#1254: 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

I am a Black, nonbinary, queer person who was raised in Black girlhood in a city at the intersection of the Rust Belt and Appalachia. I use art to produce knowledge that is familiar, yet challenging. This visual arts piece utilizes autoethnography as a tool to reflexively engage with questions of the past, genealogy, historiography, fugitive spaces, and the interaction between anti-blackness and misogynoir as I react to a book created by a close relative. I am learning more about my genealogy while actively navigating how the dominant historic memory continuously serves our current white supremacist hegemony. Reflexivity is required in the process of learning oneself, allowing individuals to engage with excluded ontologies and epistemologies in a way that produces knowledge and makes meaning. Through this process of learning about my family and historiography, I discovered the role of authentic learning as an integrated process of both knowing and becoming.