Carrying: An Autoethnographic Exploration Into Intergenerational Archive

• In Event: Wading in the Waters of Black Diaspora Memory, Embodied Archives, Performative Resistance

Description for Program

This paper will be an autoethnographic reflection on writing and performing my one woman show, Carrying. Carrying explores intergenerational storytelling as both embodied and literal archive, telling the story of myself, my mother and my grandmother. I reflect on the writing process, focusing on my use of language and stories sourced from interviews with my mother and photos, writing and ephemera left behind from my grandmother. I seek to discuss the ways that maternal storytelling can create epistemic lenses from which Black women create concepts of self and meaning making (both linguistic and temporally).

Author

• Kayla Corbin, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill