Tangible t/hereness and affective middles in memory work

Abstract

<p>This chapter unfolds the experienced temporalities in which birthing-stories are collectively told within a memory work group session (2013) which was held for Conservative Laestadian women. The task here is to examine and make explicit the imperceptible but nevertheless intensified, mattering of intersections of affective middles that these events of storytelling produce. The middles are the accumulated and multivoiced intensities that are found within the moments when the storying-bodies move in-between the actual event of the birthing and the enlivening of the event in storytelling. To follow the temporal experiences of Laestadian mothers in the memory work events the concept of t/hereness is employed. In these, the concept of t/hereness brings to the surface the affective forces to be felt, examined, and conceptualized. Untangling the stories of childbirth is an attempt to recognize the significance of the most affective experiences in our everyday life worlds and to work towards our relational responsibility, capability to feel, care, and to be open for different experiences of pain and trauma to create more collective, sharable, and sustainable future for all.<br></p>