Things That Tell: An Object-Centered Methodology for Restorying Women’s Longing and Belonging

Abstract

Developments in qualitative research methods recognize the benefits of working with material objects to evoke memories, stories, and reflections on specific topics. Through engagement with materialist theory and methods, our research demonstrates that more than simply eliciting storied responses, self-chosen material objects can in fact co-tell stories in novel ways. This article draws on our storied experiences as a group of women who took part in a four-day residential storying retreat. Our qualitatively driven research employed a range of multi-modal methodologies; however, this article focuses on a particular method that involved co-telling personal stories with the aid of self-selected objects. This method embodies the emotive and co-constitutive power, relational materiality, and reflective potency of object-centered storying. The article builds on and extends qualitative methodologies that value more-than-rational ways of researching.

Keywords

material relationality story-based research research retreats object-centered more-than-rational interdisciplinary feminist co-constitutive inspirited matter

Introduction

We begin this qualitative research story by acknowledging that wherever we are, we are on a sacred Country. We pay respect to the First Nations peoples and traditional custodians of these places—honoring their Elders, past and present, their lands and living cultures, and the stories they carry. We also acknowledge and pay respect to Country itself, as understanding the sentience, agency, and vitality of Country is central to our collective work on restorying belonging and our use of object-centered research methods. We further acknowledge that this paper is underpinned by the premise that the world is inspirited, animated, and affecting (see Barad, 2003; cf. Country et al., 2022).

We employ the term object-centered research methods to refer to approaches that explicitly work with and recognize the material realities and relationalities of objects. We draw on and extend materialist theory and methods (see Barad, 2003; Bennett, 2010; Latour, 1994; D. Miller, 1987) by bringing together storytelling and objects to demonstrate the potency and agency of material matter. These processes allow the stories objects hold to be told and heard. To illustrate what story-based object-centered research may entail, we first clarify the methodological foundations by drawing on relevant literature from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Next, we situate the approach within the context of the research retreat. To further contextualize and flesh out these understandings, we, then, draw on vignettes from three personal stories told at the retreat.

The first story was co-told by Naomi and a handcrafted felt doll. The material potency of the little doll who lives in Naomi’s pocket highlights the multi-dimensional relationships, practices, and elements of researching with objects (Mason, 2006). The second story was told by Debbi and an orbiting sun and moon mug. Entangling shifting identities and forms of relational belonging, this story accentuates the active negotiations of what social psychologists Jane Kroger and Vivienne Adair (2008) refer to as treasured objects. The third and final story was told collaboratively by Sara and a precious Waagura.¹ Their story attends and attunes to specific embodied forms of emplaced Earth-felt belonging (van Dooren & Rose, 2016). It demonstrates that objects can be more-than-treasured items and consequently need to be researched in ways that invite expansive understandings of object-materialities which are vital, knowing, telling, and deeply inspirited.

To conclude, the article reflects on what it means to undertake research that actively values material realities, more-than-rational knowledges, and other-than-human agency. It shows that relational materiality demands more than a recognition that “things” create social dynamics and are part of relational flows (Appadurai, 1986; Kopytoff, 1986; Latour, 1994; Miller, 1987). In addition to such recognitions, researching with “things” requires methodological attentiveness to the stories they hold.

Methodological Considerations of Object-Centered Storywork

Working with objects in a research setting is relatively new. However, early iterations are present in John Dewey’s (1934) lecture series, which emphasized the role of art as an extension of human experience to demonstrate what we now refer to as relational materialities. His work established an important foundation for future object-centered research interventions. In the 1980s, Igor Kopytoff applied a biographical approach to reveal the cultural life of things. He argues that:

A culturally informed economic biography of an object would look at it as a culturally constructed entity, endowed with culturally specific meanings, and classified and reclassified into culturally constituted categories. (Kopytoff, 1986, pp. 66–67)

More recently, Jennifer Mason has argued for multi-nodal dialogical approaches to underscore the importance of holding different qualitative methods in “creative tension” (Mason, 2006, pp. 19–20). Subsequently, she calls for multi-dimensional methodologies that recognize and account for research:

. . . elements and practices that are, in varying combination: emotional, sentient, imaginary, spiritual, habitual, routinized, accidental, sensory, temporal, spatial, locational, physical/bodily/corporeal, bio-genetic, kinaesthetic, virtual and probably more. (Mason, 2006, p. 11)

Although her research focuses primarily on human lived “realities,” such elements and practices can be observed and applied to other-than-human realities and materialities. Similarly, Kip Jones (2015) accentuates the emotive elements and multi-dimensional relationalities through a particular object-centered methodology. His research considered the impacts of exchanging gifts as objects of personal significance on story-based interviewing. The relational dimensions of material objects are also explored by Tim Ingold (2007), albeit from a different perspective. His research methodologies are specifically crafted and implemented to reveal the co-constituted stories “things” tell.

