WRITING WITH PHOTOGRAPHS, RE-CONSTRUCTING SELF: AN ARTS-BASED AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC INQUIRY.

ABSTRACT
This dissertation is an arts-based, autoethnographic study, which investigates my adjustment to a foreign culture and social system and my growth in academia, as well as the use of artistic and selfreflexive methods in the research process. The primary personal goal for my research is to understand the changes in my cultural identity and self-perception caused by life-altering cultural changes. By critically reevaluating my experiences I investigated the methods for studying identity, cultural production and approaches to diversity education. By studying my life on a personal level through photography and creative writing, I apply and propose inquiry methods that can further advance studies of identity construction and educational pedagogy.
The main theoretical interest in this study is the intersection of artistic/creative behavior and systematic qualitative research practices through critical analysis of the involvement of alternative and artistic methods in the process of studying cultural identity. Founded in feminism, critical visual sociology and ethnography, advanced studies of visual methods, knowledge, and culture, as well as contemporary art theory, my study provides a model for using self-reflexive and artistic practices in professional development and diversity education. My research further develops the relatively new methodologies of arts-based inquiry and autoethnography, critical self-reflexive methods, and advances our understanding of the possible roles and uses of visuals in qualitative research. The methods used to study changes in my life situation, ideas, and self-perception, since leaving Finland to attend a doctoral program in Ohio, are photography, participant observation, photo-writing, memory work, photo therapy, critical essay writing, public display and discussion of my photographs and creative texts.
My research findings support a critical pedagogy and curriculum that focuses on learning about cultural phenomena, artists, visual culture producers, objects and artifacts, and an individual’s culturally situated, relational, identities in their varied and complex discourses. The significance of this study is the exploration of the processes of gaining access to intellectuality and the construction of understanding, only available through the emergence of artistic, self-reflexive, and theoretical thinking with the intention of increasing awareness about visual knowledge that has remained largely uninvestigated.