Resisting Political Backlash and Advancing Critical Scholarship Through Collaborative Autoethnography

Objective: This study examines collaborative autoethnography as a strategy for mitigating the personal and political risks of engaging in critical social work scholarship amid increasing political suppression in the United States. Method: Collaborative autoethnography is both a research process and a product. We use it to explore the following question: How can collaborative autoethnography mitigate the personal and political risks of engaging in critical scholarship? This research question emerged from a primary project in which five social work scholars across four U.S. states conducted a collaborative autoethnography to examine how critical scholars navigate and sustain antioppressive scholarship within neoliberal higher education. Results: Findings suggest that collaborative autoethnography functioned as a counterspace that fostered authenticity, reflection, and belonging; deepened community and praxis through collaborative inquiry; and strengthened critical scholarship through collective care. By prioritizing relationships and processes alongside outcomes, this approach creates a space for critiquing systemic oppression while sustaining critical social work scholars, cultivating epistemic safety. Conclusions: Collaborative autoethnography fosters the development of critical antiracist scholarship in social work, even amid and potentially because of political adversity. These findings have implications for preparing social work scholars and shaping leadership within the field.