Imagining, Narrating, Resisting: The Educative Power of Life Writing about Family

• In Event: Exploring Lives and Livelihoods in Biographical and Documentary Research

Abstract

Family inquiry is brimming with educative possibilities (Bailey, 2017; 2018). This panel uses a feminist interpretation of Goodall’s (2005) concept of family narrative inheritance (narrative in*her*itance) to guide women’s family life writing studies. Feminist narrative in*her*itance work (Bailey, 2016) foregrounds women’s meaning-making of family sites, lore, and objects through life writing. The first author describes family experiences with dis/ability as a springboard for *her* scholarship, resisting dis/ability as a reductive category. The second considers her mother’s desire to seek education at odds with her family’s preferences and its impact on her own educational narrative in*her*itance. The final explores family cemetery visitations and oral storying to reflect and sustain in*her*itances.

Authors

• Stacie L. Warner, Oklahoma State University

• Lindsey Abernathy, Oklahoma State University

• Amanda Kingston, Syracuse University