Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity
... 101). 8 Jeffrey C. Alexander (2012) suggests that the constant exposure to violence and oppressive discourse marks a group's memories and consciousness forever and changes its cultural identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways, leading to the formation of a collective type of trauma (p. 3). ...
... In contrast, collective trauma refers to the psychological and emotional impact on a collective entity, such as a community or nation, leading to shared distress, loss, and disorientation. It can have longterm effects on social cohesion, trust, and individual well-being within the affected group (Alexander 2004). ...
... The connection between the individual experience of trauma and the collective one (Alexander 2012) is omnipresent in The Gypsy Goddess. As the distinction between private and public breaks down, descriptions of localised individual corporeal suffering are extrapolated to broader contexts of collective pain. ...
This article attempts to demonstrate that somatic trauma caused by caste-based oppression does not stop in the bone but has the ability to penetrate the inner psyche of Dalits in multiple and unexpected ways. The novel The Gypsy Goddess (2014) serves as a comprehensive repository of wronged and misinterpreted historical events, but also lays bare the impact that systemic forms of oppression can have on people’s mental health. While mainstream trauma theory has been the model used by many scholars for decades to address trauma, uncritically universalising this generalised concept of ‘Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder’ (PTSD) (American Psychiatric Association, 1980) risks rendering the specificity of long-term pain suffered by oppressed groups, such as Dalits, invisible and unknowable. Thus, many are the scholars who have called for an expansion of the scope and a revision of the dominant conceptions of trauma and recovery. Therefore, in order to examine the impact of casteism from a psychological dimension, this article discusses trauma as ‘a spectrum of conditions’ rather than a single response (Herman 1992), considering the cumulative degradation and subtle effects of ‘insidious trauma’ (Root 1989; 1992), the generational transmissibility of trauma and its pre-traumatic stress (PreTss) reactions (Bond & Craps 2017). Drawing on the omnipresent connection between the individual and the collective in The Gypsy Goddess, the ‘founding’ nature (LaCapra 2014) of Dalit trauma and the combination of ubiquitous exposure to historical loss and endless structural absence of basic human rights are also key aspects.
... This study examines the literary pieces of Ghassan Kanafani, specifically Return to Haifa, through the lens of cultural trauma theory as proposed by Alexander (2004). The present study focuses on the theoretical framework that pertains to the social phenomenon in which individuals' traumatic experiences, such as wars, genocides, or natural disasters, are converted into a shared painful experience through social construction. ...
... This process is aimed at establishing or strengthening the collective identity of the group. As per the proposition of Jeffery Alexander (2004), the originator of this concept, the social occurrence in question transpires when a cluster of individuals discerns that they have undergone a distressing event that has a lasting influence on their communal awareness, culminating in a fundamental and irrevocable metamorphosis of their forthcoming identity. According to his analysis, discourse is utilised to construct significant catastrophic events as hazards to the communal identity, necessitating specific measures to protect and maintain this shared identity against potential future dangers. ...
... According to his analysis, discourse is utilised to construct significant catastrophic events as hazards to the communal identity, necessitating specific measures to protect and maintain this shared identity against potential future dangers. Alexander (2004) posits that socially constructed discursive practises endeavour to withstand challenges to their identity by recognising the factors, outcomes, and responsible individuals for their inception. ...
This study examined the portrayal of cultural trauma in Ghassan Kanafani's novel "Return to Haifa" through character analysis. The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which the characters portrayed in the novel serve as a reflection of the cultural trauma that was endured during and in the aftermath of the Nakba, a catastrophic event that occurred in 1948. The investigation utilized Jeffrey C. Alexander's conceptualization of cultural trauma as a theoretical lens for examination. This study employed a textual analysis approach to examine the effects of trauma on the primary characters, Said and Dov, and their subsequent development of a collective identity. The analysis of data focused on the evolution of self-awareness throughout the narrative, revealing the impact of trauma on individual and collective identity. The findings suggested that the memories and experiences of Palestine diasporas like Said, who were forced to leave their homeland, contribute to their cultural trauma and shape their sense of identity; also illuminated the importance of the Nakba as a crucial occurrence in the history of Palestine and the lasting impacts it has on the communal awareness of Palestinians. The study contributes to the understanding of how literature represents and addresses cultural trauma and its implications for the Palestinian community.
... As far as the definition of trauma is concerned, from psychoanalytic perspective, trauma is a blow to the psyche caused by an external stimuli or deep and massive nature (Alexander et al., 2004). This perspective is Freudian in nature. ...
... According to Whitehead (2004), the author of 'Trauma Fiction' and 'Memory: New Critical Idiom' (Whitehead, 2009), the consequence of trauma can only best be represented by imitating the symptoms and forms it is constituted of (Whitehead, 2004). At textual level, horrendous or deathlike events in the backdrop create unreliability of narration, narrative evasiveness, and meaningful silences implanted by the writers (Alexander et al., 2004). As stated earlier regarding the post-structurality of trauma experience, the unreliability of narration leads to the unreliability of truth and reality, wherein truth is perceived as subjective and evasive projecting reality as highly ungraspable and incomprehendible. ...
