Stories of Our Lives: Memory, History, Narrative

The social importance of personal narratives, family saga, and communal legends are well-established in ethnographic and folkloristic literature, but their value for individual self-knowledge is less often demonstrated. Both a memoir and a research project, Stories of Our Lives considers the stories from Frank de Caros personal life, as well as the stories he has collected in his years of field research as he explores how the stories we tell, listen to, and learn play an integral role in constructing our temporal selves. De Caro uses his own memories and stories as specimens to call attention to the centrality of oral narration in his life, providing the recollections that all memoirs provide while additionally considering what those stories have meant to his life and sense of self. In doing so, he demonstrates the way in which stories infuse an individual life – expressing, contextualising, and creating ones sense of self – and how the larger life narrative in turn provides a context for the stories that shape it.