Autoethnographic Layering

Abstract

This article uses a tripartite layered text to explore narrative inheritance, the storied experience of self and family. The author produces an autoethnography that places together partial memories, the stories told by parents, and half-remembered dreams. She queries taken-for-granted meanings by positioning uncertain scripts of and for the self in ways that leave invitational lacunae within and between the textual layers. In honoring the interplay between what is kept secret and what is shared the author seeks to explore the ways in which narrative inheritance fashions how people create stories of self and others by accommodating their forebears’ incomplete tales and living with mystery.