In addition, Susan Cox and Marilys Guillemin conducted a series of peer-participant research experiments (with colleagues) to demonstrate how working with material objects as part of a qualitative research practice facilitates rich and complex meaning-making processes and knowledges (2018, p. 2757). They focused on sensory engagement approaches and methods designed to elicit emotive responses (see also Hurdley & Dicks, 2011; Mason & Davies, 2009; Rowsell, 2011). Consequently, their study highlights an important relationship between valuing more-than-rational ways of knowing and researching with material objects. Rather than conducting original research, Rob Solway et al. (2016) provided a critical review of materiality literature. Their analyses identify that working with material objects in research contexts promotes self-reflection and an increased awareness of underlying meaning-making processes.

Common to these object-centered methodologies is an understanding of material relationality. According to Bruno Latour (1994) and Daniel Miller (1987), from philosophical and anthropological perspectives, respectively, material relationality is understood as a central focus on objects—as material matter—in generating and maintaining social relations. This view examines materiality primarily in relation to human experiences. In contrast, political theorist Jane Bennett’s (2010) understanding of material relationality privileges the vitality of matter itself.

In this article, we argue that relational materiality is more than a recognition that “things” create social dynamics and are part of social flows (Appadurai, 1986; Kopytoff, 1986; Latour, 1994; Miller, 1987). We build on the idea of sociologist Ailsa Craig, that objects act as “vessels of meaning [that] are involved in social interactions that create and maintain identity and community” (Craig, 2011, p. 47). While Craig concludes that objects are not just “vessels for meaning” but are in fact “vessels of meaning” (Craig, 2011, p. 47, emphases in original), we extend this position by calling for a recognition of and engagement with storied-objects as inspirited, acting, and affecting entities. As such, our adoption of object-centered methodologies facilitated storytellings that embody the relational materiality, emotive and co-constitutive power, and the reflective potency of objects as inspirited entities.

Situating the Research Retreat

Our experiences as self-identifying womanist and intersectional feminists shaped our participation in a four-day residential storying retreat.² We arrived carried on cool winds blown in from different Countries around Australia. Sara, a 33-year-old³ autistic Yuin woman with mixed European heritage, billowed in from Gundungurra Country (Katoomba, NSW). Naomi, a 42-year-old fifth-generation Australian transpersonal art therapist, drifted across from Wilyakali Country (Broken Hill, NSW). Debbi, a 58-year-old new-agey, lefty, greenie, save-the-gay-whales brand of intersectional feminist and activist, gusted up from Wurundjeri Country (Melbourne, VIC). Jodie, a 43-year-old community activist and health worker, and Fee, a 44-year-old tree-loving, storytelling, introvert, wafted down from Awabakal and Worimi Country (Newcastle, NSW).⁴

The retreat took place on Darkinjung Country (Umina, NSW) in January 2020. The retreat was organized, designed, and facilitated by Fee through the University of Sydney and formed the substantive part of her doctoral thesis. The purpose of the retreat was to better understand women’s storied experiences of longing and belonging in Australia’s colonially informed patriarchal present. The retreat research was informed by an understanding of belonging as always in flux—located, felt, sensed, and practiced through processes of attending and attuning (Wright, 2015). We note that belonging is a contested term (see Antonsich, 2010); however, Kathy Mee and Sarah Wright emphasize that belonging “connects matter to place, through various practices of boundary making and inhabitation which signal that a particular collection of objects, animals, plants, germs, people, practices, performances or ideas are meant ‘to be’ in a place” (2009, p. 772). This definition highlights important relationally emplaced aspects of belonging in, and with, social and material worlds. To understand our experiences of belonging, it was also necessary to consider our experiences of non- or un-belonging. We used the term longing to refer to exclusionary experiences such as “isolation, alienation, loneliness, dis-placement, uprootedness, disconnection, disenfranchisement [and] marginalisation” (Wright, 2015, p. 395).

In addition, our storied approach to understanding belonging drew on Louise Phillips and Tracy Bunda’s (2018) culturally informed and inclusive notions of storying. This allowed us to situate our storywork, both during and post-retreat, as embodied, relational, and highly contextual. Crucially, this methodological (and conceptual) move foregrounds interdisciplinary qualitative, feminist, and Indigenist methodologies that actively value more-than-rational ways of researching (see Country et al., 2015; Foley, 2003; hooks, 1989; Jones, 2015; Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003; Smith, 1987; Stanley, 1990; van Dooren & Rose, 2016; Wright et al., 2012). Jane Gorman (1993) explains that more-than, as opposed to other-than, indicates an expansion of as well as an inclusion of the root word. Applying these inclusive frames, we understand the more-than-rational as affective, connected, embodied, emotional, emplaced, instinctual, intuitive, relational, and rational ways of knowing, being, doing, and valuing.

