Coloring Memories and Imaginations of “Home”: Crafting a De/Colonizing Autoethnography

Abstract

In this postcolonial gendered autoethnography, I critically examine how my understanding of home was first imprinted and how, once dislocated, I have negotiated my desire for and imagination of home. I argue that colonialism and patriarchy are interconnected structures of oppression that contribute to individuals’ understandings of home. For transnationals, a dislocated understanding of home need not result from migration but can arise long before oceans are crossed. Specifically, I emphasize how readily the notion of home is romanticized, silencing disruptive understandings of home. I trace how trauma-infused understandings of home reveal the consequences of feeling continuously uprooted and exiled. Thus, the fragmentations surrounding the notions of home, old country, and new country show movements in liminalities, where “home” is a site of experience, memory, desire, hope, and imagination.