A call to examine the woven fabrics of our lived experiences and extend ourselves

In this transcending boundaries essay, I use a “life narrative” approach to explore the metaphor of our lives as woven tapestries. Here, I share a passionate call for organizational researchers to consider what our scholarship might look like if we vulnerably and intentionally extend our work to “see” and engage with others in environments different from our own. In doing so, I encourage a directional shift in many of our organizational research trajectories toward one in which we both acknowledge the ease and inertia of the relative peace and privilege so many of us hold and then look beyond. Look to those living within environments of conflict and crisis, periphery and isolation, to generatively embrace our roles as globally minded and interpersonally engaged homines curans (caring people) with the aim of adding threads to our unique tapestries—threads that feed
and nurture rather than drain and extract.