Case
Abstract
The main objective of this case is to share experiences of a type of qualitative approach called collaborative autoethnography that is used to study workplace bullying and mobbing in an institution of learning in Botswana, Africa. Four collaborative autoethnographers explored their experiences of workplace bullying and mobbing, its manifestations, and its impact in terms of mental health, feelings, attitudes, and career consequences. The use of autoethnography was justified by the method’s potential and ability to (a) capture the subjective feel of the bullying and mobbing experiences while acknowledging and accommodating the researchers’ subjectivity and influence on the research process; (b) empower researchers to be emotional, yet inclusive and analytical, while exploring personal and/or social phenomena; (c) enable the identification of recurring patterns among a group of people (compared with a single-case autoethnography) who had gone through a particular personal and/or social experience; and (d) ultimately assist the readers, researchers, and practitioners to come to a better understanding of the relationships between different variables, as well as the outcomes and consequences of workplace bullying and mobbing, subsequently informing survival, interventions, and prevention strategies.