Think ourselves at the meeting with the "others". Narrative research and transformation

Abstract

In this paper we put into dialogue three narrative researches, which were carried out by life histories. Each narrative shows a different reality, but anyway, all of them are transversal to school and education. The first experience is based on professional identity of two teachers, male and female, with a broad professional career throughout the twentieth century in Spain. The second one is based on life accounts of gypsy women, working as intercultural mediators. They show their personal and professional trajectories relating with school and educational and social inclusion of gypsy community. The last one tells a life narrative about a person, "Alegría", with a trajectory of diagnosis and personal, educational, family matters from the beginnings of schooling in eighties. As consequence, he has spent a major time of his life in metal health institutions. We delve into the depth of relationships and the way of living the narrative process with the "other", in the encounter with their stories and in our way of rethinking the world from their stories. We are concerned about ethics at every moment of the narrative, our uncertainties as researchers, as well as the implications of telling and telling us in a complex, respectful, unfinished and situated way.