ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a dialogue between two authors that continues their arts-based collaboration inspired by Art’s evocative autoethnography, “Bird on the wire: Freeing the father within me.” Here the authors synthesize the conversations between them that were recorded over a period of more than three months in the winter of 2019. In bringing attention to the enchantments and perils of evocative autoethnography, the authors cover topics such as the now of remembering; how autoethnography puts meanings into motion; the slow reading required to inhabit an evocative autoethnographic work; the importance of embracing incompleteness; and the tensions academic autoethnographers may experience in the dual demands of hurrying up and slowing down. Inspired by a desire for purifying conversation, the authors offer their dialogue as an entry point into considering how evocative autoethnography stirs readers to connect to, contend with, and act on their own unfinished lived experiences. Readers can then produce a restorative story of their own and thus extend the reach of evocative autoethnography.
