Enabling Reflexivity in a Mentoring Relationship

Abstract

This essay enacts a performance space in which the authors explore (an) “enabling” reflexivity through reconstructed conversations and a dialogic metanarrative about their evolving relationship as doctoral student and advisor. They narrate turning points, setbacks, and triumphs that show their struggles to evolve as intellectuals deeply committed to embodying the beneficial interrelations among their public and private dialogues. Their goal is to summon the reader and listener to reflect on her or his own ideas about the inherent embeddedness of intellectual and personal life in mentoring relationships. Their hope is that through showing, telling, doing, and witnessing, this performance space enables moments of reflexivity among listeners and readers.