Searching for “home,” writing to find it: A reflective account on experiences of othering in life and academia in times of generalized crises

Abstract

AbstractCombining poetry with diary notes inspired by recent experiences of othering amid COVID‐19 travel restrictions, I create a nonlinear text, whereby my other voices intermingle with broader experiences of othering and vulnerability to raise issues of oppression and privilege in masculine social structures, including academia. I bring the collective force of different voices in this nonlinear account to propose the need to understand academic writing as an activist, embodied practice of reuniting which allows for the development of the necessary intersectional feminist curiosity for undoing systems of oppression and patriarchy that increasingly disqualify different bodies. I conclude that it is not only about what we write but also about how we write and thus how we learn to socialize ourselves through life and academia. Paying attention to these dynamics, I suggest, might make the return back “home” possible again with commitment and attachment towards one another to mobilize much needed social change, together, in solidarity.