Conceptualizing the Relational Work of Narrative Inquiry as Spaces of Appearance

While Arendt’s theoretical work is now widely taken up in social science research, it has not been taken up in qualitative research methodologies. We use Arendt’s distinction between the private and public through the creation of a space of appearance to show how we can understand participants’ and researchers’ experiences in narrative inquiry. We show how a relational space co-created with each participant shaped a space of appearance. In this article, we draw on one participant’s, Ama, experiences to make visible how we conceptualize research conversations as spaces of appearance.