A (Hopeful) Theory of Everything: Counter-storytelling with Chela Sandoval and Ernst Bloch

• In Event: Reorienting Method: Counter-Story, Embodiment, and Refusal as Currency in Qualitative Inquiry

Abstract

This paper interrogates the concept of partitions and explores how their inherent weaknesses can become sites of resistance and transformation. Drawing on the work of Chela Sandoval and Ernst Bloch, I utilize counter-storytelling as an ontological intervention within the broader anti-racist, anti-colonialist struggle. The paper situates Sandoval’s “methodology of the oppressed” alongside Bloch’s utopian “Not-Yet,” proposing that hope and prophetic love are essential to destabilizing oppressive narratives and imagining alternative futures. By utilizing counter-story as montage, the article demonstrates how storytelling can function as a tactical intervention, subverting entrenched systems and fostering solidarity. Ultimately, I advocate for a dynamic, border-crossing form of resistance that leverages the instability of partitions to cultivate new possibilities for justice, liberation, and collective transformation.

Author

• Daniel Thalkar, University of San Diego