RELATED TERMS:
The phrase ‘narrative ecology’ has been used as a framework for understanding identity development in the context of family stories as, for example, in The Co-authored Self: Family Stories and the Construction of Personal Identity by Kate C. McLean. For McLean (2016), “narrative ecology comprises the stories that are available to a person as he or she develops, the stories that form each person’s particular narrative landscape.”
In this sense, ecology means a network or a set of narratives from which a narrator may choose to construct a new narrative, in this case, about one’s sense of self.
Alternatively, the phrase ‘narrative ecology’ may be taken to mean a narrative approach to design in the context of ecology. Such is the case in Crystal Campbell’s project (https://web.archive.org/web/20110714154317/http://www.narrativeecology.com/articles/?c=about) which acts as a reasoning, problem-solving and decision-making framework for the design process, determining the comprehensive components and processes, as well as the inter-relationships found within them, in order to inform design development.
Narrative ecology explores how knowledge comes from the natural world and how human knowledge emanates from other forms of peoplehood. Many indigenous paradigms of knowledge incorporate the recognition that traditional ecological knowledges evolve through relationships which acknowledge and accept the agency, or actantiality, of all life forms. Thus, human life and meaning are co-created by a living universe that is active in various dimensions of existence. (Gonzalez, 2012)
References
Gonzales, P. (2012) Ant medicine: a narrative ecology. Chicana/Latina Studies, 11 (2), 82-93. Retrieved March 13, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23345343