Contribution short abstract:

This presentation will work through an autoethnography of detainment and deportation at the end of my fieldwork in India. By moving through segments of spoken word and ethnopoetry, my presentation seeks to rely less on holistic sense-making and more on fragments that evoke liberation.

Contribution long abstract:

Dressed in only the rags that were given to me by jail guards, I sat alone on a wooden cot, locked in a detention centre in Delhi. I was in India conducting research on young Indian tourists and their mobility patterns. I was attempting to return home to Canada after the airways had re-opened, post-covid. Instead, I found myself in solitary confinement for nine days, and then in a cell with other detainees for an additional week.

Eventually I was put on a plane and deported.

Focusing on segments of spoken word and ethnopoetry this presentation elaborates on my experience of being detained and deported from my fieldsite (without any motivation or accusation). I recount the tale of what happened to me when writing was no longer a sufficient means to locate freedom. I will also discuss what I am doing today with the incongruences left behind. While detained, I used ethnography to keep my spirit alive. Now, after I have had time to process this experience, I turn once again to ethnography to liberate myself from the story, and the story from myself. Being an ethnographer in these circumstances felt like a cruel and ironic joke; today it may turn into a gift. After years of not speaking about this publicly, I am giving words to an ordeal that felt untellable, in the disconnected environment that very few people, and certainly even fewer ethnographers have the chance to be released from.