Storytelling praxis

Abstract

As human beings, we live our lives as storytelling animals. We are born into a world of stories and storytellers, ready to be shaped and fashioned by the narratives to which we will be exposed. The stories we hear and the stories we tell are not only about our lives, they are part of them. Our lives are rooted in narratives and narrative practices. We depend on stories almost as much as we depend on the air we breathe. Air keeps us alive; stories give meaning to our existence. (Bochner and Ellis, 2016: 75–6) The key to change lies in the stories people tell. By naming the world, we change it (Freire, 1972). Stories of everyday life transmit culture and maintain the dominance of the status quo. In telling our stories, questioning them, critiquing them in relation to the dominant narrative, we open the space for a new story, engaging in a dance of ideas in the search for a better story to replace the old one. Our first encounters as participatory practitioners begin with the way we listen from the heart to the stories of everyday life as it is experienced. This is the foundation of critical dialogue, the point at which trusting mutual relations are formed. In a process of mutual dialogue and reflection, we learn to question the stories we tell, and by examining them a little more critically we find they contain the key to understanding the personal as political.