This study concentrates on the Anglophonic literature produced in the region of Jammu and Kashmir. It explores its narratives through the lens of trauma theory, pertaining to the region’s history of forced conflict. After the Second World War, the relevance of trauma in literary studies has increased and texts have been characterized by an archeology of traumatic consciousness. Also, the narratives act as vehicles for transmitting stories of suppressed and wounded consciousness. This research focuses upon Mirza Waheed’s (2011) novel The Collaborator and Basharat Peer’s (2010) memoir Curfewed Night as the primary texts and investigates the art of writing trauma by exploring the narrative structures deployed by the authors. The objective is to find out as to how the very act of writing trauma is shaped by traumatic memories of a past rooted in the partition conflict, war, and prolonged violence. Furthermore, the study probes into how the fictional characters embody and express pain and anguish as part of their memories. The key focus remains on how both the works portray the (un)speakability of grief and the (in)comprehensibility of trauma drawing on some of the seminal contemporary theories of cultural trauma and memory studies. Using qualitative methodology and trauma theory as the theoretical framework, it is concluded that apart from presenting reality as horrific, gloomy, and glim, Kashmiri texts discuss how causalities create memories riddled with unspoken fears by bringing forth the intricacies of speechless terror and trauma. Thus, the study captures the narration’s struggle to represent evasive and suppressed memories and the challenges of trauma writing.
... Forced migration disrupts social structures, fractures familial bonds, and erodes the communal networks that are crucial for coping and resilience (Bunn et al., 2023). The loss of cultural identity, traditions, and a sense of belonging further compounds the collective trauma experienced by refugee communities (Alexander et al., 2004). This interconnected trauma can create a shared narrative of suffering that shapes the community's outlook and its members' interactions (Alexander et al., 2004). ...
... The loss of cultural identity, traditions, and a sense of belonging further compounds the collective trauma experienced by refugee communities (Alexander et al., 2004). This interconnected trauma can create a shared narrative of suffering that shapes the community's outlook and its members' interactions (Alexander et al., 2004). For this reason, understanding trauma within the context of refugeehood requires cultural sensitivity (Im and Swan, 2021). ...
The integration of trauma-informed and ethical frameworks in qualitative research concerning survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) within displaced communities is critical. These individuals often bear the weight of traumatic experiences compounded by displacement and associated hardships. Adopting a trauma-informed approach establishes a safe environment, prioritizing survivors’ well-being and respecting their agency and narratives, thereby fostering trust and reducing re-traumatization risks. Ethical considerations ensure the dignity, rights, and cultural sensitivities of participants are upheld, contributing to rigorous and humane research. This integration amplifies survivors’ voices and experiences, enhancing understanding and empathy. Trauma-informed approaches acknowledge the likelihood of trauma in individuals’ lives and prioritize safety without aiming to treat symptoms. Proficient interviewing skills aim to improve comfort, safety, and recall without avoiding challenging questions. Integration of trauma-informed principles across all interview phases is crucial, particularly for individuals experiencing various traumas simultaneously, such as displacement, violence, and ongoing conflict. Drawing from the authors’ experiences and existing literature, this paper advocates for a compassionate and empowering shift in qualitative research methodologies to better engage with survivors of trauma and GBV within displaced communities.
... Радикалност овог историски генерисаног стања неравноправног натјецања између стварног са једне стране и имагинарног, интелигибилног, рационалног, естетског, поетичког са друге стране, иманентни је извор интелектуалне и уметничке трауме уз конкретне консеквенце на реалитет људског мишљења, деловања па и саме егзистенције. Чини се да се фундаментална траума друштва и културе (Sztompka, 1990(Sztompka, , 2004Smelser, 2004;Alexander, 2004Alexander, , 2012 суштински односи не само на суочавања са изазовима егзистенције или њених промена, односно са непознатим, насилним, рискантним (без обзира дали су та стања логичка и прогресивна или деструктивна) већ и у суочавању са траумом еманципације и разбијању укорењених епистемилошких дискурса и са хеуристичким сиромаштвом које није у стању да следи полисемичност социокултурних амбијената. Померење граница између науке и уметности, метајезик, митологизација, кокетерија са фантазмагоричним и футуристичким, намеће нам и контроверзу произишлу из носталгије за гранд-теоријама и утопијама, али нас и упућују ка феноменима савремености која генеришу "моралну панику" (Tompson, 2003) у оквирима "постмодерне етике" (Бауман, 2005). ...
... Такозвано постмодерно и постиндустриско доба, само привидно редефинише или редизајнира ову контрадикторну структуру значења и деловања. Инсистирање на деблокирање и ослобађење људског постојања и потрага за неким новим модусима интелектуалне дезарбитрарне ангажованости као и напуштање опсесивне тежње за оригиналним и рационалним решењима проблема света у свим његовим сферама, потсмевање са неинвентивном преданошћу великим нарацијама и систематичном некритичном игром хибридизације (Бести и Келнер, 1996) историје интелектуалне мисли и уметничке креације, стварање еклектичких облика културног наслеђа, измишљање традиције (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983;Giddens, 2002), више су продубили него што су релаксирали генерисање трауматичких искустава и хуманистичких недоследности (Sztompka, 2004;Smelser, 2004;Alexander, 2012). ...
