Autoethnographic Stories in Academia from Two Women of Diasporas

Mirza, Mehreen and Mitra, Barbara ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4512-466X (2021) Autoethnographic Stories in Academia from Two Women of Diasporas. In: Asian Women, Identity and Migration: Experiences of Transnational Women of Indian Origin/Heritage. Routledge, Abingdon. ISBN 9780367516819

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Abstract

In this chapter we use autoethnographic accounts to highlight the similarities and differences in the negotiations of our respective heritages in academia. We discuss how we are at once part of the centre and yet also firmly located at the margins of academia, as we are both object and subject, bounded by particular ethnicised and gendered notions of who we are, regardless of who we might actually be. Through these vignettes we analyse the impact of this process of continual becoming – of being ‘out of place’ (Puwar, 2004). We explore how it is that despite being two individuals with different histories, we have, on occasion, been treated as though interchangeable. In conclusion, we discuss how we use our embodied intersectionality to give authenticity to our cultural values and beliefs and, importantly, to our positions in the academy.

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