52: Living, Telling, and Retelling Stories to Live By: Negotiating the Multiplicity of Self Across Shifting Landscapes

Beginning with childhood stories of negotiating my self in relation with my physical and human landscapes, I explore how “knowledge, context and identity are linked and can be understood narratively, as stories to live by” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999, p. 4). Interconnecting my childhood experiences with my teaching experiences reveals the necessity for storytelling places on each of these landscapes. These storytelling spaces, negotiated in relation with others, created important openings for me to meaningfully negotiate alternative stories to live by. In these narrative, meaning-making spaces, my self continued to grow, shifting and evolving in response to my changing landscapes.