Surviving Domestic Violence and Navigating the Academy: An Autoethnography

This autoethnography takes a critical view of my experiences surviving domestic violence while navigating the university’s resources to support survivors as well as my academic life. I turn to Spade’s (2015) critical trans politics in order to complicate the notion of higher education structures as neutral and to question who benefits from existing domestic violence survivor support programs and procedures. Guided by Nash’s (2004) guidelines for scholarly personal narrative, I tell my story of surviving in five parts, beginning with initial conversations and continuing with processes of surviving, leaving home, mandatory reporting, and (not) learning. Throughout the narrative, I analyze how my experiences illuminate broader implications for higher education. I conclude with recommendations for critically supporting survivors, and reflections on my own experiences and life a year later.