Collaborative autoethnography in pandemic times: a therapeutic and decolonial teachinglearning experience

Abstracts

This collaborative autoethnography aimed to understand the experience of three students in an Autoethnography course in a graduate program at the Minas Gerais Federal University School of Pharmacy during the initial stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. To this end, the students’ field journals and autoethnographic data - such as texts, poems, photographs, audio and video files with performances or dance - were analysed. The study highlighted multiple therapeutic and decolonial facets of autoethnography that arise from its metacognitive practice. This course humanized the academic environment, providing interconnectivity of conventional sciences with arts and culture. This research points out the benefits of including autoethnography in the training of health professionals as its critical and reflective features promote cultural and humanistic competences useful to person-centered care, which are very relevant to pharmacists.

Keywords
Autoethnography; Covid-19; Healthcare professional training; Decolonial pedagogy; Qualitative research

Esta Autoetnografia colaborativa teve como objetivo compreender a experiência de três estudantes em disciplina de Autoetnografia no programa de pós-graduação na Faculdade de Farmácia da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais durante o período inicial da pandemia de Covid-19. Para tal, os diários de campo e as produções autoetnográficas dos estudantes – textos, poemas, fotografias, arquivos em áudio e arquivos em vídeo com performances ou dança – foram analisados. Destacaram-se os diversos aspectos terapêuticos e decoloniais que a Autoetnografia oportuniza pelo exercício metacognitivo. A disciplina humanizou o ambiente acadêmico proporcionando interconexão das ciências convencionais com as artes e a cultura. Este trabalho aponta os benefícios da Autoetnografia para a formação de profissionais de saúde críticos e reflexivos, especialmente os farmacêuticos, por promover competências apropriadas ao cuidado centrado na pessoa.

Palavras-chave
Autoetnografia; Covid-19; Formação de profissionais de saúde; Pedagogia decolonial; Pesquisa qualitativa

Esta autoetnografía tuvo el objetivo de comprender la experiencia de tres estudiantes de la asignatura de Autoetnografía en el programa de postgrado en la Facultad de Farmacia de la Universidad Federal de Minas Gerais durante el período inicial de la pandemia de Covid-19. Para ello, se analizaron los diarios de campo y las producciones autoetnográficas de los estudiantes: textos, poemas, fotografías, archivos de audio y archivos de video con performances o danza. Se destacaron los diversos aspectos terapéuticos y decoloniales a los que la Autoetnografía da oportunidad a partir del ejercicio metacognitivo. La asignatura humanizó el ambiente académico, proporcionando interconexión de las ciencias convencionales con las artes y la cultura. Este trabajo señala los beneficios de la Autoetnografía para la formación de profesionales de salud críticos y reflexivos, especialmente los farmacéuticos, por promover competencias apropiadas al cuidado centrado en la persona.

Palabras clave
Autoetnografía; Covid-19; Formación de profesionales de salud; Pedagogía decolonial; Investigación cualitativa

Introduction

The beginning of 2020 coincides with the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil. The anticipation of an usual new year was suddenly taken out of the plans of millions of people around the globe. The population was suddenly forced to change their lifestyles and socially isolate themselves as a preventive measure. Feelings like fear and worry became more frequent. Meanwhile, the political and economic scenarios triggered several crises.

In this context, the discipline of Autoethnography began, in which students were asked to put together and share their autoethnographic productions about their experiences living through the pandemic.

Autoethnography blends individual narratives that explores how personal life experience can socially relate within institutions’ culture^1,2. It can be understood as the confluence of the “autobiographical impulse” and the “ethnographic moment” where the autoethnographer enlightens the mechanisms of oppression and power in a given culture^1,3,4. This qualitative method is not just a way of getting to know the world, but also a way of being in the world. It requires living consciously, emotionally, reflectively and critically, evidencing knowledge embedded in experience and revealing aspects of cultural life inaccessible to conventional research^4-7.