Heuristic and epistemological paradigms in the social sciences and the humanities receive their input from the overall situation of the contemporary human universe that are incomparable to the ages that unfolded until the end of the 19th and the 20th century. The first necessary 'revolution' took place with the shaping of the idea that culture has a societal, in addition to the elite dimension, that cultural dynamics implies countercultural processes, and not just evolution and cultural resistance. Therefore, the thesis is encoded that the field of culture may be the subject of interest not just of the individual ‘classical’ academic and philosophical disciplines (sociology of culture, cultural psychology, ethnology, art and cultural history, cultural anthropology, philosophy of culture), but also develop scientific concepts that widely open the doors to inter-disciplinarily approach, the juxtaposition of cultural phenomena per se, involving technology, media practices and the academic and philosophical paradigms for the place, the role and the practices of the human world, in terms of creation, imagination and generally ‘shifting the limits’ of the knowledge and the design of the material and the spiritual in the very habitus of humans and their ‘possible worlds' (cultural studies, cultural sociology, intercultural studies, cultural geography, transhumanist studies, culture, media and social science, etc.). The new intellectual discourses incorporate the rationalism and analytical positivism of scientism, as well as the poetics, aesthetics, metaphysics and phantasmagoria of the humanistic cognitive and creative perspective. Of course, they do not meet these goals with the success that may be implied from their ambitions, but indicate the need of the contemporary age to synthesize, once again, the ideas on culture, the arts, technology and science.
... Such influential persons comprise "claim makers" who operate as part of a "carrier group." Carrier groups comprise claim makers who in varying degrees of unison, issue claims centering on the meaning of the events they deem to be traumatic (Alexander et al 2000). Moreover, the "texts" used to construct and represent the meanings of traumatic events can take many forms, from public lectures and speeches to political tracts, literary, artistic works, and so on. ...
This paper uses analytical and conceptual resources from Strong Program cultural sociology to develop a non-reductive account of cultural representation, which is a corrective to the hegemony of Said-inspired studies. The latter blinds sociology to the symbolic significance of cultural representation as a force for “social good” in the following ways: (1) generating intra- and inter-cultural forms of solidaristic relations and identities; (2) challenging oppressive social structures and the interests of dominant actors, institutions, and the state; (3) reconstructing and re-energizing progressive social values; (4) criticizing existing social and cultural conditions. To demonstrate these claims, the first part of the paper delineates the central analytical concerns and theoretical structure of Said’s Orientalism, before turning to discuss the book’s wider significance for the development of the “Saidian Paradigm,” the dominant and paradigmatic approach to the study of cultural representation today. The second part of the paper shows how Strong Program thinking and resources can be used and adapted to explain changes to, and the moral purification of, the symbolic meanings of Italy and the Italians in England and Britain in the decades spanning the 1820s to 1860s. The Italian case is highly instructive for demonstrating the capacity of Strong Program thinking to bring into view problematics, phenomena, and processes that remain largely unperceived when viewed through the limiting lens of Said-inspired accounts of cultural representation. The paper concludes by reflecting on the ways Strong Program resources can be used to drive forward the study of cultural representation in new and unexplored ways.
... Trauma can not be forgotten, and it does not let a person move on. Events of collective trauma "threaten the very identity of collectives", and change "the nature of normative order that gives meaning to the human condition" (Alexander et al., 2004). Still, the peculiarity of Western research schools is that they work with "traumas remote in time" that have already been lived, reflected on and separated from certain problems, for example, the impact of the Holocaust, World War II, slavery in the United States, September, 11 in 2011, etc. ...
Culture and Arts in the Modern World
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Culture and Arts in the Modern World is a periodical peer-reviewed open access journal that covers topical issues of the theory and history of Ukrainian and world culture, theoretical and creative problems of art development in modern conditions. The journal is intended for Ukrainian and international researchers, academic degree seekers, lecturers, all readers interested in the field of culture and art. Founder: Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts
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... In Reading Trauma: Theoretical Perspectives and Beloved*, 2011 (Alexander, Eyerman, Giesen, Smelser, and Sztompka, 2004), Elizabeth A. Beaulieu explains how Morrison's novel applies the theory of trauma in an attempt to portray the psychic and emotional aftermath of slavery. Specifically, Beaulieu focuses on the ways by which Beloved represents trauma through its narrative structure and the development of its characters, emphasizing that this novel reveals the fragments and haunting nature of traumatic memory. ...
