Listening Is… Five Personal Worlds of Listening: An Auto-Ethnographic Approach

What is effective listening? This question intrigues both scholars and the general public. Theoretical explorations provide insight into the listening process as well as pragmatic guidelines for how to be a good listener. But even the most learned listening scholar will often fall back on the observation that they know effective listening best when they experience it.

Five renowned listening experts were asked to respond to the question, “What is listening from the perspective of your lived experience?” Each was asked to work from an auto-ethnographic methodology. The five lifeworlds described in this study represent their responses to this question and offer unique, individual ethnographic contexts describing the listening experience of each of the participants.