Autoethnography of February 2023 Earthquakes: Forced Migration and Resilience Story

Abstract

Autoethnography is an approach to research and writing that attempts to describe and systematically analyze a cultural phenomenon through the lived experience of the person. This article presents an autoethnographic narrative on individual and social resilience, based on my personal experience (auto), placing it in a social and cultural context (ethno) to analyze (graph) the 2023 earthquakes and its aftermath. It includes, therefore, my experience of the moment of the earthquake and its aftermath, forced migration and return, and the attempt to understand and explain the disaster in social and cultural terms. It is my story of this two-year period, and also our story as Antioche’s victims of the earthquake. Our story is about resilience, encompassing the social, physical, cultural, and emotional dimensions of holding on to life and forced migration, of helping and solidarity, and of coping with self-protection, panic, fear, pain, losses, and traumatic stress.