Letter Writing as Method: Unpacking Power in the Academy Through Collaboration

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 9:00 am
  In Roundtable Session: Collective Journeys in Qualitative Writing and Storying (Table 8)

Abstract

: In an effort to illuminate and disturb structural inequity and oppression in higher education, this presentation engages a connective conversation about our struggles and triumphs with, and against, asymmetrical hierarchies of power in our postdoctoral studies. Standing in relational solidarity, we are guided by feminist and critical theorists to explore embodied narratives through a collaborative and subversive letter writing process enacted from three different positionalities and situated contexts. We stitch together affects, emotions, insights, refusals, and rage. Each time we (re)member and (re)tell a story, we open to new potentialities and possibilities for becoming something different. Letter writing as method seeks to (re)story unequal academic worlds and advance relational care ethics for epistemic justice, liberation, and wellness.

Authors

• Saralyn McKinnon-Crowley, Baylor University

• Kathryn Riley, University of Manitoba

• Shelly Melchior, University of West Alabama