Culture, narrative and collective trauma (original) (raw)
Related papers
Collective trauma: the nightmare of history
Psychotherapy and Politics International, 2004
Although trauma is usually examined as an individual experience, it is a collective dynamic. Whole communities are traumatized and dynamics of trauma involve all of us and affect the course of history. An orientation to understanding trauma is needed that is at once personal, communal and political. This paper discusses why understanding the dynamics of trauma is essential for facilitators of conflict resolution in zones of conflict and for post-war reconciliation and community building. It also considers that, in addition to international tribunals and truth commissions, there is a need for community forums throughout society to work with issues of accountability and collective trauma concerning past and current conflicts. Trauma is also relevant to such issues as understanding dynamics of revenge, the silence accompanying atrocity, and historical revisionism. Copyright © 2004 Whurr Publishers Ltd.
Critical Discourse Studies, 2009
In the final years of the 20 th and the beginning of the 21 st century, there has been a worldwide tendency to approach conflict resolution from a restorative rather than from a retributive perspective. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), with its principle of 'amnesty for truth' was a turning point. Based on my discursive research of the TRC victim hearings, I would argue that it was on a discursive level in particular that the Truth Commission has exerted/is still exerting a longlasting impact on South African society. In this article, three of these features will be highlighted and illustrated: firstly, the TRC provided a discursive forum for thousands of ordinary citizens. Secondly, by means of testimonies from apartheid victims and perpetrators, the TRC composed an officially recognized archive of the apartheid past. Thirdly, the reconciliation discourse created at the TRC victim hearings formed a template for talking about a traumatic past, and it opened up the debate on reconciliation. By discussing these three features and their social impact, it will become clear that the way in which the apartheid past was remembered at the victim hearings seemed to have been determined, not so much by political concerns, but mainly by social needs.
Barrette, Catherine; Haylock, Bridget & Mortimer, Danielle (Hg.): Traumatic Imprints. Performance, Art, Literature and Theoretical Practice. Oxford (Inter-Disciplinary Press), S. 199-207.
Since 9/11 at the latest, the idea that entire collectives or societies can be traumatized by shattering historical events has witnessed a significant upsurge. Theoretical concepts of collective or societal trauma are surprisingly scarce though. Notable exceptions are Volkan's mass psychological concept of 'chosen trauma' and Alexander's rather sociological notion of 'cultural trauma'. But while Alexander's focus on the social construction of trauma narratives is blind to the real suffering of people and its possible societal consequences, Volkan takes human suffering as a starting point but falls prey to the analyzed communities' own 'invention of tradition' (Hobsbawm/Ranger). His blindness towards the constructive character of 'collective traumas' is problematic because the traumarelated concept of victimhood is used by many collectives in order to legitimate political claims or mask their own perpetratorship. In my chapter I want to follow up the question of how it is possible to speak about human suffering after wars, genocides and persecutions while at the same time countering the pervasive ideological trauma and victimhood discourses. With Hans Keilson, Ernst Simmel and psychoanalytic trauma theory I argue that all traumatization processes must be understood in societal context. The psychosocial reality before, during, and after the traumatizing event always shapes the trauma.
Sociopolitical Trauma: Forgetting, Remembering, and Group Analysis
Transactional Analysis Journal
Sociopolitical trauma inevitably leads to fracture. Moving away, forgetting, or simply burying what is too painful disconnects the present from the past, making it difficult for subsequent generations to develop a coherent narrative of their history and identity. The author draws on her history as the daughter of a Jewish refugee from Hitler's Germany and briefly links this experience to the current world refugee situation and the aftermath of colonization in Aotearoa New Zealand. A group-analytic group, unlike individual psychotherapy, provides a temporary social context that evokes past group experiences in the present. Trauma is viewed socioculturally, and attention is paid to emerging cultures in the here and now that replicate the original silencing cultures of the past. This process offers an opportunity to find new connections and gain "outsight." The author concludes by describing a series of workshops held in Germany over 13 years.
"Ewald Mengel, Michela Borzaga, and Karin Orantes, ed. (2010): Trauma, Memory, and Narrative in South Africa: Interviews." Anglistik 22.2: 198 - 201., 2011
A review of "Ewald Mengel, Michela Borzaga, and Karin Orantes, ed. (2010): Trauma, Memory, and Narrative in South Africa: Interviews." Anglistik 22.2: 198 - 201.