Attempting to Decolonize Oneself: Sonorities between the ‘West’ and the ‘South’

The two parts of this contribution—poetic sonority and essay—are poetic and theoretical experiments in response to the challenge of decolonizing the self. In particular, the author is interested in contrasting and intersecting past-present histories of the European diaspora in the global ‘South,’ drawing on her own family history marked by mestizaje and hybridity. Through voice narrative and sound archives, this sound piece challenges linear narrative by playing with the idea of fragments. In it, traces of oceans and seas overlap, reflecting through sound and theory the histories of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as the Mediterranean and North Seas, as containers and corridors of entangled past-present colonial histories. The piece opens new ground for interpreting hybrid cultures, a possible starting point for decolonizing oneself when standing between the so-called Global ‘West’ and ‘South.’