Mystory of be(com)ing an early career researcher as a middle-aged man: An autoethnography of pushing against temporospatial limits

Abstract

In this chapter, leaning towards the evocative end of the autoethnographic spectrum, the author (re)visits, (re)collects, and (re)creates the author's recent memories to narrate, developing an autoethnographer identity, among many others, during and after the author's doctoral studies as a middle- aged but early career researcher. The author focuses on the past few years of the author's life (41- 45) beginning with the author's journey back from the US to Turkey as a fresh applied linguistics scholar-but a seasoned language teacher-having crowned a PhD with an autoethnographic dissertation at the age of 41. The author utilizes chronicling the past strategy for data (re)collection. The accumulated data points to three periods with distinctive tensions: (a) going for a PhD abroad, (b) having a PhD after a certain age, and (c) doing autoethnographic work. The author explores these tensions through retro/intro/pro/spective reflection. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.