On the death of travel writing: An autoethnographic inquiry

Abstract

This essay embraces both a critical and creative writing approach to explore the question that has recently loomed over the genre of travel writing: Is travel writing dead? In support for the life of the genre, this essay imagines an amplified definition of travel writing, especially under a global context of movement and migrancy. Additionally, this essay uses an autoethnographic approach (a fusion of the critical and creative) to connect the author’s travel writing identity and family history of migrancy to larger historic, cultural, political, and social meanings. It, therefore, leans on the definition of autoethnography provided by Carolyn Ellis, a leading qualitative researcher who says, autoethnography, is a form of ’research, writing, story, and method that connect the autobiographical and personal to the cultural, social, and political (Ellis 2004: xix). Furthermore, this essay explores what it means to engage in travel writing, while working toward a global understanding through stories of travel, movement, and migrancy. Leaning on the expertise of travel writers like Pico Iyer, Rana Dasgupta, Lindsey Hilsum, Morwari Zafar, Jamaica Kincaid, and a variety of theorists like Gloria Anzaldúa, Mary Baine Campbell, Andrew Miller, Peter Hulme, Joan Pau Rubiés, and others, this essay ultimately claims that many writers are expanding their definition of travel writing by considering the genre as complex, amplified, ever-shifting, and always in motion.