STUDENT REFLECTIONS ON LIFE TRANSFORMING MOMENTS
Auto-ethnography is self-reflection that takes into account personal experiences and it’s relation to greater societal ethics, ideals, and understandings. Often times, this writing emphasizes the self and its connection to the group, ethnos. Ifekwunglewe explores the loss of identity caused by diaspora through her own diaspora story. She then draws connections to the lager meaning and understanding of the word “diaspora” for others.
Ifekwunglewe presents a “kaleidoscopic series of narratives,” titled “Turnings” in which she takes the reader through her childhood and journey to finding her identity. Ifekwunglewe points out that traveling through lands is the catalyst behind finding who we are, what defines us, and what we identify with. Diaspora not only causes a loss of culture and history, it is the single most important stimulus to finding oneself. It is interesting to think that submersion into a foreign society and culture can make a diasporic individual cling even tighter to their roots. It can also lead them down a path of new self-discovery and cultural discovery. This integration into a different culture essentially creates a bridge to their identity that they can finally cross.
Ifekwunglewe begins by describing the Igbo identity she was born into. Throughout her childhood, she goes back and forth between London, Africa and the US. Initially, she identifies as an English women, but this all changes as she begins to travel across continental borders. She soon realizes that is not the case. She viewed herself as the “the quintessential product of the ‘triangular trade.’” She was a cross between many cultures and saw the world through many cultures that comprised her. However, that soon changed. When she moved to LA, she began to suppress her African identity and celebrate her English heritage. She began to deny a part of herself that identifies with for so long, and at that point she lost touch with the core of who she was.
During her dissertation work in Africa, she found her identity. She made the greatest connections with the people who defended the border, the marginal. These individuals were at he very edge and “[seemed] unbelonging.” Here she realized she was not made of two distinct identities rather she lived on the very edge. She was the border of all these cultures and she didn’t solely belong to a single one. Her identity mixed parts of each culture to form a unique identity.