Meaningful Journeys

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.

1. Meaningful Journeys, Identity Transformation, and Autoethnographic Selfhood 2. Running Towards Death: A Tale of an Old Man in Trainers 3. The Red Carpet Quest: An Ironman Competitor's Transformational Journey 4. A Motorcycle Pilgrimage on Icelandic F-Roads 5. Solo Trails/Trials for this Unlikely Hiker: Purpose, Purity, and Quest 6. The Pilgrimage to Manhood: An Autoethnographic Account of Transition from Female to Male as a Journey of Self-discovery 7. A Scot an' a Sassenach Scrieve aboot Leid: A Three Pairt Scotoethnography (A Scot and an English Person Write about Language: A Scotoethnography in Three Parts) 8. Curative Encounters: Representations of the Transformational Journey of the Pilgrim to Lourdes 9. Welsh Pilgrimage: A Quest for a Reaffirmed, National Identity and a Secular Journey to a Spiritual Locus 10. A Journey through Prolonged Grief: Transforming Identity to Heal and Reconcile Loss 11. Professor Out of a Suitcase (or Ferris Bueller's Year Off) 12. Paying Respects to The Greatest: Ziyarat in Louisville, Kentucky 13. Pilgrimage to a Shared Site: A Buddhist Scholar and Muslim Scholar Visit Borobudur