For Autoethnographies of Displacement Beyond Gentrification: The Body as Archive, Memory as Data

Motivated by my own experiences with serial eviction, I argue for increased reliance on the body as archive and memory as data to be used in the storytelling process about displacement and unhoming. Increased inclusion of personal reflection in the literature on displacement has the potential to further humanize a discipline that is already well-steeped in utilizing qualitative methods, abstract theorization, and quantification to reveal other people's experiences of loss, longing, and belonging. I argue that increased reliance on autoethnographic approaches used to reflect on and write about deeply stored, somatic experiences of displacement beyond gentrification has the power to transform not just how we, as geographers, talk about displacement but who it is we invite to do the talking.