Abstract
Once I walked as an accidental autoethnographer through the entrance door of a repurposed children’s orphanage. There on the doorstep, I witnessed a former resident in the final moments of a secular pilgrimage of unforgetting and cradling. Unforgetting is understood, in this article, as a metaphor for the thousands of women and children robbed of their truth, agency, and sometimes their future in state and religious-run orphanages. Cradling is understood as a metaphor for a desiring, sensual, performative, and singular/universal reparation. Influenced by phenomenological writings on the buildings we inhabit and those that inhabit us, and embodied, rhythmic, sensory, and experimental qualitative inquiry writing, I challenge the erasure of violence-toleration in official discourses of church and state-run institutions through a performative aesthetic of witnessing, evoking, and inscribing the lost sensations of a denied, difficult, and violent past into the grand narratives of mothers, children, and childhood.
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
