On 19 January, on a beautiful crisp Friday we took the stories we collect, write and think with on a journey. For the first walking seminar organized after a long pause forced upon us by Covid we came back to the topic of stories and asked the seminar participants to think about their own research practices in relation to the question:
‘how to tell stories in ways that do good?’
– What makes a ‘good’ story—and what a ‘bad’ one? What are examples of storying that you particularly appreciate?
– How do you select which stories to elevate in your papers, presentations and talks? What work do they do? And what counts as a story anyway?
– How do you tell your stories? What techniques, styles, strategies and narrative devices do you use? What works for you, what doesn’t?
– Where do you get the stories you use from? Whose stories are they? Is there a difference between your own and others’ stories? These stories might not be coming from the field, but from other colleagues. They might relate to theory, they might be ethnographic descriptions or stories these authors bring from their own fields and retell in their articles. What gets lost in translation through language or by changing hands between narrators? How does the position of a storyteller change the story told?
- How can we narrate the dilemmas faced in our informants' practices in ways that foster their practices? In other words, storytelling is political, how do we practice the craft of the tale in ways that honor/acknowledge/uplift those whose knowledge we borrow in our weave?
And so we set out to conquer the dunes of Zuid-Kennemerland. We took the train to Santpoort Noord from where we headed to the beach.Our walking path, like the stories we tether, had an unpredictable nature. To proceed in our exploration creative interventions were– at times– required, pulling us off of the pre-ordained path or demanding the assistance of technical experts, who, besides us, were busy dealing with the Amerikaanse vogelker, an invasive species (side track: click to dive into a side story about multispecies work in the Kennemerduinen).
‘how to tell stories in ways that do good?’
– What makes a ‘good’ story—and what a ‘bad’ one? What are examples of storying that you particularly appreciate?
– How do you select which stories to elevate in your papers, presentations and talks? What work do they do? And what counts as a story anyway?
– How do you tell your stories? What techniques, styles, strategies and narrative devices do you use? What works for you, what doesn’t?
– Where do you get the stories you use from? Whose stories are they? Is there a difference between your own and others’ stories? These stories might not be coming from the field, but from other colleagues. They might relate to theory, they might be ethnographic descriptions or stories these authors bring from their own fields and retell in their articles. What gets lost in translation through language or by changing hands between narrators? How does the position of a storyteller change the story told?
- How can we narrate the dilemmas faced in our informants' practices in ways that foster their practices? In other words, storytelling is political, how do we practice the craft of the tale in ways that honor/acknowledge/uplift those whose knowledge we borrow in our weave?
And so we set out to conquer the dunes of Zuid-Kennemerland. We took the train to Santpoort Noord from where we headed to the beach.Our walking path, like the stories we tether, had an unpredictable nature. To proceed in our exploration creative interventions were– at times– required, pulling us off of the pre-ordained path or demanding the assistance of technical experts, who, besides us, were busy dealing with the Amerikaanse vogelker, an invasive species (side track: click to dive into a side story about multispecies work in the Kennemerduinen).
A single, linear story would often not be enough, we all agreed. We need multiple stories, layered stories, stories that have many side tracks. Even at a simple attempt to explain why our research topics matters we need contexts, and not one, but several. The stories that are layered into what we try to say in the end emerge in between the contrasting, sometimes even incommensurable side-stories that give substance to our empirical materials and anchor these stories in the life-worlds from which they emerged.
The sun was shining and we happily continued our walk and talk until the road under our feet has been swallowed by the waters. What now?
Are there stories that cannot be told? Or should not be told? For instance, what if, for instance, you are doing research on animal breeding and apart from the official stories you gather as part of your fieldwork you are struck and touched by the cruelty and the animal’s suffering encountered on farms. Are these stories then not the ones that should be told? Talking about this case, we started to wonder about stories that need to be told but perhaps not written down or published. Stories can also be latent, be told once in order to feed other stories that find their ways into published texts. Or perhaps acknowledged by the teller in other ways to help the lessons of the stories linger while the details fade into the background of the scene, sometimes determined to be liabilities for the narrative end goal of effective articulations of the practices at hand.
But we didn’t get discouraged. After a brief rest we decided to keep our feet dry but still continue our hike to the sea. And so we conquered the heights and hills and looked down to a mesmerizing Dutch winter landscape.
Another topic that emerged in our discussion related to the amount of complexities that stories can still hold. If singular stories do not suffice, we need to multiply our stories. But how far can we go with this? How much complexity can fit into one text, one abstract, one presentation. When the parameters of a story are strictly limited, how to reduce complexities? Time for instance can become an important factor in shaping our storytelling practices, we realized. What if you only have 5 minutes to make an intervention at a roundtable discussion. What is that 5 minutes enough for? How to put forward one intelligible and relatable storyline that raises the right amount of issues and complexities. And are there situations when we actually need the simple, linear narrative?
Like when finally arriving to Café Parnassia and having a well-deserved hot drink:
As the sunset on our days work, we accepted the indeterminacies we had reached. The path had been wayward. Any discernible intentions to define or predict an outcome relented against the conditions of possibility. We were homebound, together, in good company, and it was enough to know that – at least– we now had a good story to tell.
Are there stories that cannot be told? Or should not be told? For instance, what if, for instance, you are doing research on animal breeding and apart from the official stories you gather as part of your fieldwork you are struck and touched by the cruelty and the animal’s suffering encountered on farms. Are these stories then not the ones that should be told? Talking about this case, we started to wonder about stories that need to be told but perhaps not written down or published. Stories can also be latent, be told once in order to feed other stories that find their ways into published texts. Or perhaps acknowledged by the teller in other ways to help the lessons of the stories linger while the details fade into the background of the scene, sometimes determined to be liabilities for the narrative end goal of effective articulations of the practices at hand.
But we didn’t get discouraged. After a brief rest we decided to keep our feet dry but still continue our hike to the sea. And so we conquered the heights and hills and looked down to a mesmerizing Dutch winter landscape.
Another topic that emerged in our discussion related to the amount of complexities that stories can still hold. If singular stories do not suffice, we need to multiply our stories. But how far can we go with this? How much complexity can fit into one text, one abstract, one presentation. When the parameters of a story are strictly limited, how to reduce complexities? Time for instance can become an important factor in shaping our storytelling practices, we realized. What if you only have 5 minutes to make an intervention at a roundtable discussion. What is that 5 minutes enough for? How to put forward one intelligible and relatable storyline that raises the right amount of issues and complexities. And are there situations when we actually need the simple, linear narrative?
Like when finally arriving to Café Parnassia and having a well-deserved hot drink:
As the sunset on our days work, we accepted the indeterminacies we had reached. The path had been wayward. Any discernible intentions to define or predict an outcome relented against the conditions of possibility. We were homebound, together, in good company, and it was enough to know that – at least– we now had a good story to tell.
Walkers: Fenna, Andie, Ildikó, Ulrike, Jenske, René, Sam, Sandra, Eline, Annelieke.
