ABSTRACT
While the last chapters discussed storymaking as a temporal, spatial, and material practice, there is a need to attune more carefully to Arendt’s notion of story itself and to elaborate on its existential, political, and ethical implications. This chapter discusses this notion from the idea of living life as a story. It is argued that this is a life-affirming practice that involves embracing life, loving it, sensing it, touching it—even when it is full of pain, struggle, suffering, death, and mourning. Stories are important because they allow the imagination to go visiting. Stories create gaps in history, which implies that they are the means through which people become aware of themselves as agents in the world. Stories are seen as political strategies for performing and shaping a “we.” They confirm a sense of belonging among, as part of but also as different from, other communities. Stories are how we remake the world as a fully embodied experience that involves attuning to living, making, and engaging with others. Creating life as a story therefore involves expanding the senses in ways in which responsiveness to multiple agencies are central.