Autoethnography can be understood as a possibility of re-existence while being an individual (I, Self) facing and colliding into society as a collective group (ethno) through writing (graphy)⁴. Its goal is to amplify the possibilities of existence, breaking up with dualisms⁴, such as researcher-subject, subject-object, them and me. By putting the researched-subject in this condition, autoethnography allows us to explore all the nuances of a person’s existence, without compartmentalization between study-work-person – no mutilations. It is humanity without reductionism, with all its controversies and its multiple facets.

Autoethnography has progressively gained recognition in the field of health education by developing crucial values and skills for professionals, teachers and students^8-10, promoting an empathetic engagement that moves people to action¹¹. It enables a deeper understanding of the social and cultural determinants of health, revealing aspects of the illness, encouraging empathy and improving the problem-solving capacity in patient care^4,8,12-16.

Within this context, this article aimed to understand the experience of three graduate students with the autoethnography course during the initial period of the Covid-19 pandemic, through the investigation of their autoethnographic productions.

Methodology

Collaborative analytical-interpretive autoethnography was used as methodology^1,2,17, based on the autoethnographic creations made by the three graduate students who attended the Autoethnography course, between March and May 2020. The productions consisted of evocative personal narratives, poetry, dialogues, descriptive or analytical texts, as well as photographs, audio files, performances and dance.

This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Minas Gerais under registration CAAE-25780314.4.0000.5149.

Results and discussion

In the analysis of the productions on the meaning of experiencing the pandemic, three categories stood out: therapeutic practice, decolonial practice and teaching practice, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1
Categories that stood out in the student’s autoethnographic productions.

Autoethnography as a therapeutic practice

Getting through the pandemic

This is how it is now, we need to have an obsessive attention to everything that comes from the streets.

(Morning routine)

Paralyzed in chaos, eyes always teary, and mental health in decline.

(Capitalism in my daily life, aggravated by the pandemic)

Thinking about finitude, the death that surrounds us and how everything can change overnight.

(Public vs. Private)

These fragments reveal feelings that emerged from the writings, such as the constant tensions caused by the fear of contagion, the encounters with finitude and the consequent mental suffering. Uncertainties about the future, accompanied by feelings of revolt and impotence, are equally frequent in the reports. It is important to remember that the pandemic highlights conflicts in the governmental, cultural, social and economic spheres, aspects dear to the research for social justice provided by autoethnography¹⁸.

I identify [...] three types of experiences that we have lived and that could be further extrapolated: the care of people close to us and our relationships; self-care and; finally, the revolt and anger that we nurture for our governments, the oligarchies in power and social injustice. We have been living in a sick world for many years, and the global crisis goes far beyond the viral pandemic.

(Field journal)

Living the pandemic in the Brazilian context is an unprecedented challenge. On one hand, we have low rates of adherence to social distancing measures, neglect, ignorance and the sharing of fake news¹⁹. On the other hand, we have a negligent government, the denial of scientific knowledge, and neoliberal ideation. A(n) (un)government that to date has not drawn up any efficient economic recovery plan or curb the still growing number of deaths^19,20. There are already more than 21 million registered cases of infected individuals and more than 607,000 deaths. And the numbers continue to grow²¹ (data updated on 02.11.2021).

The previous battle that was established against science, against public universities, against public health and against the Brazilian Public Health Care System (Sistema Único de Saúde - SUS) weakened our defenses making us more vulnerable. On the other hand, social inequality, hunger, abysses of inequities that separate Brazilians from Brazilians are, by themselves, forces that are imposed on people.

(Public vs. Private)

Allied to the external and collective environment that creates more and more disorder and backtracking, there is also an internal and individual environment that becomes disorganized through the interruption of professional and personal activities, as well as future plans and possibilities.

Figure 2
Autoethnographic production: Interrupted Possibilities.

In the photograph shown in Figure 2, an open space with a sea of hills dyed in different colors, which repeated itself in the sky. The beauty of the image contrasts with the dominant presence of barbed wire in the foreground. The possibility of freedom brings a risk, which in this photograph are the possible cuts on flesh, and in real life is translated as the possibility of viral contagion.

