JOURNEY TOWARDS ENVISIONING A LIVING EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP THEORY IN THE CONTEXT OF NEPAL: A CONTEMPLATIVE EAST-WEST AUTO/ETHNOGRAPHIC INQUIRY

Abstract

This contemplative inquiry, as a critical and creative exploration, is a revealing saga of envisioning the trajectories of the school leadership journey (e.g., the unfoldment of narratives of ups and downs as well as pains and tears) of mine along with my participants (headteachers, teachers, members of reference group and critical friends) embracing the intent of living leadership values and practices. The inquiry navigates the journey of an authoritarian being and a democratic participatory ii becoming as a headteacher, where I find myself as a living contradiction and embracing it as a part of life; I endeavor to create a satva1 -like learning space at school. This journey of constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing leadership paradigms through collaborative navigation embodies our shared living values, narratives of hope, ups and downs, setbacks and resilience. Showcasing how my participants and I nurtured school leadership practices and critiqued the conventional and stereotypical leadership approaches ( such as being an authoritarian figure, being confined to control and delivery), I envisioned a living educational leadership theory small ‘t’ uncovering new pathways embedded in our grounded practices with unfolding awareness through an East-West auto/ethnographic lens (combining the East's and West's philosophical and wisdom traditions), i.e. lens of critical spirituality to understand the Nepali school leadership context and explore the logic behind the complementarity of East and West. The inquiry unfolded a multi-layered identity and my embodied living leadership values as a headteacher seeking new ways, challenges, and opportunities to create a collegial learning space at school. As a journey of critical engagement and empowerment, this multi-faceted inquiry (e.g., the blend of Western-induced paradigms such as interpretivism, criticalism, post-modernism, and integralism, and Eastern Wisdom Traditions: seven interconnected ways of being, knowing, and valuing based on the Chakra model of epistemology- cultural knowing, critical knowing, self-knowing, relational knowing, communicative knowing, visionary knowing, integral knowing ) inspired me to theorize my experiences and my ground of being and becoming (but not limited to) as a school leader and understand the nuances