ABSTRACT
It is important to understand what people mean by living and what they mean by alongside, as these are touchstones of narrative inquiry work. Narrative inquirer's commitments to be part of the living is, to be part of the lives of participants as they unfold are central to what people mean by living and alongside. Tammy participated in a narrative inquiry with Vera. Although Vera thinks about Aidan and Tammy, she also thinks of Geraldine, the daughter born during Vera's master's study. Attending to the intergenerational threads that become visible in the lived and told stories of children and youth has deepened our understandings of their lives and the constant presence of their familial contexts in which their lives are nested. In Sean's inquiry alongside Donovan, it was in living alongside in the midst of one situation that an opening was created for Sean through which he glimpsed something of the familial contexts in which Donovan's life was nested and shaped.