The main objective of this article is to explore, among other things, Morrison's work itself, with a deep examination of trauma theory and studies in memory, because it reveals just how complex the interrelationality is between historical injustices and personal suffering. The presence of slavery reverberates through the characters in Beloved (1987) by Toni Morrison, exposing the continuous impact of historical trauma on the making of individual and collective identities. This paper microscopically looks into great detail at the characters, narrative structure, and symbolic features of the novel to work out how the aftereffects of slavery impact the psychological and emotional brinks of Sethe, Paul D, and Denver. Those fragmented, often chilling memories realized in Beloved tell another broader process—one in which society comes to terms with a troubling legacy. This paper delves into how the novel represents collective memory within the underlined African American community and how storytelling functions through the double-speak of bearing witness to trauma and a pathway toward healing. Contextualizing Morrison's work within current discourse about racial injustice and trauma, this study draws light on the relevancy of Beloved, as a novel that in its time advanced social knowledge and reconciliation. The study thus paves a way for how literature on historic trauma could be engaged with to open further dialogue.
... The specificity that underpins these pages is not whether it is possible to feel nostalgia for a trauma but rather how trauma representation can be affected by nostalgia at the level of the production of meanings in texts. Specifically, I propose a dialogue between the constructivist theory of trauma (Alexander et al. 2004a;Alexander 2012;Eyerman 2019), which considers trauma always as a socially mediated object, 1 and the "memory filtering theory" proposed by Umberto Eco (2014). Doing so, the following discussion emphasizes the ambivalence of nostalgia as an emotion and a narrative tool that, when intersecting with trauma, produces links with imagination, fakeness, banalization, and the critical defense of difficult memories. ...
... Addressing these gaps, the present study examines two research questions in four contexts of historical collective victimization: U.S. enslavement of Africans and African Americans, the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, and the Nakba. Notably, these historical instances of collective victimization are central to the respective group's identity and could be considered their "chosen trauma" (Volkan, 2006; see also Alexander et al., 2004). For instance, for many Black Americans, slavery is a central historical event for generations of Black Americans (Eyerman, 2002). ...
Acknowledgment of collective victimization is often understood as a crucial precursor to promoting victimized groups’ well-being and breaking the cycle of violence. Yet, research on acknowledgment has focused on a few forms of acknowledgment from the perpetrator group, thus limiting our understanding on what acknowledgment entails and who should engage in it. Furthermore, what is considered to be appropriate acknowledgment may be shaped by the historical and sociopolitical context. To address these issues, we conducted a qualitative online survey that explored how four historical victim groups (Armenian Americans, Black Americans, Jewish Americans, and the Palestinian diaspora, total N = 273) perceive how acknowledgment of their group’s collective trauma should look like. Qualitative content analysis revealed four broad theoretical categories of what acknowledgment entails: symbolic gestures, knowledge and education, structural redress, and learning lessons and preventing violence. We also found four categories concerning who should acknowledge the ingroup’s trauma: everyone, adversaries, the ingroup, and third parties. Responses varied across groups, suggesting the importance of the sociopolitical context in acknowledgment. The findings extend theoretical and empirical work on acknowledgment and have important program and policy implications.
... Es unterscheidet sich vom klassischen psychoanalytischen Traumabegriff, der auf Reizüberflutung und dem Versagen individueller Abwehrund Verarbeitungsprozesse beruht, durch die systematische Einbeziehung der sozialen Dimension. Damit bildet es eine Brücke zu Traumakonzepten aus den Sozialund Geisteswissenschaften, wie zum Beispiel dem "gewählten Trauma" von Volkan (2006Volkan ( , 2022, dem von Alexander und Anderen beschriebenen "kulturellen Trauma" (Alexander et al. 2004;Eyerman 2022), dem "historischen Trauma" von Rüsen (2019Rüsen ( , 2022 und der Theorie des kulturellen Gedächtnisses von Assmann (2022). Im Gegensatz zu den sozialwissenschaftlichen Ansätzen stammt das Konzept des sozialen Traumas aus der psychoanalytischen Arbeit mit individuellen Zeitzeugnissen. ...
Is war a social trauma? The question appears to be self-evident as war per se disrupts the expected, destroys safety, overwhelms people and brings suffering and destruction to entire nations. Nevertheless, war was initially excluded from the psychoanalytical theory of social trauma, which was conceptualized using the paradigm of persecution and genocide. The article deals with this exclusion and discusses the question of the comparability of war and genocide as well as the psychosocial consequences.
... Political crises, ethnic tensions, and economic disasters drove millions of ex-Soviet citizens to seek opportunities beyond their communities, whether in urban centres or foreign countries. Piotr Sztompka links this surge in migration to ways of coping with the changes caused by the "victory trauma" of the Soviet Union's collapse, as people sought to accumulate more economic and social capital to overcome the rapid changes (Sztompka et al., 2004). While population mobility within the Soviet Union was not uncommon (Sahadeo, 2007), Georgians were less inclined to migrate outside their republic; as Suny (1996) notes, "Georgians [...] tended to stay within their homeland and had the highest concentration in the home republic (96.1%) of any Soviet nationality" (p. ...
