ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on relational ethics and the ways relational ethics shape our inquiries with children and youth. Huber, Clandinin, and Huber wrote of long-term relational responsibilities when they met Ryley, a former child research participant, was experiencing difficulties in his junior high school. Bergum and Dosseter's words remind us of Sean's words as he shows us how he navigated this relational space. He also shows us how he enlarged this relational space by including people who were important to him, people like Elder Bob. Wakefulness is a way of living that is congruent with the ontological and epistemological commitments of narrative inquiry, commitments that are coherent with the theoretical work of Dewey and other pragmatist philosophers. Relational ethics are lived and informed by the messiness of lives and living and the tensions this calls forth. As Bergum and Dossetor points out, relational spaces also live within us, and the tensions we experience often challenge our own ethical spaces.
