Epistemic Narratives Matrix™ — Terminology
Glossary of Terms
Key concepts for engaging with the Epistemic Narratives Matrix
The Epistemic Narratives Matrix draws on a specialised vocabulary from design research, historiography, critical theory, and poetics. This glossary is provided so that anyone applying the framework — alone or as part of a team — can navigate its language with clarity and apply its ideas with precision. Each term is defined both plainly and within the framework's own usage, with the scholarly source it draws from.
Objects made or used by humans that provide information about history or culture.
Physical or symbolic objects that carry layered histories. In this framework, artefacts are not fixed records of the past but viewed as living nodes engaged in iterative storytelling, capable of embodying contested memories, hybrid identities, and affective, poetic meaning.
A system that can create, generate and maintain itself independently.
In this framework, it refers to the self-generative, living character of historical narratives and artefacts. History is not static; meanings and stories about the past are constantly re-authored in response to new contexts, voices, and relational engagements.
The study of communication, thinking, control systems, and feedback loops in systems examining dynamic relationships.
Within this framework, cybernetics involves feedback mechanisms driven by transparency and radical honesty in prompt questions across layers, enabling continuous negotiation and reconstruction of archival meaning.
From "Epistemology" — related to knowledge or the process of knowing.
In this framework, it refers to modes of understanding that emerge from the interplay between artefacts, memory, silenced narratives, and the disruption of linear archival order, as well as other sources and perspectives from different archival institutions.
The study of how history is researched and written.
The practice and philosophy of writing history. The framework re-envisions historiography as non-linear, poetic, and autopoietic, shifting away from fixed truths toward a dynamic remixing and retelling of past events through honesty and transparency.
Identities formed by blending elements from different cultures or backgrounds.
Liable to change and form in "third space" positions, hybrid identities are shaped at the intersection of different cultures, perspectives, or histories, often resisting imposed binary categories and instead engaging in ongoing negotiation and transformation.
A way of expressing ideas that combines diverse cultural or personal influences.
In this framework, a hybrid voice refers to a narrative voice or perspective that emerges from multiple, intersecting identities, cultural heritages, or positionalities, refusing singular or overly simplistic expression and embracing multiplicity.
The process of interpreting and understanding information or experiences.
The relational and iterative process by which individuals and communities produce significance out of historical material. In this approach, meaning is negotiated rather than given, influenced by honesty, transparency, and a hybrid positionality.
The act of creating myths or symbolic stories.
In this framework, it refers to poetic practices that re-envision artefacts and histories as mythic or symbolic, allowing for the transformation of past trauma, erasure, or displacement into empowering narratives.
The creation or use of myths in storytelling or art.
In this framework, it refers to the poetic and symbolic remaking of history, artefacts, and identities, infusing them with new or alternative meaning beyond mere facts, leaning into imagination and myth-making as tools of reclamation and transformation.
The nature of being or existence.
Concerned with being and existence, the framework uses the term ontological as a way of reclaiming and reanimating the being and memory embodied in artefacts, challenging the imposition of singular "truths" and recognising multiplicity.
Expressing ideas openly with a focus on emotional or artistic clarity.
The framework uses poetic transparency as a methodology where revealing and sharing are not limited to factual disclosure but are done in a way that honours the emotive, aesthetic, and interpretive layers of history, allowing for complexity and ambiguity rather than clarity alone.
Being completely truthful.
In this framework, it refers to the intentional, often vulnerable and uncomfortable, practice of confronting and expressing truths that challenge established narratives, especially those shaped by colonial or institutional power. It enacts a reclamation of voice and memory, surfacing suppressed or erased stories in relational and epistemic contexts.
Relationships or connections between people or ideas.
In this framework, it refers to the ways in which meaning and narrative are co-created in interaction, emphasising the network of relationships among artefacts, tellers, and audiences, rather than isolated or objective historical truths.
Stories, often passed down orally, that convey experiences or lessons.
Stories or narrative fragments. Within the framework, tales weave together artefacts, memories, and voices, resisting fixed or linear historical accounts in favour of layered, mythic retelling.
A perspective that combines different cultural or social identities in a flexible, in-between space.
A conceptual stance that emerges in the "in-between" (third space) of identity, culture, and power. It challenges binaries, embraces hybridity, and enables new forms of knowing and being, fostering critique and transformation of dominant historical narratives.
Openness and clarity in communication or presentation.
Beyond factual openness, transparency in this framework is framed as aesthetic integrity — a mode of engaging with artefacts and histories that invites critical reflection, uncovers fractures between past and present, and supports feedback, dialogue, and reinterpretation.