(Re)Membering Our Becoming: Matrilineal, Creation, and Communal Stories

• In Event: Decoloniality Dialogues Collective: (Re)storying, (Re)membering, and (Re)visioning Spirals for Decolonial Possibilities

Abstract

In this second paper, the spiral contours are shaped by the collective’s genesis, including our individual creation, matrilineal, and communal stories. Hailing from different colonized and colonizing geographical locations, contexts, and languages, we recognize that who we are extends beyond and it is not contained within modernity’s conceptualization of time, place, and space. Our belief is that we carry and inherit embodied herstories, memories, and knowledges as echoes that refuse to be forgotten; ongoing echoes that haunt, teach, and remind us of the persistent reverberation that spirals in a present that is already both future and past (McKittrick, 2006; Rivera Cusicanqui, 2010).

Thus, the invitation for session attendees is to reflect and engage in dialogue with us, as we summon/recognize our ancestors, loved ones, and spaces that we are connected to through stories, memories, and (matrilineal and transgenerational) herstories. As Cindy Cruz (2001) guides us, “our production of knowledge begins in the bodies of our mothers and grandmothers, in the acknowledgement of the critical practices of women of color before us” (p. 658). Therefore, one of the questions that we ask attendees to ponder is: who do you bring with you into this space? What herstories and memories guide you and or your loved ones? In this sense, we explore spoken and visual artifacts of ourselves, our mothers, and ancestors as transgenerational living refusals that guide us here-now. Through storytelling we weave our ontology and epistemology as sustained with communities in dialogue across time, place, and space. Additionally, the authors of this paper will retrace our collective’s coming into being, including what brought us together, our desires, and aspirations and wonderings since 2021, amidst hemispherical turmoil affecting our homes.

To conclude this portion of the session, we invite the audience to join us in visualizing what has been possible, our transgenerational desires and dreams, and what it means to communally be and dream alongside ancestors and inherited herstories.

Authors

• Romina S. Peña-Pincheira, Gustavus Adolphus College

• Harry Kiiru, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Yaa Oparebea Ampofo, University of Wisconsin - Madison