Reflecting on Autoethnographic and Phenomenological Experiences: A Caregiver's Journey

Reflecting on Autoethnographic and Phenomenological Experiences is a unique critical qualitative inquiry study that uses the author's experience as a caregiver to his wife suffering from dementia as the basis of a critical autoethnography. It explores components that may be not only melancholic and empirical, but also emotionally painful. The book employs multiple approaches that include narrative, phenomenology, ethnography and grounded theory. Through a phenomenological lens of an insider that includes self- and other-hood, marriage, career, fatherhood, suicide, despair, double grief, loss, caregiving, housekeeping, advocating, mind reading, and encouraging, a narrative that illustrates self-reflection on particular experiences is constructed, resulting in experiential and didactical understandings. Individual, personal, and subjective interpretation of relational happenings are explored. Reflective journaling and observations of the marital season seek to understand if and how shared experiences transcend multiple contexts and help the reader understand experiences of dementia. Reflecting on Autoethnographic and Phenomenological Experiences is a volume that will be invaluable to qualitative inquiry researchers, autoethnographers, and those readers interested in the research of caregiving.