“Who am I?”: an autoethnographic self-study on teacher identity and emotional labour of a volunteer teacher during COVID-19

Teachers may undergo emotional and identity dissonance during professional practice due to various personal and contextual factors. These types of dissonance may provide opportunities for teachers to address challenges, thus enabling personal transformation and professional development. Despite a surge in research interest in teacher identity and emotional labour, few studies have used an autoethnographic lens. In this autoethnographic paper, I share my lived experiences as a volunteer teacher during campus closure from March to May 2022 in Changchun, China, a COVID-19 pandemic hotspot in the aforementioned period. I conducted an exploration of my emotion management processes in negotiating conflicts between my teacher and volunteer identities and the challenges associated with online teaching and volunteering activities. Thematic analyses of my reflective journals revealed three strands of emotional/identity dissonance involved in online teaching, volunteer work and final exams. The autoethnographic vignettes include epiphanic moments highlighting the identity dissonance and adverse challenges that led to negative emotions and, in turn, emotional labour. The findings reveal how my emotional labour prompted the construction and negotiation of volunteer teacher identity. This study confirms the importance of engaging in self-reflective narration to cope with challenges and the implications of this process for teachers in emotional quandaries.