How can academics be responsive and orientated to positive changes towards resilience? This chapter provides insight and understanding into using autoethnography and a reflexive practice approach to learn from a difficult emotional experience in response to the unexpected death of a loved one. The chapter considers how reflexive practices can enable learning from difficult emotions in a higher education context. The presentation of narratives and the discussion of findings manifest two primary issues within reflexive practices associated with difficult emotions. First, it exposes the need to provide empirical evidence of the non-linear nature of reflexive practices. Second, it discloses the overlapping parameters within the four key reflexive practices. This chapter presents the potential areas to develop within these parameters that can guide future research to develop a more detailed and in-depth investigation into reflexive learning in relation to difficult emotional experiences.
Ashmiza Mahamed Ismail is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of People and Performance at the Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research is focused on the structuralist view of people as the mere effects of structures over which they have (or not) control, emphasising resilience as the strategic lynchpin for the performance and growth of a social structure.
Mukhtar Omar Mukhlis is a student at the highly selective King Edward’s School (KES) in Birmingham, who has an excellent record and notable ability in writing, linguistics, and the arts. Aside from winning numerous awards, including distinctions in multiple subjects and recognition of his work in experimental linguistics, in 2020, he spoke at a TED Talk, discussing the future of language. The parallels between language and reflexivity were how his interest in reflexive learning developed.