Sunday, July 19, 2009

A wounded storyteller

Serendipitously, I had been reading Arthur Frank, the wounded storyteller and then experienced a whole weekend of storytellers recalling the journey that had led them to become volunteers at Youthline. In Marae style for holding a space open, a place to stand and to have voice, lead to heartfelt sharing about paths and trajectories, creation stories, restitution stories and chaos stories. Stories of healing and stories where scabs were lifted. These were not 'just so' stories, and they were not fairy stories. They were not technoscience political stories either. They were heartfelt.

I am feeling somewhat in awe.


awe |รด|
noun
a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.

And while I recall Latour(2005) saying 'sociology begins in wonder" p.21
I am having very ansty feelings with ANT right now.

The coming together of fortuitous events makes it seem like it was meant to be, but ANT is not going to wear a bar of it for me to say it feels fated or that the thesis has its own trajectory and I am but a conduit, channeling.
Instead I am left with the nuts and the bolts and the very ordinary, identifying every actor along the path from woe to go. I would like to hold on to the mystery and the mystical, to sense the higher purpose, but with ANT I am left with a serendipitous coming together, intersections that are timely. I feel this sort of blows the magic away...and I'm not sure I like the magic gone from this part of my world.

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