Figure 3
Autoethnographic production: Umbra Sand Performance.

Figure 3 shows excerpts from a performance based on the autoethnographic poem below, Umbra Sand (Areia Umbra). The performance evokes feelings that take on unimaginable proportions, connecting us to the current unbridled and irreparable destruction. The large number of deaths is evidenced, resulting from the negligence of the government and the population with public health and safety recommendations. The use of candles, smoke and paint alludes to the carbonization of meat. The sign of death glows hooded, and the words spoken refer to an exaggeratedly dark experience, as exemplified by the excerpt below.

[...]
Explosion and implosion
Tar on the walls of all organs
Dark matter that gives off sweat, repression
[...]
The mother feels for all, feels for one
The pain of the other hurts my soul
The ignorance of the other blinds my calm
[...]
Blind, deaf, dumb
Bound, confused, profuse.
A sea of people
Profound and profane
[...]
(Umbra Sand)

These productions show the vortex of feelings experienced during the pandemic, which contributed to the aggravation of mental and emotional health problems, potentializing the existing challenges. It is possible to notice that, although subjectivity may be isolated, it is also irrevocably related to the community, sometimes in the feeling of a shared pain, sometimes in the process of being affected by others’ actions (and omissions). In the next session, focused on autoethnography as a decolonial practice, it will be discussed how this pain, despite being collective, ends up having a different impact on distinct social groups, aggravating vulnerabilities even further.

The experience of confinement in isolated cells with the construction of walls between individuals dissolves the notion of the whole, transforming human potencies into real powerlessness in the face of fear and stress generated by the need for unmet connection²².

Figure 4
Autoethnographic production: Isolation.

In Figure 4, there is an allusion to imprisonment. A man behind bars contradicts the open field behind him, representing the possibility of being at liberty while paradoxically reminding us of its impossibility. The image refers to loneliness and segregation, recurring feelings in the pandemic. The gray tones match an apathetic body expression with almost inexpressive eyes.

Connections that breaks through isolation

I cried what I had been wanting to cry during this entire quarantine. I realized: shelving feelings had become symptomatic [...]. I go back to the class... I remembered how writing can be therapeutic, especially if [...] there is a small possibility of someone reading what I write. It seems that writing becomes a form of self-analysis.

(Field journal)

During the course, the intimacy between students and professors grew along the exposure of delicate and even intimate situations, having our subjectivities recognized and interconnected⁷.

Ariel began reading her text. She cried at different times, and I held back my own crying... until I collapsed. My God, how much resonance with what I’ve been living! I was perceiving myself as an isolated, lost island. And then I find another island, bathed by the same ocean. [...] I’m not alone. We are several islands that give friendly signals, or hugs from a distance.

(A Lonely Island)

Feeling as an “island” here means feeling isolated from the collective. It is a feeling of not belonging and not being understood by others, like the experience of living in isolated cells²². Such feelings are transformed when we find safe spaces for sharing, where it is possible to feel loved and legitimized.

Feeling understood, safe, free to express oneself, competent and belonging to a collective are human beings basic social needs²³. The Brazilian pandemic context creates a distortion of this right. At the same time, the technical training of pharmacists erases the subjectivity of these students, and also of patients, as soon as the trained professional enters the job market. A curriculum that does not allow self expression and connection can favor the deterioration of mental health, in addition to contributing to the professional’s alienation from social and cultural issues. Spaces like the one created in this course are necessary so that pharmacists do not become self-absorbed professionals, oblivious to different experiences.

The pharmacy culture, as the teacher once mentioned [...], is arid. I completely agree. Questions of this nature rarely [...] emerge from a conversation between pharmacists. [...] We are technical professionals and issues involving politics in general are unaddressed. [...] It seems to me that pharmacists do not see themselves as political beings.