Our engagement with more-than-rational ways of researching sought to highlight the affective potency of emotions, senses, and stories (Abram, 1996; Hodge et al., 2014). Underlying this approach is a relational ontology which holds metaphysical understandings that all matter (plants, animals, landscapes, weather, rocks, rivers, mountains, oceans, the built environment, bodies, spirits, energies, and so on) are animated and affecting, meting out agency which shapes and influences all they encounter (see Altman & Kerins, 2012; Blackie, 2016; Burarrwanga et al., 2013; Kwaymullina & Kwaymullina, 2010; Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003; Yunkaporta & Kirby, 2011). As a result, our object-centered qualitative methodologies attended and attuned to these understandings and relationships through processes of storying. Thus, the stories presented in this article have been selected to reveal dynamic material worlds that are lived, sensed, and enlivened.

Informed by feminist popular education principles (Butterwick & Selman, 2003; Lykes & Hershberg, 2012; Manicom & Walters, 2013; Miller & Toro, 2015; Walters & Manicom, 1996), the retreat was designed to ensure creativity by drawing on a range of learning/sharing styles and storied activities; flexibility by being perceptive of, and responsive to, group wants, needs, and dynamics; trust, in the group, in the processes, and in the research by ensuring transparency in decision-making and meaning-making processes; and that power is actively addressed by minimizing and decentering the researcher as the expert voice and positioning participants as important co-creators and knowledge holders.⁵ Importantly, the design was shaped by Phillips and Bunda’s (2018, p. 43) five principles:

Storying nourishes thought, body, and soul,

Storying claims voice in the silenced margins,

Storying is embodied relational meaning-making,

Storying intersects the past and present as living oral archives, and

Storying enacts collective ownership and authorship.

These principles informed the specific objectives of the retreat, which sought to:

Create and maintain a sharing environment characterized by trust, openness, honesty, self-critique, mutual respect, and support,

Work with and develop storying practices, and

Provide opportunities for experiential and creative engagement in understanding women’s sense of longing and belonging.

Accordingly, a range of methods were drawn on. These included reflexive journaling (Dwyer et al., 2013; cf. Tsevreni, 2021), focus-group-type discussions (Hennink, 2014; cf. van Bezouw et al., 2019), storying rituals (processes and practices to honor the stories shared), one-to-one conversational interviews (Govender et al., 2019; Turner, 2019), creative art-based storying (Boydell et al., 2017; Skains, 2018), observation (Hurdley, 2014), and discourse analysis (Johnston & von Stuckrad, 2020).

Each day began with a body activity (yoga, stretching, chanting, and singing). We took turns leading these activities, which were followed by a group check-in and individual reflective journaling. We then regathered for our myth-based story sessions using mapping activities, tarot cards as visual prompts, and sensory engagement approaches to work with the myth-based and cultural stories shared by each of us. After lunch, we moved into our creative art-based storying sessions where we worked with charcoals, pastels, and watercolors as a continuation of our myth-based storywork. In the evenings, we shared personal stories using self-chosen object prompts to connect our stories to the day’s theme (which were self-belonging, relational belonging, and emplaced Earth-felt forms of belonging). Sessions were video and audio recorded in accordance with Fee’s human ethics approval.

This article focuses on the evening storytelling sessions. These sessions involved taking turns sharing personal stories inspired by objects which spoke to our experiences of self-belonging, relational belonging, and emplaced belonging. Our object-inspired stories revealed insights and spiraled knowledges that embodied the more-than-rational. The active inclusion of objects as part of our methodology facilitated “experimental . . ., playful and exploratory” storytellings (Cox & Guillemin, 2018, p. 2755). Moreover, throughout these evening sessions it became apparent the objects themselves were co-telling our stories and that their agency and spirit affected not only what stories were told but also how.

Storying Together

The peak of Black Summer, as vast expanses of Australia’s east coast burnt violently with unprecedented bushfires, was not the time to be having an outdoor campfire. However, with a little effort we were able to create a storied atmosphere for our evening sessions. After dinner we settled in. Jodie draped her scarf over a lamp, which cast a soft orange light, mimicking the gentle glow of a campfire. She passed around extra cushions and lap rugs and made sure we each had cups of tea and hot chocolate to sip. Jodie’s care and attention created an intimate environment for our personal storytelling sessions.

Our objects sat on a woven mat in the center of our storytelling circle. Their material presence whispered to us, hinting at the stories they would soon co-tell. On the first night, Fee directed us to the Storytelling Circle Guide in our journals, which outlined the process we would follow.⁶ Drawing on the guide helped to highlight how our personal storywork differed from our myth-based storywork, which had been more interactive and conversational. It indicated that each storyteller would speak without interruption and that we could take as long as we needed to tell our story. The guide stressed that participation was voluntary and that there was no obligation to share a story. In addition, it encouraged us to consider our comfort zones (recognizing our energy levels and feelings of emotional security and safety). The idea of emotional hangovers (Bloch, 1993) caused by over-disclosure was used to frame this discussion. Finally, the guide suggested that we conclude our stories by saying “thank you for listening” and that we collectively respond with “thank you for sharing.” Fee, then, clarified that the primary purpose of these sessions was to witness each other’s stories. We were, therefore, invited to comment on noticings, observations, and connections with the themes. However, we were not to ask probing questions regarding the content of the stories shared. Our storytelling began after reviewing the guide.

