The Void: Using Arts-Based Autoethnography to Grapple with Genealogy and the Epistimicide of “Official Family Trees” in the Wake of the United States Census

26isfam161 10.3205/26isfam161 urn:nbn:de:0183-26isfam1617 Meeting Abstract The Void: Using Arts-Based Autoethnography to Grapple with Genealogy and the Epistimicide of “Official Family Trees” in the Wake of the United States Census Malik Malik Maya M

University of Wisconsin - Madison

author German Medical Science GMS Publishing House

Düsseldorf

610 20260612 engl This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Dieser Artikel ist ein Open-Access-Artikel und steht unter den Lizenzbedingungen der Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (Namensnennung). M0652 161 International Society for Arts and Medicine The Healing Arts – Forging Alliances of Arts & Medicine Poster Abstracts Berlin 20260618 20260620 26isfam161 TextMy great uncle, the first person I know in my family to earn a doctoral degree, combined archival research with family stories to trace our heritage to 5 African indentured servants trafficked in 1629. From this, he wrote the genealogical text, “Tyler”: No Longer Undiscovered. The oldest ancestors he identified were women, but my uncle ignored this, and dedicated this book to an imagined “Patriarch” of our family. Through autoethnography of my experience grappling with this book, and a creative and experiential method of producing an artistic product, I reflexively engage with questions of the past, genealogy, historiography, fugitive spaces, anti-Blackness, and its connection with gender (or more specifically misogynoir). The result is an installation of a poster of my family tree obscured by a paper and photo collage made of images of body parts. My goal in creating this piece is to make the invisible visible, and counteract the white supremacist notions of “official histories” that devalue the struggles of the marginalized. The poster serves as a fugitive space and counter narrative to make visible those who are left obscured.Creating this piece helps me grapple with the role of academia in erasing individuals, cultures, and whole knowledge systems from the larger society through weaponizing the ivory tower. I learn more about my genealogy while navigating how dominant historic memory continuously serves the white supremacist hegemony. The piece responds to and rejects the narrative of “great white men”, and how BIPOC scholars can still unintentionally serve the hegemony. 0 0 0 0