Meaningful Journeys: Autoethnographies of Quest and Identity Transformation

Meaningful Journeys is an edited collection of autoethnographies underpinned by the conceptual, philosophical, and etymological origins of ‘journeying,’ ‘questing,’ and traditional and modern understandings of ‘pilgrimage.’

The volume contains chapters on the ways in which all these concepts intersect with identity and identity transformation. These range across narratives of sport; adventure; preferred identity; curative religion; revered location; nostalgia; grief resolution; ‘out of suitcase’ travels; and pilgrimage journeys understood in more traditional senses. The collection showcases and promotes the identity transformational quest as an important conceptual nuance of narrative autoethnography. Readers will engage with the ways in which contributing authors craft their emerging selves into preferred identities, which showcase personal and relational change in action.

This book is essential reading for students and practitioners of autoethnography and qualitative research internationally and others interested in identity transformation in narrative inquiry.

Alec Grant, PhD, is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Wellbeing, University of Bolton, England, UK.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Lloyd-Parkes, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of South Wales, Newport, Wales, UK.