Lugones’s Metaphor of “World Travelling” in Narrative Inquiry

The metaphor of “world traveling” has been taken up by researchers engaged in narrative inquiry. This metaphor provides a reference point throughout the research process for navigating relational processes. In this article, we unpack how the metaphor of “world travelling” shapes the writing of research texts in narrative inquiry and the meaning making inherent in shared texts. We draw on a narrative inquiry focused on the experiences of men who are homeless in Japan, as well as a narrative inquiry focused on precariously housed women who are pregnant or engaged with early parenting and who use illicit substances. As we work with Lugones’s ideas, we see it is critical to engage in a collaborative process that is marked by a playful exchange of ideas and that pushes us to identify connections with others. At the same time, we work to create meaning; we need to challenge racial, social, political, and economic boundaries and social differences in ways that allow researchers and participants to locate themselves in relation to others. Engaging in this manner shows openness to multiple ways of sense making and to creating texts where expectations are broken. Representation requires the development of texts where we can “exercise double vision” and “create and cement relational identities.” These spaces of openness and multiplicity are always in motion and are marked by a sense of “dwelling,” “world travelling,” and “playfulness.”