Story 1: The Doll in Her Pocket

Choosing story-objects was challenging for Naomi. She explained that she needed to approach the task creatively as she had recently moved house and many items of sentimental value were still in boxes and not easily locatable. In addition, she had to let go of various nostalgic “things” as part of an intentional shedding process:

It was an interesting thing to go through and think about what I have that I can make story with. I’ve kept some special things but the process of finding an object itself was an interesting exploration. It was like remembering those things that formed me, that I may not always need to have or still have . . . It might seem obvious, but I want to name the process of having to go through and find items because it was significant. Part of it was taking the time to weigh up what’s important, what really speaks to me. And then looking at that overall, I noticed that I kept coming back to the same core. All my pieces [story-objects] have stone connections. (Naomi, Retreat: Day 1)

Naomi’s discussion of the process of choosing objects supports Solway et al.’s (2016) conclusion that working with material objects in storied research contexts can elicit self-reflection and result in an increased awareness of personal meaning-making processes. The objects themselves were significant but so too was the process of choosing them. The story-objects that Naomi selected included two stones from different topographical places. These spoke of her sense of belonging with her “people.” She also picked a handmade necklace with interwoven semi-precious stones, which told specific stories that located her “people” in place. In addition, she chose a small hand-felted Doll⁷ crafted around a gemstone, who co-told stories of self-belonging.

The fact that each of her objects contained stones was significant for Naomi in that they hold and radiate energies. In this sense, stones are potent in terms of material relationality. Yet, stones and rocks are often discursively rendered inanimate through expressions such as “flat as a rock,” “stone-cold,” or “stone-dead.” These idioms convey a sense of emptiness and a distinct lack of life force. Despite this, stones have long been attributed with and known to possess animating powers and properties (see Doyle White, 2014; Johnston, 2017, 2021; Schaumann, 2017). As Naomi is attuned to these multiple energies, it follows that the stone objects featured in her personal storytelling were not only symbolically significant but also materially inspirited. This is evident through Naomi’s dynamic relationship with the Doll in her pocket.

Together, the little Doll and Naomi told stories of self-belonging. Their co-constructed stories reveal that the little Doll is both a protector—a provider of strength, comfort, and belonging—and, at times, a precious representation of “self” that needs protecting.⁸ In this sense, the Doll serves as a symbolic way of keeping Naomi’s most vulnerable “self” safe. The fact that Naomi handcrafted the Doll adds to its co-constitutive power and personal potency. This is demonstrated through Naomi’s description of making the Doll. We situate the Doll’s relational materiality through its embodied storied origins. As noted, objects are not just “vessels for meaning” but are “vessels of meaning” (Craig, 2011, p. 47, emphases in original). This distinction is crucial for understanding the Doll’s origins and purpose. Naomi explained:

I made her in response to a number of things (and it’s not strictly just because of this) but when I first came across the Vasalisa story, it left a really big impression. More than anything, I resonated with the intuition [aspect of the story]. I had been working with that sense of intuition already and it validated that; and I wanted to work more with it. (Naomi, Retreat: Day 1)

The story Naomi refers to above is “Vasalisa the Wise” as retold in Estés’ tome Women Who Run With the Wolves (1992, pp. 71–76). The version Estés tells is an ancient Russian tale with archetypal roots predating classical Greek culture (1992, p. 70). It is an initiation story told to girls and women to illuminate the tasks involved in nurturing and embodying intuitive ways of knowing and being (Mozeley & McPhillips, 2019). Importantly, Naomi explained that she was drawing on archetypal practices personally and professionally around the time that the little Doll was brought into being:

I was working with modalities of the transpersonal and using Jungian ideas and creativity as therapy and for healing. I was feeling invited to weigh up a lot of things . . . I recognised that I was giving out, kind of outsourcing, a lot of my identity and even my power, in all sorts of ways. (Naomi, Retreat: Day 1)

Consequently, learning about transpersonal and other Jungian-inspired ideas through her creative therapy work invited a deep contemplation of her identities, roles, and personal power. Through engagement with intuitive processes, she identified that self-care was fundamental to her sense of self-belonging:

I had an awareness that to belong to myself, I needed to develop processes around taking back those [externally determined] identities and roles. I needed to work at healing myself by holding space for myself, re-parenting myself and giving myself all the things that I had been outsourcing. It’s still a journey that I’m on. (Naomi, Retreat: Day 1)

