? How does art evolve through relations? The questions are examined within the perspective of situated knowledge; subjectivities; material of location and practice. Investigating material in the context of these questions provides opportunities to develop capacities to navigate social, cultural and political orientation, economy, health, race, gender and belief, which all impact on the journey. My approach to the thesis evolved through my relations with creative works of knitted artefacts which I documented in personal journals. The components of practice have woven threads of inquiry through theory and reflective critical practice and form an aspect of the viva voce examination. Along with the illustrations they contribute to 20% of the written component of the thesis.

This thesis explores the intersection of observational filmmaking with auto-ethnographic writing, a combination not used very often but with great potential for visual anthropologists. I examine how my research and filmmaking over a ten-year period have been shaped both by my cancer experience as well as by my Japanese background. Using the metaphor "journey", I approach my own traumatic cancer experience and turn it into a field of study. My journey begins from the moment of my first cancer diagnosis and treatment in the US, moving through my second diagnosis in Norway, and leading up to my most recent fieldwork with a cancer support community in Japan. My auto-ethnographic journey illustrates how I altered my own relationship to my cancer, moving through critical encounters that transformed me from a silent sufferer to an attentive listener. These experiences have also influenced my metaphorical thinking about "dying well" to "living well" with cancer. My personal journey is closely linked to my professional one, and also affects my approaches to filmmaking. By meeting the anthropologist Paul Stoller, who has also lived in the world of cancer, I learned the importance of coming to terms with one's own cancer mask. This mask can easily evoke a sense of being trapped in a "continuous liminality" (Stoller 2005), a transitional state between health and sickness, hopefulness and hopelessness, past and future, life and death. How am I able, as a researcher and filmmaker, to go on with my life in this in-between state and attend to the lives of others through this cancer mask? In my recent fieldwork, I decided to enter the world of the cancer patients' shadow and met with the families of patients and bereaved families in a support group in Japan. I learned that they too wore a mask, though I struggled to establish friendships with them as my cancer status versus their caregiver status distanced us somewhat. I overcame this challenge by using the technique of collaborative filmmaking to seek mutual fellowship with them, and trying to create a shared space in-between, ma in Japanese, where we could meet and feel with each other (kyokan empathy). For that purpose, and combined with the technique of feedback screening, I used a mobile phone as a filming device to free up my face and to make me available as a listener for the filmed persons. The fieldwork resulted in the film 'To the Last Drop' (2016). By combining the methods of auto-ethnographic writing and observational filmmaking, my personal account served to broaden my understanding of the experiences of those afflicted by cancer in Japan. Together, these methods expand on the space between, where suffering becomes visible and silence becomes audible, in a culturally sensitive way.

The phenomenon of panic is one of the most unedifying experiences to inflict the human condition. It is a globally-recognised problem regularly encountered in psychotherapeutic practice. Whilst it is thought that distressing psychological and social (‘psychosocial’) problems might help account for this experience, the precise role they play - particularly in first onset - remains difficult to fathom. For example, whilst there is evidence to suggest that stress related to an individual’s family and work life, marital circumstances, age and gender appear linked with initial episodes of panic, these and many associated stressors people endure remain largely under-researched. Following an inquiry aim that recognises the social construction of reality, this research offers an insight into my first experience of panic attack (my being both a panic sufferer and psychotherapist). The aim was to identify an ‘invisible cord’ (e.g. a series of causally linked stressful life events) related to my panic. These events are typically thought to be found in the twelve months prior to first onset and hold important clues to an individual’s recovery. Hence my research question was: ‘What sense can be made of the invisible cord of events leading to my first experience of panic attack’? Using analytical autoethnographic methods to guide this research, significant personal events were discovered and are presented here in the findings. The earliest events uncovered would stretch back far longer than twelve months; with a series of five scenarios plotted from childhood to my mid-forties. To ensure that this research remained an exercise in critical thinking, each event was then examined alongside broader psychosocial theory and frameworks; offering a connected analysis of this first attack and contingent factors. A summary follows, ‘pulling together’ aspects of this undertaking and offering implications for practice. For example, having only made visible elements of my stressful cord by means of the analytical methods at my disposal (including use of collage and timelines) I suggest that such tools might routinely help other panic sufferers in retracing their past. Equally, in learning that my (often confused) Christian faith was implicated in this panic, I advance that we, as therapists, must remain vigilant to matters of client spirituality: noting that traditional forms of religious guidance are receding in an increasingly sceptical UK society. The thesis concludes with a personal reflection that aims to facilitate a deeper understanding of my research journey.

This thesis is an autoethnographic exploration and articulation of aspects of my lived experience of the longterm impact of professional abuse. It is a context-dependent single case study written from a researcher-participant-counsellor perspective. In my review of the literature I demonstrate the challenges of researching and documenting the direct experiences of women who have been sexually exploited by male professionals. These challenges stem from our natural human tendency to deny traumatic experience, and from the prevailing culture of many social institutions which continues to have the effect of silencing women's voices and discrediting women's experience. The methodological approach I have taken in this thesis is evocative autoethnography. I have chosen this approach in order to document and analyse my present embodied experiences of remembering past abuse, continuing feelings of loss, and unfulfilled longing for resolution and release. I explore the relationship between my past and present selves in context, and consider the therapeutic possibilities of combining memory work, lifewriting, poetry, and imagination to create texts of remembering and re-remembering, to reclaim both what is and what might have been.

According to the UK Government, 'disabled people remain significantly less likely to participate in cultural, leisure and sporting activities than non-disabled people' (Department for Work and Pensions & Office for Disability Issues, 2014). Despite this fact, much of the research that relates to disabled people and music is focused on the therapeutic benefits of music and there is a deficit in research that explores disability and music from the perspective of the musicians themselves. The aim of my PhD project was to fill this gap by examining the lived experiences of disabled musicians in order to ascertain what might cause the perceived under-representation of disabled people in the music world. As a musician and music student with mobility and sight impairments, I have first-hand experience of the challenges that can face disabled musicians and these experiences inspired me to explore this area of concern. Consequently, my PhD project is centred on the lived experiences of disabled musicians as they engage in performance and work towards qualifications in music. Thematic analysis was used to analyse data that was collected through 11 semi-structured interviews with disabled musicians and an autoethnographic analysis of my own experiences, both as a disabled musician and PhD researcher. My PhD project shows that disabled musicians encounter a wide range of barriers as they engage in music making or journey towards a qualification in music and that these barriers create significant physical and emotional challenges for disabled individuals. Most of the issues disabled musicians experience occur during performance or while they work towards a qualification in music; these issues are the result of negative attitudes, discrimination and imbued misconceptions. Consequently, there is a need for the lived experiences of disabled people to be better understood by both non-disabled individuals and institutions who provide facilities and services. This improved understanding would allow both service providers and individuals the means to establish and maintain better access to music and music education through the implementation of reasonable adjustments and more positive attitudes towards disabled people.

A high school art teacher investigates the relationship of his religious beliefs with his notions of what it means to be creative. This Mormon teacher examines his religious and experiential life through self-study, by drawing from autoethnographic and hermeneutic phenomenological strategies. He believes that everyone, including himself and his students, has a creative potential. He also analyzes how his Mormon religion affects his view of creativity and how creativity has affected his behavior as a Mormon. The conclusions he reaches uncover the need for balance between his creative self and his Mormon self and outlines several ways to merge these two aspects of his life.