Intersecting Identities and Reflexive Practices: A Transformative Autoethnographic Study on Language Identity Construction

This paper explores the role of intersectional reflexivity in conducting an autoethnographic exploration of personal transformation within academic research. Using autoethnographic data from regular journaling, I illustrate my shift from a profoundly ingrained positivist research mode toward embracing alternative theoretical traditions that foreground the researcher’s active role in knowledge production. These traditions emphasize the researcher’s involvement as a social actor who actively influences the processes they study and challenges the conventional notion of objectivity and neutrality. Incorporating the concept of life capital, I infuse my positionality and lived experiences into the research process to enrich the depth and complexity of the analysis. Engaging reflexively in this qualitative exploration has profoundly unsettled my previous paradigmatic thinking to drive a continuous reconfiguration of my perspectives, identities, and scholarly practices. I argue that embracing reflexivity enhances the quality of research, fosters the renewal of the researcher’s self, and serves as a critical tool in research training across various educational settings.