“Finding yourself and losing yourself”: The textured narratives of humanitarian practitioners

Cameron T Tero

This thesis recounts and considers stories from a group of Western Australian humanitarian practitioners working in activism, international development, medical work, and disaster assessment. The thesis is also about story as something that we ‘do’: a potentially transformational act for recording and passing on memories and knowledge, for grieving, for resisting existing narratives, for connection with others, and for discovering layers of meaning in the stories of our own lives. In its first half, the thesis traces how particular features of narrative research were brought to bear on the project as it unfolded. It highlights how ethical and dialogical encounter lies at the centre of this narrative research endeavour, the way in which narratives are shaped by and shape those who tell them, how the metaphor and practice of mapping has added depth to this project, and how embracing uncertainty can be an asset. The narratives of the practitioners that were produced during the project, and the considerations that flow from these, are the backbone of the second half of the thesis. These multi-layered narratives and considerations are heavily ‘textured’, in that they consist of multiple elements that are woven together to show the challenges and contingencies present in professions from which mythical narrative accounts commonly emerge. The narratives bring a particularness which complicates and deepens understanding of practice; giving expression to experience and ideas for which it is often difficult to find tidy description. This narrative work is a pathway to these deeper understandings. It is against this backdrop that the thesis also illuminates a series of co-existent and sometimes contradictory realities in the theatres of humanitarian work. The narratives in this thesis are riddled with much that is never fully settled: illuminating the intricacies of self- interest and service, vocation and lostness, common humanity and plurality, the centrality of imagination and remaining troubled by suffering, locating hope within intractability, and the gift and burdens of uncertainly and disruption. These challenges lend themselves to the type of open-ended examination inherent in narrative; the individual and collective sense-making that is at the heart of narrative practice. This thesis demonstrates the importance of such practice in the complex zones of encounter into which practitioners venture, providing a method for expressing and wrestling with the contradiction and intricacy of the work that will always be present; for remaining humane in the face of that which practitioners can never solve. Overall, the thesis deepens understanding of humanitarian practice in its many iterations by presenting these textured stories, to consider them and to illuminate their roughness and their entanglements. This series of detailed narratives and analyses are valuable reflective materials for current and future practitioners, and for educators and leaders who prepare others for such work.

“Finding yourself and losing yourself”: The textured narratives of humanitarian practitioners

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