Creating (and carrying) the Doll enabled Naomi to manifest ways of honoring and holding space for herself. She explained that the little Doll is more than a representation of self-love; it is self-belonging. In this way, the Doll is an object that generates its own meaning rather than simply being an object ascribed with meaning (Craig, 2011, p. 47). Furthermore, her engagement with its multi-dimensionality bridges symbolic and material relationalities:

The idea of dolls and the idea of the power they have as a symbol stayed with me. So, I made this little one. She doesn’t have a name other than the Doll in my pocket. She has a face but it’s tricky to see. She has a little heart on her chest. I hand-felted the wool, so she is almost completely constructed from scratch by me. I put inside her belly a semi-precious stone but I can’t remember what it is, which I think is fabulous because it’s like a reminder to not take yourself too seriously [said with laughter]. The intention behind putting it in there was that it represented me giving myself what I need . . . I also put in a little feather and possibly something else. The idea was that I was placing things within her that represented me, as a way of anchoring myself . . . She also represented the parts of me that were “little.” I often talk of feeling a bit small today. So, the vulnerability and the fragility, she was a way of honouring that. (Naomi, Retreat: Day 1)

Naomi’s embodied experiences of feeling “small” exemplify the creative ways in which material objects can encourage self-reflection (Solway et al., 2016). More than this, the story demonstrates that the Doll is not merely an object with meanings placed onto it (Craig, 2011), but that its very “being” evolves in unanticipated ways. While the Doll was originally created as a symbol and source of personal power and strength, it carved out new ways of “being” that sought to keep Naomi’s most vulnerable “self” safe. These dynamic material relationalities expose the acting, affecting, and inspirited qualities of the Doll in her pocket.

Story 2: The Orbiting Sun and Moon Mug

The anthropologist in Debbi enjoyed the process of selecting story-objects. Debbi chose three Tarot Books to help tell stories of her developing and changing sense of self. She also chose a Hat that does not quite fit to help tell a tale about her complex relationships with identity, ancestry, and Country. However, it was a Mug who co-told stories of relational belonging through expressions of identity and fondness along with negotiations of power and ownership. Debbi explained that while it is a much-loved mug, she struggles to recall where she got it from but thinks it was at a bargain-type shop in Adelaide or somewhere in Amsterdam. It was her office Mug. While completing her doctoral thesis, the Mug was a source of identity, comfort, and belonging:

I was jointly enrolled between anthropology and women’s studies and women’s studies had the better office facilities, so I parked myself over there. At one point, the Mug was taken from the kitchen and it was devastating. I was really pissed-off. It just disappeared. I stuck my head into everyone’s office and asked, “have you taken my Mug?” But I never found it. Then about a year later, it turned up in the kitchen again and I was like, “oh, I’ll have that, thank you very much” [said with laughter]. After that I’d put it away in my drawer when I went home at night rather than leaving it on my desk, as is the nature of office mug politics. (Debbi, Retreat: Day 2)

According to Kroger and Adair, a treasured object is “more than a possession serving a utilitarian purpose” (2008, p. 6). They recognize that the personal meaning a cherished or valued object holds for the owner “may defy rational explanation, but provides the owner with a sense of pleasure, comfort, attachment, or well-being” (Kroger & Adair, 2008, p. 6). Part of what distinguishes a treasured object from a well-liked or even loved object is that the loss of the object (whether actual or imagined) is associated with a sense of personal loss, such as a “loss of identity, relationship, family tradition, status, or life era” (Kroger & Adair, 2008, p. 6). Given this, Debbi’s reaction to the Mug’s disappearance is both understandable and relatable.

Debbi went on to explain that fellow anthropologists are her “people.” She describes them as her family. Despite the thorough disciplinary fit, being caught in a loop of casual university employment and working as an interdisciplinary academic has left Debbi wounded and with a profound sense of unbelonging at an institutional level:

I am feeling distressed to the point of trauma at my not belonging in a university home. I feel like a stray being passed around from foster home to foster home—I’ve given up the idea of ever having an academic forever-home. (Debbi, Retreat: Day 2)

So as Debbi moved from contract to contract, the office Mug moved with her, from Adelaide to Melbourne, to Sydney then Newcastle and back to Melbourne again. Importantly, the Mug provided a sense of continuity and stability among so much change:

When I moved back down to Melbourne [the second time], I didn’t have an office for a while. So, it stayed at home, and I had another favourite mug at home, so it ended up in the cupboard and became a cupboard Mug. I never quite felt comfortable with that because it didn’t belong in there with everybody else. (Debbi, Retreat: Day 2)

The Mug’s material relationalities, shifting identities, and co-constitutive relationship with Debbi distinguish it as an object of identity (Kroger & Adair, 2008). Its mistreatment (by being relocated to the cupboard) caused discomfort for Debbi and affected her sense of self. This reflects Eugene Rochberg-Halton’s finding that:

