Walking Refrains for Storied Movement

Abstract

In this article, I describe my narrative walking project, StoryWalks, as a methodology that underscores the concept of movement in relation to place-based narratives. I describe several community member’s walking narratives, theorizing movement through Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the refrain and through Donna Haraway’s concept of storytelling as open signification and materialization in order to think about the various ways in which walking with stories is an entanglement of memories, place-based inquiry, history, future goals, and imaginings that matter for an ethnic and racial politics of place, identity, and belonging. I highlight storytelling through walking as an affective production of political, social, and cultural formations within communities.