The 'Ce qui nous concerne' ('What matters to us') project and participative research with Rennes' civil society narratives: An ecosophical narratology: an ecosophical narratology Le projet 'Ce qui nous concerne' et de la recherche participative avec des récits issus de la société civile Rennaise: une narratologie écosophique: une narratologie écosophique En Fr

Résumé En

This article presents findings from participative small stories narrative research with civil society organisations in Rennes, France. The aim is to explore ecosophical narratology and, thereby, the adoption of ecosophical practices. Rennes has a long history of inclusive politics and civil society engagement which encourages positive discourse analysis and purposive change through research initiatives. ‘Ce qui nous concerne’ (‘What matters to us’) is a longitudinal ethnographic project that is in the process of transcribing and collecting Rennes civil society stories as a corpus on the Huma-Num Nakala multimodal corpus platform. The project team is also currently in the process of developing an open-access interactive library on the Rennes 2 University WorkAdventure 2D collaborative platform. The project aims to accompany emancipatory pedagogic practices grounded on co-tellings and re-tellings. This article explores a purposive sample of three stories from the corpus in order to shed light on the linguistic and narrative work that each accomplishes, and the opportunities that each presents for ecosophical workshops and societal change. An ecosophical narratology inverts canonical story arcs, replacing individual overcoming by what Haraway would term “nets” of earthbound multispecies flourishing and imagining, privileging the role of the environment in narrative moment and resolution, time-scale and indexicality. Importance is thus given to earth-centred language and process rather than event. Through these stories, associative practices are both recounted and materialised, contributing to social and environmental justice.