The steps at Mariental: Gaps,incompleteness and shared spaces

Abstract

This article explores the temporalities, presences, and absences of bodies and narratives within and beyond research, the connections and disconnections which these can create, and the different types of proximity involved in their construction. Here the gaps within ethnographic research, storytelling, and memory practices and the often fleeting shared spaces that might result from them (or exist perhaps despite them) are investigated. Through an exploration of a personal family narrative alongside an academic research project the article draws upon selected images, archives, interactions, and the often unanswered or unpursued questions which accompany these to explore further the role of gaps and shared spaces within research and within narratives, and also in relation to the potential for a more multifaceted understanding – and representation – of different levels, or proximities, of knowledge, narrative and experience.