Walking together: Thinking about and caring for the research relationship in narrative inquiry

Resumen

In this article, we explore the experience of coming alongside Marta, a social educator, as we co-compose a research relationship. This journey became a space of possibility, where understanding the centrality of our relationship emerged through attending to her “stories to live by” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999) and appreciating her “curriculum of care” for children (Noddings, 1984). Our narrative inquiry shows how this relational process shaped a tension between what one of the researchers previously knew and what began to appear as a new reality. This tension called for the creation of a renewed relationship, in which Emma and Marta walked together, acknowledged their respective lives as researcher and participant, and honored their shared experience of living alongside one another as former colleagues. As we engaged with the narrative account, we identified two resonant threads that shifted our own “stories to live by” and supported us in caring for the research relationship. The ways in which this relationship was composed—as a form of lived pedagogy—led us to wonder how teacher education might engage more deeply with relationships shaped by lived experience, care, and sensitivity.