(Encounters with Autoethnography)

The academic environment is a space where prejudice and harassment can coexist^24,25, favoring the isolation of the individual that can be aggravated in remote education. The non-hierarchical didactic experience in the course contrasts with the conventionally panoptic experience of pharmaceutical teaching environments, where relations of power and control distance students from the authentic human relationships. In contrast, freedom, sense of belonging and increased creative potential that Autoethnography provides were lived, resulting in a therapeutic experience^8,12,26.

A miraculous remedy

For me, it was, above all, a therapeutic experience. I don’t know how I would carry out this quarantine without being enrolled in this course. [...] There were many things happening inside myself. [...] There was a lot of imbalance. But every Monday at 2 pm I knew that there, at least, I would be among amazing people, in wondrous discussions.

(Fractal Constructs)

Reflective autoethnographic investigation consists of making investigations out of experiences, using personal experience to express a larger psychological body, composed of a socio-political-cultural world intertwined by power relations that shape everyone¹⁷. The process of analyzing the experience through autoethnography can change the perceptions of the same experience during the process of writing. This can be related to the therapeutic process²⁷, in addition to broadened understanding of a studied phenomenon and new enabled perspectives²⁸, providing new meanings to feelings and suffering in a regenerative way.

The attitude of observing oneself perceiving one’s own reality is understood as metacognition, and is closely linked to intelligence. Reflective practice exercises and expands metacognition, better preparing students, professionals and researchers²⁹ to critically view their own reality, encouraging its transformation.

The logotherapeutic view^30,31, focused on the awareness of one’s own life, contributes to explaining the therapeutic impact of Autoethnography, since this awareness helps maintain mental health by increasing self-understanding and the appreciation of self-worth.

Autoethnographic productions were sometimes a way to seek meaning and acceptance during the pandemic^26,32-34. Different artistic forms emerged, functioning either as raw data or data analysis, deepening the research.

Stahlke Wall²⁸ describes her discomfort with various autoethnographic materials and asks “how does therapy make a sociological contribution?” According to this author, the resolution of personal issues must occur in a context totally different from an academic attempt to add social knowledge. Some authors, by using autoethnography therapeutically, could employ evocative devices to intensify personal experiences, which would limit the possibility of criticizing this specific type of academic production as it could become an ethical issue. How to criticize such an important and excruciating experience so as not to underestimate the personal experience of an author?

The therapeutic benefit can be both a goal and a consequence resulting from the autoethnographic process, as perceived through the analysis of the course productions. However, this question raised by Wall is valid and important, since this style of research can be used in a narcissistic way³⁵.

Autoethnography as a decolonial practice

Autoethnography revealed cultural aspects that were hidden, analyzing discourses, questioning power relations in family, academic and also collective spheres. Questioning the established social order provokes subjective movements of oppressed cultures, bringing to debate silenced discourses, unveiling the oppressive patterns that shape us, deconstructing hegemonic, colonialist, racist and patriarchal practices, subverting the order of power, seeing the other, not as another, but as part of their own humanity, decolonizing thoughts and practices^1-3,36,37.

“Ah [...] here you come with this victimized speech!” “Get out of the victim’s position!” But here, I was a victim, I’m being a victim. So the victim cannot discuss his role as a victim because otherwise he is found guilty? That’s crazy!

(Encounters with autoethnography)

The voices from the margins

Don’t talk about anything that questions the political order, they are in power!

(Encounters with autoethnography)

I want to read other autoethnographic works that represent this universe within Brazil. After all, we blacks represent 50% of the Brazilian population. But despite that, my graduation class had only four blacks. Despite that, I was one of the three black college professors on a campus with three hundred professors. Despite that I’m one of the few black college-level technicians. Despite that, when I go to restaurants, I see that most black people are serving, and not being served. Because it’s so rare to find people like me in spaces where voices can be heard, that is why I can’t keep quiet.

(Encounters with autoethnography).

