Publication details
Autoethnographic Explorations of (Post-)Socialist Childhood Memories Through Storytelling Migrating as and With Children
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| Year of publication | 2025 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | Anzaldúa’s poetic description of the shadowy spaces of borderlands, in this chapter, we reflect on the conduciveness of seemingly nonscientific, artistic methods such as collage making and creative writing, when coping with disruptive life experiences. We share our personal stories and reflect on the collectively shared practice that unearth the stories. Both stories emerged from collective, autoethnographic and storytelling with childhood memories of migration as and with children in late and postsocialism. The first story is shared through a collage that shows fragments of the author’s socialist childhood as they resurface throughout her adult life. The second story has been analysed and abstracted from diary entries written in the author’s youth weaving together memories of alienation, fragmentation and belonging. The artistic and evocative engagement afforded an avenue into making sense of otherwise fragmented memories. They allowed the coconstruction of meaning beyond individual stories. The stories illustrate our experiences of negotiating belongings within the self and within the collectively shared experience of migrating and/or political dislocation at the end of the 20th century in Europe. We hope that the stories resonate with others’ experiences and inspire transnational solidarities and belonging. |