Valued material possessions . . . act as signs of the self that are essential in their own right for its continued cultivation, and hence the meaning that we create for ourselves, and that creates ourselves, extends literally into the objective surroundings. (1984, p. 335)

Furthermore, Debbi’s disciplinary belonging and institutional unbelonging reflect the co-constitutive relationships between identity formation and belonging and the materialities of the Mug (Ingold, 2007). During its time in the cupboard, Debbi’s (then) teenage son came to love the Mug, although she notes that it was one of several that they liked to use. Complicating things further, Debbi’s new partner (now husband) also loved the Mug and chose it whenever it was on offer. Her son took offense, and the Mug became a contested site of belonging in the possessive sense. Possession of the Mug signified a claim to Debbi; “my Mug” in turn meant “my mum” or “my partner,” and consequently inferred that “she belongs to/with me.” To circumvent this power struggle, Debbi purchased a second identical Mug, which meant that one became her son’s and the other her husband’s:

The reason I chose to tell the Mug story on the “people” night is because it is about my academic self and myself as an anthropologist; it was the thing that went from place to place with me, as office Mugs do. But then also somehow in giving it up to my son and my husband, quite willingly, there’s something interesting in that . . . There’s a part of me that actually likes that there’s two of them and neither of them are mine anymore. (Debbi, Retreat: Day 2)

Beginning as an object of personal significance, the Mug’s role and Debbi’s relationship with it changed over time. Both Debbi and the Mug perform relational bridging roles (see Anzalduá & Keating, 2002; Malhotra & Perez, 2005; Moraga & Anzaldúa, 2015). Debbi is a bridge between her son and husband and the Mug acts as a bridge between Debbi’s changing professional contexts and associated identities. To conjure another metaphor, Debbi can also be imagined as the central entity that the sun and moon Mug orbits around. As her relationships change over time, professionally and personally, the orbital trajectories of the Mug expand and contract.

When storying relational belonging, we invited expanded views of personhood to include Earth-kin.⁹ Earth-kin is a term coined by feminist philosopher Mathews (2011) to refer to the personhood of all that emerges from and inhabits the Earth: animals (including humans), plants, trees, rocks, mountains, rivers, oceans, and so on. What this story demonstrates is that personhood can also be extended to human-made material objects. Objects, in this sense, are not only imbued with meaning but also have the agency and power to affect the world around them (see Kroger & Adair, 2008; Rochberg-Halton, 1984; Strang, 2014; Woodward, 2016).

Story 3: Raven Claw/Waagura Wing

Sara heartily embraced using objects as story prompts. Her story of self-belonging was told with the help of a folded origami-type Bat that she had made, which (like Naomi’s little Doll) functioned as a symbolic and material form of self-representation, healing, and belonging. A fishing Cat figurine and knitted wooly Prawn joined in the telling of her “peopled” belonging stories, while Sara’s story of emplaced belonging was co-told by Waagura.¹⁰

Sara introduced her precious story-objects tentatively. She explained that she had worked with them in other learning spaces with mixed responses. Unlike the other story-objects, which had been placed on our story-mat back on the first day of the retreat, these had been kept in Sara’s room until this moment due to their fragility and cultural significance. Sara carefully unwrapped a Waagura Claw and Wing. The Claw and Wing were from the same bird, an Australian Raven (Corvus coronoides).¹¹ Sara beautifully preserved them through her knowledge of taxidermy gained through her ornithology training. Importantly, she used methods that were cultural in practice and ethics. This means that Sara never takes from an animal for the sake of it. Rather, she engages in complex processes of seeking permission from the animal, earning the right to share their body with them, to ensure that the preservation process respects and honors the body and life of the animal. As a group, we welcomed their presence and the story they helped to tell.

The story told by Sara and Waagura spoke of multi-dimensional relationalities (Mason, 2006) through people, time, and place. Their story illustrates the ways in which Sara’s connections with place are understood and experienced through knowing Country as kin. She explained that recognizing Country as kin enables her to experience forms of belonging that might otherwise feel out of reach:

The story behind this Raven is that I was walking around a local park and I encountered an injured Raven on the ground . . . I heard this crazy commotion of Birds off the path somewhere. I was really tired. I was carrying my shopping because I’d just come from the grocery store. I was just going to go home but I thought, “what if it’s an Owl or something cool”? So, I decided to go over and see what was going on and I found a beautiful adult Raven. She was on the ground and she didn’t look so great. I used to be on avian management for WIRES [Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service] and I’m trained in ornithology. I’m a Bird nerd. So my first thought was, “I’ve got to help this Raven.” But then there were twenty-or-so Ravens gathered around in the trees protecting their person. And I thought, “they’re going to descend on me if I pick up their friend.” So, I took a moment to explain to them that I was planning on helping. Then I picked up the Raven and . . . carried her home. And these twenty Ravens followed us the whole way . . . There was this unsettling feeling of being followed by twenty very large, very intimidating Birds. (Sara, Retreat: Day 3)

