An autoethnographic inquiry into the role of serendipity in becoming a teacher educator/ researcher

Abstract

In this inquiry, the author inquires into her shifting ‘self’ as a researcher/teacher educator in teacher professional development. The ‘self’ in question is acknowledged as being historically, culturally and locally specific. It is also acknowledged as unfixed or unstable; constructed from and in response to various, and often competing, discourses. As an autoethnographic inquiry, this article presents vignettes of the self/researcher/teacher educator embedded in the messiness and complexity of lived experiences and it represents her attempts to make sense (albeit partial and provisional) of these experiences. Central to the inquiry is an examination of the roles played by serendipity and by writing itself in the processes of sense- and self-making.