Over the past three decades, there has been a significant rise in female migration globally, a trend also evident in Georgia. The 2014 general population census in Georgia revealed a higher number of female migrants compared to male migrants, with many women engaging in care work in countries such as Greece, Turkey, and Italy. This study aims to examine the challenges that returned women migrants face in Georgian society, focusing on their reintegration at the micro (family), mezzo (community), and macro (labour market) levels. Utilising a qualitative research approach, the study involved in-depth interviews with seven returned women migrants and five daughters of migrant mothers who remained in migration. Additionally, ethnographic analysis of Facebook posts and comments provided further insights into the reintegration experiences of ex-migrants. The research sought to understand the factors that facilitate or hinder the reintegration process, including the impact of separation periods and family members' experiences during migration and the reasons for returning from migration. The findings indicate that reintegration is a complex process influenced by various factors. On the labour market level, returned migrants face significant challenges due to their age, deskilling, and the new labour market dynamics that emerged during their absence. Due to unfamiliarity and limited resources, many prefer to continue working in care roles, which they performed abroad. On the community level, cultural and behavioural differences between the host and home countries complicate resocialisation. Social inequality and a perceived decline in service standards also hinder reintegration. Long-term migration has significantly altered family dynamics at the family level, making it difficult for returnees to readjust. Increased irritability and feelings of exclusion are common among returnees, who struggle to reintegrate into family roles and responsibilities. Families' financial dependence on remittances further complicates the reintegration process. Despite these challenges, continuous communication with family members and the support of relatives can facilitate reintegration. From a functionalist perspective, the reintegration challenges are seen as disruptions to the social equilibrium, where returning migrants struggle to reclaim their former roles and functions within the societal system.
... Meanwhile, the phrase "my heels" means that losing a scholarship has had an impact on Plath and her husband's finances. Plath's failure indicated that she was traumatized and led to a state of stress (Alexander et al., 2004), seen when Plath moved to look for a new place to live after she lost her scholarship. Extreme experiences in the form of 'insults' made her write metamorphosis in Ariel. ...
This research aims to analyze the traumatic realism in the poem Ariel (1965), written by Sylvia Plath. This research uses Michel Rothberg's (2000) theory to show traces of trauma realized in literary works and uses Abelson's (1995) theory to find extreme experiences that traumatize individuals. Researchers use an approach or reference based on the biographical book "The Cambridge Introduction to Sylvia Plath," written by Gill (2008), to find a correlation between Plath's life and her writing in Ariel. This research uses a qualitative descriptive design to reveal and investigate the phenomenon of trauma and the forms or modes of extreme experiences in Sylvia Plath's life that are realized in Ariel. Data was obtained from textual sentences or words in poetry that refer to events or happenings in Sylvia Plath's life. Based on Spradley's theory and analysis, we think that Ariel's poetry is closely related to events in Sylvia Plath's life.
... The disintegration of societal norms, governance structures, and support networks could play a significant role in the emergence and persistence of collective trauma. The increase of collective trauma is also influenced by displacement and refugee crises, which appear as a consequence of forced migration and the disruption of communities (Sztompka, 2004). ...
... Understanding the complexity of evolving memory of the Famine requires studying the interaction between the event, its commemorative forms, and mnemonic context (Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz, 1991). This article first raises the problem of the Famine of 1932-1933 as a silenced event (Göçek, 2016(Göçek, [2014; Savelsberg, 2021;Trouillot, 1995), cultural trauma (Alexander et al., 2004), and "contested memory" (Schudson, 1993;Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz, 1991). By discussing the process of the formation of the public memory of the Famine, it further shifts the conceptual focus from the dominant essentialist views on the role of the Ukrainian diaspora in this process to a more dynamic approach of transnational "memory activists" (Gutman, 2017). ...
This article traces the emergence of the public memory of Holodomor by focusing on the history of Famine commemorations outside of the Soviet Union from 1933 till 1983. By following Jeffrey K. Olick’s call for a dialogical analysis of memory genres, it attempts to unravel the complex cultural mechanism through which commemorations of the Famine evolved not only through their interactions with immediate political context but also in response to earlier commemorations. Two Famine commemorative genres informed this process: that of national mourning and that of anti-Soviet protest. Drawing on my multi-sited and multilingual research, this article argues that the process of creating the public memory of the Holodomor has been transnational, multidirectional, and path-dependent. The framing of the Famine as the Holodomor, a genocide against Ukrainians, was an outcome of negotiations that occurred across time and space. Ukrainian diaspora members, it is further argued, played a prominent role in this process.
... Applied to the Kagame regime case, the government's refusal largely to recognise narratives that do not support its aims -such as those of moderate Hutus who resisted genocide -"den[ies] the reality of others' suffering … and "restrict[s] solidarity" (Alexander et al., 2004, p. 1). This failure to support a "circle of the we" renders the government's tactics ineffectual as a tool for psychological healing as well as for reconciliation (Alexander et al., 2004, p. 1) -the very aim that the government's revisionist history of the persisting oneness of all Rwandans is designed to promote. ...
