One Continent, Three Words, and a Dream: Making Interpretive [Auto] ethnography in a Particular Place in Northern Chile
Published online on December 18, 2015
Abstract
Through a three words poem, I share my constructed color voice developed from looking for and sensing my ‘I’ through the lens of worldwide international students in my learning experiences in different international "white" universities. At the same time, my ‘I’ is embodied from my fieldwork with Colombian women refugees or seeking for refuge, and as a Latin American woman living in northern Chile. In this way, interpretive [auto] ethnography is a path to situate my ‘I’ in a context where silences, forgetfulness, and "whiteness" behind our voices are consequences of social, political, and historical forces that have erased our indigenous and multicultural heritage in Chile. Today, the tendency in education is teaching, learning, and acting as if we are White people. This piece is an invitation to think-reflect-look-feel-remember and ask ourselves about what the color of our voice is and what the consequences of this standpoint in the academia are.