On topobiography; or, how to write one’s place

Abstract

In topobiography there is a triad of place, memory and self at work. The self is a narrating self and to narrate is to try to organise experiences into a meaningful whole. In a narrative the meaning of each event is produced by its position in this comprehensible whole. What is of interest in this paper is how the meaningful whole is spatially constituted. In this respect the sensuous human embodiment is seen as always taking its place, or happening somewhere. Thus, the lived sense of time becomes the lived sense of place. In this way, time and place coincide.