Sara’s relationships with matter (in this case Earth-kin and Country) exemplifies Haraway’s notion of natureculture in that people and the material world are thoroughly entangled (Haraway, 2016, p. 100). Crucially, Sara’s expanded understandings of people and personhood are deeply inclusive of Earth-kin. She recognizes that the Ravens are protecting their person, and by taking the time to explain to them her intentions to help the injured Raven, she honors her co-constitutive relationship with them (Ingold, 2007; van Dooren & Rose, 2016):

I got the Raven home. . . but she didn’t make it. A few of the Ravens who followed us home were perched on the back fence watching the whole time, so I left her body on the back table and went inside to give them some space. I wasn’t expecting anything to happen, but it did—the Ravens were grieving. I watched them come down and they would sort of look at the body but not peck it, it was like a ruffling of the feathers, almost like they were touching the body. It was the most amazing thing. Eventually they all left and I put the body in a box and night fell. The next morning, there were no Ravens; they never came back . . . Three or four days later, I took some of the tail feathers back out to the park where I had found the Raven, and I heard that really familiar “CAAW.” I swear they must have recognised me because within seconds there were Ravens everywhere again in the trees all around . . . And they did the same thing. They started coming down and they would pick up the feathers and drop them, and pick them up and drop them. (Sara, Retreat: Day 3)

The Ravens followed Sara. They communicated with her and allowed her to witness their intimate rituals of mourning. Moreover, when she returned to where the injured Raven had been found, she was remembered and greeted, further demonstrating important relational entanglements. These entanglements extended beyond a single moment to signify the ongoing co-constituted becomings of their relationship (even beyond death) (Haraway, 2016). Being together and sharing important parts of each other’s stories further illustrate their co-constitutive relationship. Sara explained how the grief of the Ravens mapped alongside her grief:

The reason I’m telling this story for “place” is because three of my cultures, my cultural identities, are represented by the Raven [Norse, Celtic and Aboriginal]. And for the identity that is of this Country, my Aboriginal heritage, there’s a lot of grief. There’s been a lot of violence and disruption and there’s a lot of unknowns. And that comes with a huge amount of grief with not knowing Ancestrally¹² exactly where it is that I belong, where my place is. But one of the ways that I navigate that grief is to understand that in the fallout of colonial violence and not knowing exactly where on Yuin Country my Aboriginal grandmothers came from, I can be comfortable in identifying that my mob is Country. Country is my mob. I belong to Country.¹³ (Sara, Retreat: Day 3)

Sara clarified that, more specifically, she belongs to and with Country where she can be of service. She explained, “it’s Country where I can have a role as a carer. It has to be a place that I love and care for” (Sara, Retreat: Day 3). Understanding that she is in reciprocal relationship with the material world (Country and Earth-kin) underpins her storied connections and sense of place-based belonging. In terms of material realities, Sara recognizes that objects, stories, and other non-human entities are deeply inspirited:

Your stories are not just the things that you are aware of. They’re also the things that you are not aware of, things that are happening around you all the time. Like your presence in Country might be that you’ve walked across a patch of grass on your way to somewhere else. But as far as we’re concerned, culturally [from an Aboriginal perspective], your footprints are now forever part of that Country and part of that story. And it never goes away. It reaches, we don’t have a beginning, middle and end. It reaches back and forth and round and round all through time. So once the connection, the interaction, the moment, the encounter has been made, it’s there forever. So, I like to think that this Raven and I are intimately part of each other’s story. (Sara, Retreat: Day 3)

Sara aptly notes that storying is omnipresent, regardless of conscious awareness. Her storied insights echo Louise Phillips and Tracey Bunda’s understanding that

Stories aren’t just for the mind. They are theories to feed and nourish the whole of being. They are created and received through whole-of-body meaning making. Storying is about walking with others. (Phillips & Bunda, 2018, p. 61)

This includes walking with Country and Earth-kin. In this way, we are always in storied relationship with the material worlds around us. Waagura Claw and Wing are so much more than treasured objects (Kroger & Adair, 2008) or memory prompts (Marschall, 2019). While Craig makes an important distinction, in terms of co-constitutive agency, it is not enough to distinguish them as “vessels of meaning” rather than “vessels for meaning” (Craig, 2011, p. 47, emphases in original). Such framings can be misleading as they obscure understandings of Waagura Wing and Claw as vital, knowing, telling, inspirited beings that are in ongoing dynamic relationships. An understanding of anything less epistemically and ontologically limits their multi-dimensional material relationalities.

