Composing senselessness: Autoethnography after homicide

Abstract

Not all narratives create meaning, or create the same kinds of meaning; instead, some stories amplify meaninglessness, which—it is argued—is its own form of sense-making. This article examines how meaning is formulated through narrative in the absence of a meaningful death, specifically in the context of a motiveless murder. Key to the production of meaningful narratives about contested facts is the skill with which tellers entextualize them. By asking how meaning is formulated in the absence of a meaningful death, I reflect upon a fundamental discordance between legal and nonlegal actors' narrative needs in the wake of homicide. The research involves my experiences after the murder of my aunt on New Year's Eve, 2019. I examine the ongoing narrative work of my family across funeral preparations and courtroom dramas. The courtroom presents a concrete example of distinct entextualization processes between the narratives of legal and nonlegal actors and demonstrates how these distinctions afford different kinds of meaning to events. Drawing upon techniques of narrative analysis, I analyze my family's expressions of loss to understand the complex ways in which co-victims rearticulate meaning in their lives.