This article attempts to theorise governmental efforts of the Kagame regime to construct a common national identity that precariously hinges on the adoption of an official revisionist history. Guided by Jan Assmann’s theory of cultural memory and Maurice Halbwachs’ collective memory, it may be argued the government’s official narrative of Rwanda’s idyllic history is a strategy for securing Rwanda’s future by linking it to an ancestral past. This narrative is largely supported by museums and the frozen memories of Tutsi returnees — to the exclusion of competing narratives — as materialised and publicly disseminated through traditional dances and tandemly pursued through private spaces through infiltration and closure of churches and mosques. However, per Rebekah Phillips DeZalia, a new version of history must successfully replace the former in the personal narratives of the people and not simply control public discourse through a top-down approach. Hence, the Kagame regime is also utilising a bottom-up strategy of infiltrating day-to-day, intimate spaces — one of which is religious spaces by both exploiting and curbing religious influence, appropriating religious language, and referencing the divine right of kings — all which are designed to sustain public confidence in the possibility of post-1994 genocide reconciliation and to realise Kagame’s vision of a unified and prosperous Rwanda. The regime’s strategy involves inverting the overall passage of personal memory to collective memory to history as well as repressing memory in official memorials by excluding narratives that contradict or do not legitimise the Kagame regime’s agenda. This tandem manipulation and suppression of memory is aided by the aggressive campaign of church and mosque infiltrations as well as closures, respectively, which may be functionally understood using Thomas Luckmann’s notions of invisible religion (Rwandan government) as competing with visible religions (Christianity and Islam). These government strategies are detrimental to the trauma-coping potential of visible religions and undermines reconciliation — highlighting the fragile architecture of Kagame’s authoritarian vision for peace.
... 5 An important part of journalistic narrative is based on traumatic events which the public is urgently seeking interpretative frameworks for. As has now been clearly demonstrated by trauma studies there is a powerful nexus between journalism, collective memory and collective trauma (Alexander et al., 2004;Meek, 2010). The tensions and critical issues feeding into the public debate which revolves around dramatic events are a reliable memory work generation indicator. ...
Memory is a source of 'immunization' for individuals (psycho-cognitive memory and biological immune system) and for communities (De Martino). We can consider culture as the memory of society. Particularly, the cultural memory of disasters plays a fundamental role. Ideally, it should help to reduce the vulnerability of societies to the risks of recurrence of natural/technological/social catastrophic events. However, memory is not an exact process, but a selective and reconstructive one (Bartlett). Furthermore, the memory of society is multiple and continuously exposed to the risk of distortions, interpretations, and manipulations. Social memory (Halbwachs) is the broader sphere of communicability that delimits the arena in which the different collective memories (of groups) compete for the relevance and plausibility of their own discourses. It will correspond, with good approximation, to the term "public memory". In particular, the media and journalism play a very important function, as public memory is a memory of the public sphere (Habermas) and, somehow, the public sphere is itself memory (Jedlowski). This presentation aims to compare two social memories of a single catastrophic event in which a marginal social category was involved: migrants illegally crossing the Mediterranean Sea. The research focus concerns a watershed event of the recent migratory phenomenon: the Lampedusa shipwreck that took place on the 3 rd October 2013. The goal is to show how collective and public memory contrast each other. We will discuss two cultural and communicative processes located along the oppositional materialization/dematerialization axis. In the article we will reinterpret the evidence collected in the research carried out in 2014 on the Lampedusa shipwreck that took place on 3 October 2013 in order to reflect on the dynamics between different types of memories in the framework of the memory of disasters. We assume that they can be deeply distortive as they promote interrelated memory bias.
... 159), and actually lists a series of events that possess that potential. In turn, Smelser (2004) practically overlaps the notions of ''cultural trauma'' and ''collective trauma'', rightfully pointing out how the question of marking the collective identity is present in both. The ''collective trauma,'' described by Kai Erikson (1976) as ''a blow to the basic tissues of social life that damages the bonds attaching people together and impairs the prevailing sense of communality'' (p. ...
This paper presents and discusses two sets of theories concerning trauma. The first involves a contemporary social theory of “cultural trauma” and the second refers to psychoanalytic theories on psychic trauma. We argue that these two groups of theories have some relevant elements in common, despite social theorists’ critique of psychoanalytic understanding on the matter. In our view, the most important meeting points between these groups of theories concern (a) the possibility to think that trauma is not welded to events but has a formation process, one of attribution of meaning, (b) that this process has a temporality of its own, and (c) that the environment (the objects, actors, and agents that compose it) has a fundamental and determinant role in trauma formation. Further, we suggest that trauma is still an open concept in psychoanalysis.
... In times of social crises, frustrations and tensions, discrimination and disintegration between sub-groups in the society may increase, and the potential of these sub-groups to antagonize each other becomes stronger, which may result as a security problem that eventually needs to be solved. How different systems, organizations, structures and power within the social structure behave in the face of the traumatic event and at what level and how they make sense of this traumatic event and try to find a solution are fundamantal determinants in the solution of these security problems [12,13]. ...
