Paper short abstract:

Voice and narrative share certain strengths and limitations: though powerful tools of communication and sense-making, they suit some persons more than others, and fail to capture the inchoate, less orderly aspects of lived life in general.

Paper long abstract:

Giving voice can be an empowering metaphor for opening up a space for another’s perspective, allowing their experience to be noted and attended to. Yet it is also a metaphor that relies, in part, on a particular form of expression. Voice and narrative share some of the same strengths and limitations: they are powerful tools of sense making and communication, but elude some persons more than others and fail to capture less orderly, inchoate aspects of lived life in general. Departing from Strawson’s distinction between ‘episodics’ and ‘diachronics’, I suggest that tendencies to inhabit the moment and to narrativize could be considered as alternate modalities that people often move between. In other words, certain aspects of lived experience push the discursive to the limit, and hence elude voice and narrative alike.