Walking the story of my Indo-Mauritian indentured ancestry: an arts-based inquiry into voiced resistance and conflict with reconciliation

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Abstract

Reconciliation is a contested term often associated with postcolonial discourses, contending with global histories of injustice, racial discrimination and dispos-session that affect diverse groups (slaves, indentures or Indigenous people). Reconciliation stories mainly encounter resistance when problematized by individ-ual experiences. As a woman of Indo-Mauritian indenture descent, I explore my ancestral stories from gendered dimensions: hailed by hardships, discrimination and patriarchal norms from colonialization and its legacies. I discuss my perceived subalternity and disempowerment in defining my positioning and identity. From an arts-based inquiry, I use bricolage to combine art·I/f/act·ology, evocative auto-ethnography and emotional reflexivity in framing emotion-based writing. Intersectionality as a theoretical lens situates the influences of race, culture, ethnicity, caste, gender and identity processes within my narratives. The discus-sion emphasizes a voiced resistance and conflict with reconciliation. My visual narratives display and are rooted in the listening and co-ownership of ancestral stories as mine, wherein I find voice and agency.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)11-32
Number of pages22
JournalInternational Journal of Education Through Art
Volume18
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2022

Keywords

  • Arts-based inquiry art
  • I/f/act
  • Ology emotional reflexivity indenture descent intersectionality reconciliation

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