Autoethnography is a methodology aligned with decolonial principles as it reveals marginal voices that have long called for an epistemology that transgresses the colonialist discourse and puts power relations in check³. The perspective presented by autoethnography finds echoes in the epistemologies of the South, as it seeks to expand the conceptions of existence in the world and expand the investigative and comprehensive capacities of the sciences³⁷ based on subaltern knowledge. Southern epistemologies aim to deconstruct the epistemicide caused by northern science, based on stereotypes, as these limit reality, telling the story from the colonizer’s perspective and thus, allowing the maintenance of neocolonialism³⁸.

I go to the hospital and who I see on the front line are nursing technicians. Most like me, black women who work two or three jobs to ensure a more dignified life for their families. But for whom is the tribute when a health professional dies? For doctors, I remember three. Two men and one woman, all white. Why is it that we don’t see those lives with the same dignity?

(Field journal).

Autoethnography brings social actors who do not belong to privileged groups to the center of the debate in academic environments that hold a legacy of white, cis-heterosexual, bourgeois and patriarchal hegemony^24,38. This study echoed the subaltern voices that were able to express their indignation against racism and sexism. Hate speeches that were already present in the socio-political scenario, but which amidst the pandemic and confinement found more forceful and oppressive manifestations.

The pandemic, biopolitics and necropolitics

The speeches of hate and intolerance that took over our society had an impact on the students’ reflections. Science is brought to debate, and it promises to facilitate problem solving. However, the experiences raised in the classroom resonated in the general observation of the disregard for public health, the state of social welfare and science itself, which is distorted by neoliberal interests that make use of biopolitics^39,40 by stimulating the use of hydroxychloroquine despite scientific evidence disapproving its indication for the treatment of infection by coronavirus³⁹.

The bolsonarist discourse prioritizes the defense of the economy at the expense of health recommendations when it states “Brazil cannot stop”^39-41. Soon the flock of this electorate moves by not respecting social isolation and adhering to the false promise of miraculous medicines, evidencing the instrumentalized movement of biopower^36,42 that outlines a suicidal and homicidal State, at the same time. In this State, black and poor bodies are the most vulnerable. In addition to raising the direct risk of contamination, it engenders deaths due to underinvestment in public policies, thus forging necropolitics³⁶. The State defines who dies, as it defines who is not worthy of receiving interventions in order to be saved^43,44, with the goal of ensuring the best for those who are already full of rights.

The pandemics and family relationships

“Don’t think about it! Don’t talk about anything that questions the political order, they are in power! [...] Don’t mess with these people! Be smart, drop these issues”, I’ve been hearing these a lot. I want more spaces where I can be fully me. There are many spaces I only fit in if mutilated, gagged or asphyxiated.

(Field journal)

Both biopolitics and necropolitics provoke repercussions that are perceived within the family environment. Complex relationships and antagonistic feelings build up the domestic scenario, sometimes evidencing the valuation of bonds and sometimes evidencing conflicts. Families are divided by the socio-political-sanitary context. Families that historically have never had access to higher education, in which one or another member has only recently had access to an undergraduate degree. The critical education acquired at the university is perceived by students as a re-existence of the current government’s discourse that took over the country’s cultural scenario. On one hand, we have pharmacists in graduate school equipped with high-quality scientific evidence. On the other hand, we have our loving relatives, (un)informed by fake news on social networks.

The decision to maintain social distancing is no longer only an attitude towards collective health, but also a flag of political positioning and, consequently, a reason for family disagreements⁴¹. Ambiguous feelings of love, frustration and misunderstanding permeate domestic life.

How to overcome these differences? How do we walk together again? Can we don’t agree with their attitudes but understand their reasons? Can we live together without wanting them to accept our truths? This rupture between us and them can lead to a cure when we realize that we are, in fact, a large community and manage to understand that there are other stories that also need to be understood^45,46.

(Field journal)

Among the students, there are those who work on the front lines, fighting Covid-19, and who still have to do their utmost to take care of household chores, take care of their families and the formal education of their children. This reality, which was no longer free from conflicts, is intensified by the pandemic, magnifying the occurrence of domestic violence.