Concluding Storied Reflections

This article has argued that relational materiality is more than a recognition that “things” create social dynamics and are part of relational flows (Appadurai, 1986; Kopytoff, 1986; Latour, 1994; Miller, 1987). While developments in qualitative methods recognize the benefits of working with material objects to evoke memories, stories, and reflections on specific topics, we have shown that more than simply eliciting storied responses, self-chosen material objects in fact co-tell stories.

Furthermore, practices of selecting objects to story with are meaningful and purposeful. Such practices encourage self-reflection and increase personal and collective awareness of meaning-making processes by providing opportunities to contemplate personally significant formative and storied lived experiences (Solway et al., 2016). Importantly, however, the process of selecting items required sitting with and listening to the stories objects wish to tell. Rather than thinking of a story and then finding an object to fit the narrative, this methodological process centers the objects themselves. Consequently, such processes are informed by an understanding that things hold latent stories waiting to be heard and told. Mason’s call to take up multi-nodal dialogical research practices invites the kinds of inspirited engagement with materialities needed to hear such stories (2006, p. 19).

We found the co-telling of personal stories with self-selected objects generative. In grounded and experiential ways, these co-tellings enabled restoryings that were often unexpected and highly emergent. For example, the little Doll revealed the creative ways in which symbolism operates multi-dimensionally (Mason, 2006). While Naomi created the Doll with a particular intention, the Doll co-crafted unanticipated ways of being that were equally valued. With its shifting identities and fluid ownership, the orbiting Mug demonstrated the diverse affects and agencies of treasured objects (Kroger & Adair, 2008), and the precious Waagura Wing and Claw conveyed the power of becoming part of more-than-human stories in co-constituted and enduring ways (van Dooren & Rose, 2016). Collectively, these co-told stories demonstrate that objects “are involved in social interactions that create and maintain identity and community” (Craig, 2011, p. 47). While we concur that objects are “vessels of meaning” and not simply “vessels for meaning” (Craig, 2011, p. 47, emphases in original), we extend this understanding by demonstrating that objects are not mere story prompts but rather hold and convey vital materialities in and of themselves (cf. Bennett, 2010). Crucially, the agency and affective potency of objects are made tangible through methodologies that center the stories they tell.

By centering the material relationalities of objects, this article builds on and extends qualitative methodologies that value more-than-rational ways of researching. Coupling this approach with processes of storytelling highlighted the affective agency of the more-than-rational research methods by revealing dynamic material and storied worlds that are lived, sensed, and enlivened. We have shown, when relational metaphysical understandings underpin object-centered methodologies, that all matter is animated, affecting, shaping, and influencing. By attending and attuning to more-than-rational understandings and relationships, object-centered methodologies offer inspirited and expanded ways of researching. We conclude that researching with “things” requires methodological attentiveness to the tales they wish to tell and how they might be told.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Fee Mozeley

Notes

Author Biographies

Fee Mozeley is an environmental feminist writer and educator who lives on Awabakal and Worimi Country. Her interdisciplinary research blends rich nuanced conceptual understandings of gender and cultural issues with practical hands-on, hearts forward practices to explore the intra-connections between more-than-rational ways of being and knowing, care-based ethics, storytelling, and belonging.

Sara Kianga Judge is a Neurodiverse Yuin woman born in Burramattagal Country and grown up in Wodi-Wodi, Gundungurra, and Dharug lands. As a geographer, Sara works to uphold the agency of Country, working closely with Bats and Birds to create meaningful content that is of service to sustainability, accessibility, and justice for all—regardless of the species. Sara is currently co-creating a many-ways learning space devoted to reimagining the world through First Nations, Pacific, and scientific lenses.

Debbi Long is a health anthropologist and hospital ethnographer who has taught in anthropology departments, medical and nursing schools, Indigenous centers, and critical development studies at a number of Australian and international universities. She is currently working in the sustainability area and is putting her academic interests into practice by planning the build for a strawbale home and establishing a permaculture acreage.

Jo McGregor is a registered neurological occupational therapist with a master of social change and development and has worked in various neurological settings across Australia and the United Kingdom. She currently works as a community development officer supporting people from Refugee Backgrounds in Newcastle and the Hunter Region NSW. Jo loves immersing herself in the ocean and caring for her gorgeous pups, Lilly and Charlotte.

Naomi Wild conducts herself professionally as an artist, psychotherapist, and yoga and mindfulness teacher who has exhibited her work internationally and contracts her services to health, education, and well-being organizations alongside her private practice. She currently provides therapeutic support for the Royal Flying Doctors Service in Far West, NSW.

Jay Johnston (BA, MArtAdmin, MLitt (Dist), MA Hons, PhD) is trained in religious studies, continental philosophy, art history and theory, curatorial and museum studies, and the cultural heritage of Scotland. As an interdisciplinary scholar, she works at the interface of religion/arts/philosophy examining visual and material culture with a particular focus on the interrelationship between ethics and aesthetics, concepts of materiality, embodiment, and epistemology.

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