Abstract
I use letter-writing as a contrasting form of communication to highlight the limitations and possibilities of writing interpretive inquiry. My discussion is presented deliberately in a letter form. I argue that the letter has the potential for crossing boundaries, whereas the academic paper has the tendency toward boundary-preserving. The purpose of letter is to pass through the distance between two persons apart from each other, so that both parties are reconnected in a certain way. The distance could be geographic, social, cultural, racial, gender-related, political, and economic. Because we are free to decide what we want to say and whom we want to write with our letter, a possibility of crossing boundaries is always open to us. Yet, although the academic paper is a form of communication, it is circulated only within a particular self-contained academic community-with clear-cut boundaries, which distinguish itself from other academic and nonacademic communities. In this letter I attempt to point out that what I am against is the separation between theory and practice and that between the public sphere and private matters. I contend that we do not have to sacrifice our private integrity and inter-subjectivity for publishing papers and preserving boundaries. Finally, I call for the rethinking of what it means to write the interpretive inquiry paper.