I realized that at dusk I felt tense, I felt bad. It was time for my husband to arrive and I knew with him would come a compliment or a scowl, depending on whether the kitchen was tidy or untidy. But then I thought: why does the compliment also bother me? [...] And that’s when I realized that it wasn’t the compliment or the scowl that bothered me, but the right my husband had given himself to make that judgment. Because this judgment was not for the kitchen, but for me. [...] In his mind, that was my duty, no matter what else I had to do that day. I realized at that moment how many times my cleaning lady, when performing her service, freed me from that feeling. A black woman who does this job removes this unequal distribution of household chores from the conflict. But now, in quarantine, this discussion has surfaced and revealed that my reality is still very sexist.

(Conclusion of the Course)

The autoethnographic approach involves researching what happens in the cultural environment of the researcher, an epistemology centered on the subject and from the perspective of that subject³⁷. The texts are still full of problems of those who inhabit the margins, who experience the conflict with the dominant power, now aggravated by Covid-19.

One of the texts studied in the classes addressed the theme of abusive relationships⁴⁷ and had repercussions in the scholar community. Two students who were in abusive relationships, now accentuated by social distancing, became aware of their own domestic realities. The reflections in the classroom were decisive for these people to be able to free themselves from such relationships.

I’m right in the middle of chaos
I stare at the chaos
he stares back at me
and we hug
Everything is chaos!

But I’m serene, I know where I want to go
I see the pathway I will have to walk
I stood a long time where I couldn’t love

Amidst the chaos, ideas clear up in my mind
I take a deep breath
Now just work and
care
To know and to care.
(Embracing Chaos)

Understanding the culture in which we are immersed is essential to understand how we are influenced and influence this social web⁴². The production of knowledge was a living force that expanded the comprehension of the complexities and controversies that living the pandemic represents. In this sense, autoethnography stretched the web of knowledge production, bringing to light the lived experience of marginal people who resonated with others who also shared this experience.

Summarizing, I see that I have engaged in an extremely rich process. A process that I need to continue pursuing; a process that is unfinished and hungry for new paths that call for me. I can almost hear the call made of screams that need to be heard by more people.

(Course Conclusion)

Autoethnography as a teaching practice

[One] very positive aspect for me was the possibility of integrating in this type of research several facets that make up my person. Being able to integrate my artistic side, [since] I can hardly apply [...] artistic languages in my professional and academic daily life. Being able to integrate my word-loving side, [since] I love languages, poetry, playing with words, communicating and healing through them. [...] I can’t always use words in a more creative way in my daily life [...] To be able to integrate my socio-political side, making a contribution to society through research. [...] And, finally, being able to integrate my scientific side, developing deep and systematic investigation without having to give up on myself!

(What was it like to participate in this course)

The Autoethnography course promoted personal expression through textual and non-textual productions, applying the concepts and techniques studied. This pedagogical scenario nurtured self-reflectiveness, freedom and creativity. Everyone was invited to present their work to the class and receive feedback from the audience, made up of doctors, pharmacists and educators.

Bochner⁴⁸ describes how the existence of an abyss between the “academic self” and the “personal self” promotes isolation and inhibits risk-taking and changes in the institutional environment of universities. The manifestation of the students’ “personal self” in the academic environment promoted a break with this pattern through open listening and dialogue, often nonexistent in other contexts of students’ lives.

It was very easy to open up to this group, even though there were people I didn’t know. The feeling was of security to expose myself, sometimes bringing elements that I find complex to share even with friends and family.

(Field journal)

This experience of communitarial proximity was particularly relevant along the duration of the course, coinciding with the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and social distancing. The experience of contact, connection and learning, described by students as superior to most of the classes attended presentially, shows that this is an appropriate methodology for distance learning and can shape a fruitful community for teaching-learning.

We managed to overcome the barrier of the virtual, the lack of physical contact, internet connection failures, problems with video and microphone. None of this even came close to hindering us.

(Field journal)

By encouraging reflective, creative and autonomous investigative practice, autoethnography placed students at the center of the discourse, considering their lived and embodied reality, breaking the usual academic limits of automatic repetition of concepts imposed from a “supposedly neutral and unhistorical scientific gaze”⁴⁹.