Earthquakes are devastating natural disasters that can have significant impacts on the psychological well-being of children. This article reviews the literature on the psychological effects of earthquakes on children's mental health from the perspective of modern psychotraumatology and dissoanalysis theory. The article discusses the short-term and long-term adaptive strategies employed by children in response to social traumas and grief, as well as the emergence of psychopathologies such as dissociative disorders and posttraumatic stress disorder when traumatic experiences are not metabolized and neutralized in a timely manner. It highlights the importance of immediate institutionally supportive and structured crisis and disaster psychology-oriented mental health support systems in nations where mass traumatizing events occur. The authors suggest that effective interventions in both social traumas and crisis situations and trauma-centered psychotherapies can enable traumatized and/or dissociated children, adolescents, and adults to return to their daily lives in an integrated manner as soon as possible. The article concludes by highlighting the need for mental health experts to be sent to the field through associations and non-governmental organizations to provide psychological first aid and disaster psychology practices immediately after earthquakes.
Understanding the Hebrew Bible is intended to update scholars and students on the current state of the study of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Such a volume has appeared at roughly twenty-five-yearly intervals since the first, The People and the Book, in 1925; the most recent one, published in 2000, was Text in Context. The book, written by members of SOTS who are experts in each of the areas covered, aims to be more comprehensive than its predecessors. As well as surveying the various genres of literature in the Hebrew Bible, it also examines linguistic and literary approaches (including Bible translation), Middle Eastern history and archaeology, the cultural and aesthetic background in the ancient Near East, the reception of the text in art, music, and literature, and studies in such disciplines as psychology, cognitive science, and the social sciences, as well as reflecting on issues of ecology, post-colonialism, race, and gender as they affect our understanding of the Bible. In each area the aim is to explain the present state of the discipline rather than the personal opinions of the contributors, and also to indicate the probable direction in which Old Testament study is likely to develop.
Title:
"The Psychology of Fear Under Dictatorship: Mechanisms of Control, Long-Term Societal Impact, and Strategies for Recovery"
Description:
This research examines the culture of fear within authoritarian regimes, analyzing the psychological and social mechanisms through which oppressive rulers instill and sustain fear as a tool for political control. Using an analytical research methodology, the study explores how fear is systematically constructed, its long-term psychological and societal effects, and potential strategies for recovery after the fall of such regimes.
The study draws from historical and contemporary case studies, including those of the Soviet Union, Chile, South Africa, Spain, and Zimbabwe, to understand how fear manifests and persists even after a regime collapses. The findings indicate that authoritarian systems utilize repression, mass surveillance, political intimidation, and media manipulation to maintain public compliance and suppress dissent. Over time, fear becomes deeply internalized, affecting individuals' decision-making, limiting civic engagement, and weakening social cohesion.
The research further explores the phenomenon of collective trauma and its role in shaping post-authoritarian societies. It highlights key strategies for societal recovery, including psychosocial support for trauma survivors, truth and reconciliation processes, institutional reforms to prevent authoritarian resurgence, and educational initiatives to promote democratic resilience.
Ultimately, the study underscores that fear is not merely a political tool but a deeply ingrained psychological and social phenomenon that requires a multidimensional approach—integrating political, psychological, and social interventions—to dismantle its long-lasting effects and foster democratic stability.
Keywords: Psychology of fear, authoritarianism, political repression, collective trauma, transitional justice, resistance strategies, democratic recovery
This chapter explores theatrical approaches to the Norwegian terror attacks of July 22, 2011, by focusing on the intersection of medium specificity, spatial politics, and the contested cultural memory processes in the public sphere. Institutional theaters in Norway only hesitantly approached the issue during the first years after the attacks, by dealing with July 22 merely indirectly or implicitly. The article traces and discusses these early theatrical approaches before zooming in to the first performance produced by a Norwegian institutional theater that explicitly dealt with July 22: Ein av oss/Einer von uns (Ulfsby, 2019). By analyzing the dramaturgical and aesthetic strategies of this production through the lens of transnational memory perspectives, the article provides a close reading of the performance as a multidirectional mnemonic laboratory that aims at creating space for embodied criticality within the intra-national collective memory processes.
The article concerns the issue of constructing a narrative about the pandemic until early autumn 2022, i.e. the moment when the state of epidemic threat in Poland was officially lifted. This allowed for the analysis of issues related to the formation of memory about a historically close event, considered from the perspective of individuals. The author considers issues such as the way of narrating the COVID‑19 pandemic, ideas about the pandemic, the symbolism indicated by the interlocutors, as well as selected processes and mechanisms that affect the way of perceiving, telling and remembering about a new and previously unexperienced threat. The analyses are mainly based on selected 45 in‑depth qualitative interviews conducted in 2022. The author also refers to interviews conducted with the same people in 2020 and 2021, treating the previous statements as a context and sometimes an explanation or supplement to the content that was formulated in 2022. Interviews constituting the basis for the analyses were conducted with people of different ages and in different life situations (independent adults up to 35 years of age, parents living with children, seniors aged 65 and over), living in various parts of Poland, both in rural areas in small towns and voivodeship capitals. The analyses refer to theoretical concepts presented, among others, by researchers of memory considered in the social dimension, referring to Maurice Halbwachs, such as Aleida Assmann, Jan Assmann, and Astrid Erll.
