Tina Bell
English 5870
28 April 2009

Commentary 8

“There is an assumption that if an ethnographic account is engaging, it cannot be scientific” (Sunstein 192).

The argument as to what constitutes scientific research brought up in Sunstein’s article is again the topic of discussion in Allison Pryer’s article, “Imagining Educational Research? On the Issues of Fiction in Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry.” Pryer argues that the autobiographical narrative is an excellent form of research. Bonnie Sunstein says that “metaphor and imagery allow for reader interpretation” (193) and Pryer says that “memoir is necessarily a selective interpretation of life…(9). Pryer believes that the interpretive nature of the autobiographical narrative leads to better discussions about pedagogy and culture. Since this form is subjective and interpretative, any reader must engage more intimately with the text and attempt to share that experience of the author.

I cannot say that I am finding his idea easy to assimilate. It is not that I do not agree with Pryer. I still remember a story I read as an undergraduate- a very sensual story about synapses and neurons. This story took learning about the brain function to new heights, and I have never forgotten how synapses and neurons work. I understand the power of the narrative. It is just that the idea of what constitutes logic is so ingrained that a challenge to its duality “seems like a threat to consciousness itself” (3). My hand may wish to write narrative, but my mind continues to rebel. It is going to take many years of conditioning to undue what is firmly entrenched in my mind. I agree with Pryer’s statement that the academic “monologue pretends to be the ultimate word” (10). I have written enough academic monologues to recognize the truth of her words.

My struggle in the future, should I choose to accept it, will be to convince myself that autobiographical narrative can be a form of research. My first step should be to stop hyperventilating when Pryer mentions that my conception of research is “outmoded [and] no longer defensible” (7). Am I too old to learn a new way?