Contribution long abstract:

This paper explores “unwriting” as a radical framework for engaging with maternal memories by centering on the intangible remains of memories—singing in the kitchen, storytelling, and embodied gestures—that transmit knowledge beyond formal documentation. Drawing from women’s autobiographical writings who were home bound, this study examines how domestic spaces, particularly kitchens, function as sites where memory, labor, and creativity converge. In the case of South Asian households, maternal practices such as singing while cooking transform mundane routines into rituals of storytelling and remembrance. These acts carry histories of migration, displacement, and cultural identity while resisting the linearity and permanence of academic narratives. For instance, the rhythms of a mother’s song, infused with nostalgia and resilience, embody a fluid, cyclical transmission of memory that thrives in its ephemeral nature.

This paper also engages with the systemic erasures of women’s voices within patriarchal histories, demonstrating how unwritten traditions preserve marginalized narratives. Drawing on my own autoethnographic reflections, I argue that unwriting allows us to reclaim these intimate bodily practices without reducing them to static data. By privileging the multi-sensorial and corporeal nature of maternal memories, unwriting honors their transience and capacity for continual transformation. Ultimately, this study reframes kitchens not merely as spaces of labor but as archives of oral tradition, where storytelling, song, and gesture become acts of resistance, memory, and belonging. This approach challenges dominant frameworks, positioning unwriting as a means to amplify maternal voices in their dynamic and lived forms.