An Ontological Approach

Human life is messy. Lived experience is not merely an accumulation of acts that affected an individual’s well-being but reflects the ebb and flow of meeting basic daily needs. Changes that mark life transitions and intense encounters that may alter or even end life are not separate realms of experience. Life is experienced simultaneously in different ways, each moment embedded within the immediacy of circumstances and shaped by historical contingencies. In other words, human lived experience is relational. Similarly, our approaches to inquiry are embedded within how we portray the lives of others – whether past or present – This chapter explores how a material-discursive approach provides distinctive insights about the lives of past people as relational situated encounters.