During the readings of theories, I found myself more and more [...]. Autoethnography is not just talking about oneself, putting oneself at the center of the debate, but using your own experience to explain feelings, contradictions, vulnerabilities, the culture of the world in which we are immersed in.

(Field journal)

Reflective practice in education is a way of developing a critical conscience, making students aware of the webs of oppression that surround others and themselves. From there, it becomes easier to break power systems, transgress the limits imposed by the status quo, decolonizing education, but also our own existence. Thus, autoethnography can aid health professionals on becoming more committed to comprehend care and inclusion, rupturing with structures of domination^3,11,45.

The concept of education adopted was also relevant to the teaching-learning process. A dialogic and respectful environment was created between students and teachers. Love and joy were part of the learning process, as recommended by Paulo Freire⁵⁰.

In this context, at the end of the course, instead of celebrating it, the students were upset, and many asked the teachers to carry on the encounters, which is not usual in other academic disciplines.

I’m in love with our group. Unfortunately it’s our last day together.

(Field journal)

The students’ and teachers’ writings naturally established connections with other people inside the class, outside the class, alongside with the context of the pharmacy profession, and with broader contexts, like the country and the world. This construction allowed the building of knowledge without reductionisms, drawing back to Morin’s theory on the impossibility of reflecting on “the shattered knowledge”, working with complex knowledge that alternates in scrutiny, compartmentalization and synthesis, without reducing the part to the whole nor the whole to the part⁵¹. The self and the collectivity were constantly placed in dialogue, as exemplified by the following excerpt.

A phrase [from a colleague] that strikes me is: The pandemic is about us, and the ‘we’ goes beyond the group in this course. [...] Our group talks to a whole society. The anxieties, fears, pains, joys, relationships, pleasures, outbursts, reflections, sharing... are all the same that happens outside our classroom.

(Experiencing Autoethnography)

(In)Conclusions

The investigation of the autoethnographic productions of the three students in the autoetnography course revealed clear resonances between their particular experiences and the human experience of living the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil, highlighting the cultural, therapeutic and decolonial aspects that this methodology offers.

As autoethnography is a methodology that promotes a dialogue between the individual and the collective, mediated by a temporal and cultural context, the current article intends to encourage other reflections and discussions, not having the purpose of closing in on itself. From the results presented, some significant aspects will be highlighted, which represent the main contributions of this study in the construction of knowledge.

The students’ experience with autoethnography humanized the academic environment, promoting a regenerating, didactic, non-hierarchical and decentralizing experience, which enabled the free expression of students and the interconnection of conventional sciences with arts and culture. Thus, it corresponded to the practice of authentic education advocated by Paulo Freire, which is not limited to the exhaustive repetition of knowledge considered neutral, but brings marginalized voices to the center of the debate.

This work indicates that the inclusion of autoethnographic courses or even the incorporation of autoethnographic methodology in courses that already exist in the curriculum can benefit undergraduate and graduate health programs, especially in the field of pharmacy, which is historically technocentric. This innovation helps to train more reflective and critical professionals, promoting cultural and humanistic skills for a more person-centered care, with the goal of including and breaking away with systems of oppression. The potential of this methodology is reiterated as a disruptive scientific research practice in the health field and with great potential to unveil reality from non-hegemonic perspectives such as race, gender, class, as well as perspectives that go beyond cis-heteronormativity including the views of professionals, apprentices or patients.

• Furtado BT, Cimbleris-Alkmim A, Lima FASO, Ramalho-de-Oliveira D. Collaborative autoethnography in pandemic times: a therapeutic and decolonial teaching-learning experience. Interface (Botucatu). 2022; 26: e210140 https://doi.org/10.1590/interface.210140

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Edited by

Editor

Rosamaria Giatti Carneiro

Associated editor

Elaine Reis Brandão

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  14 Mar 2022
• Date of issue
  2022

History

• Received
  13 Mar 2021
• Accepted
  23 Oct 2021