A Collective Autoethnographic Journey Toward Academic Repair: Unfolding Restorative Micro-Repair Practices

To find meaningful ways to resolve our work and reconnect with one another within neoliberal institutions, we seek to imagine practices that enable spaces of difference within workplaces. In this chapter, we use autoethnographic inspiration to describe the spontaneous unfolding of the relational process that is our collective, hoping to inspire others wishing to ‘repair’ their own workspaces. Our contribution is to offer restorative micro-repair as a means to forge reconnections within CHRD practice. Through reflecting on the unfolding of our journey we have identified some cornerstones for this type of alternative practice. These include the development of loose structures that enable divergent thinking and practices, an attention to group processes and an emphasis on communality through a relational, community-based approach. In telling the formation story of our own restorative micro-repair space, we set the stage to reflect upon how these cornerstones can serve to help others engage in micro-repair practices to reconnect to one another.