Selves as methods: transnational scholars’ journey toward pluriversality through collaborative autoethnography

We, as six transnational female Chinese scholars, carried out collaborative autoethnography to unpack the asymmetric power relations and epistemic injustices that undergird our knowledge production and to identify strategies to strive toward pluriversality. Gathering in virtual circles regularly over 6 months, we examined our plural selves in relation to a spectrum of intellectual resources from traditional wisdoms to decolonial theories. Through iterative dialogues, we developed the conceptual and methodological framework of ‘selves as methods’ to draw out the reflexive and transformative potential of relational selfhood. Guided by this framework, we identify key relationships that shape our identities and knowledge production, tease out the power structures embedded in these relationships, and investigate strategies to foster pluriversality in global social science research paradigms and methodologies. We share our emergent framework of relational, reflexive, and transformative selves, and invite global scholars to engage in transformative dialogues and praxis.