Ce texte vise à comparer la culture stratégique de la société québécoise francophone avec celles des Premières Nations au Canada en examinant leur rapport avec la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Au Québec, le discours dominant semble avoir évolué depuis le milieu des années 1990 et l’on assiste à une (re)découverte de la contribution des Québécois francophones à ce conflit. On peut y voir un indice d’une transformation de la culture stratégique québécoise qui, toujours fidèle aux principes internationalistes, est plus flexible quant aux critères qui rendent acceptables le recours à la force et la participation aux institutions militaires. Chez les Premières Nations, le récit de la guerre sert de catalyseur à l’expression d’une identité distincte et des revendications contemporaines. En conclusion, ce survol tend à indiquer que la mémoire de la Seconde Guerre mondiale des sociétés autochtones et québécoise est « parallèle » et sans point de contact.
The research explores the use of technology in the financial intermediation industry and capital markets, highlighting the mutually developing relationship and the impact of technological innovations in democratizing access to financial markets and increasing transaction efficiency. The study highlights the advancement of the Fintech sector, which, through solutions such as trading bots, blockchain and artificial intelligence, is significantly improving financial services. While the implementation of new technologies opens up profit opportunities, it requires detailed analysis and careful risk management. Research also reveals investors' appetite for fintech tools, including artificial intelligence, but they prefer to retain direct control over investment decisions.
In this article I read the postsocialist transition in the frame of several theories of social trauma (Piotr Sztompka, Andreas Hamburger), by focusing particularly on Romanian poetry published during the 2000s. Leaving aside the psychoanalytical definitions of trauma that had at their core the (i) representability of trauma, starting with the new millennium and, more prominently, in the last decade, trauma studies took a social turn, focusing on traumatized ethnic and social groups. In Romania, the social trauma of the postcommunist transition was addressed foremost in poetry by a new generation of poets who reacted to the economic, social and political disarray of the 2000s. I argue that the concept of social trauma applied to millennial poetry has the advantage of explaining the option of the earlier poets of the 2000s for a poetics of violence, suffering and , beyond the canonical games within the literary field.
Citation suggestion: Mironescu, Doris. "Tranziția postcomunistă ca traumă socială: reprezentări și (de) codificări în poezia anilor 2000" Transilvania, no. 11-12 (2024): 9-16.
This essay offers a critical appraisal of Christopher Thorpe’s ‘Cultural Sociology of Cultural Representations’ both as a contribution to the historical sociology of English cultural representations of Italy and as the foundations for a new research programme in cultural sociology. It analyses the most important theoretical and critical choices made by Thorpe in setting up his project, and how these inform the analysis of English representations of Italy. It explores the role played Bourdieu’s Field Theory and the Strong Programme of Jeffrey Alexander and the Yale Cultural Sociology (YCS) group in the new approach advocated by Thorpe. It identifies particular strengths in Thorpe’s new programme, in particular in addressing the complex temporalities of cultural change, as well as some weaknesses linked to the structuralist model of culture in YCS, with its over emphasis on discursive meaning as the essence of culture. It suggests these shortcomings could be ameliorated with the help of Peirce’s semiotics, certain strands of recent psychology, and some aspects of action theory.
This article examines how the music in the film Pan’s Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno) conceptually generates opposing phantasms. Reflecting the trauma of early Francoism, specifically the Spanish Civil War, the soundtrack oscillates between the disquieting chronological reality and the fascinating yet terrifying fairytale world. A special space is devoted to the musical redistribution of the sensible, mirroring the strong affective, aesthetic, emancipatory and phantasmatic potential of Foley sounds. Such musical resistance undermines phallic authority, fostering a phantasmatic conflict that blurs the boundaries between imaginable and unimaginable reality.
كتبت روائيات أمريكيات روايات عن حرب العراق تعبر عن منظور نادرًا ما نواجهه في أدب الحرب الحديث. هيلين بنديكت هي إحدى الروائيات اللاتي استخدمن الخيال لتصوير حرب العراق، خاصة من خلال وجهات نظر الشخصيات النسائية الرئيسة، لنقل قضايا المرأة والألم الذي تعيشه الإنسانية.وقد وثقت بنديكت، الصحفي، على نطاق واسع تأثير الحرب على القوات النسائية في العراق.تركز في أعمالها الروائية بشكل خاص على الآثار النفسية والجسدية التي تفرضها الحرب على النساء.يوضح عمل المؤلف أنه على الرغم من أن الحرب ربما انتهت كحدث تاريخي، إلا أن تداعياتها لا تزال قائمة بالنسبة للأفراد الذين خدموا كقوات في العراق أو عانوا من فقدان أحبائهم، سواء كانوا في العراق أو في وطنهم في الولايات المتحدةالامريكية
Esse artigo estuda a relação entre discurso nacionalista e a “virada iliberal” da Hungria a partir da eleição do partido Fidesz, de Viktor Orbán, no pleito de 2010, até 2015. Ele começa examinando os argumentos de autores como Jeffrey Alexander, Quentin Skinner e Tapio Juntunen para poder estabelecer um quadro teórico sobre como atores políticos constroem e manipulam mitos históricos para os seus próprios interesses políticos. Ele então passa a examinar como Orbán especificamente usou e construiu narrativas acerca do Tratado de Trianon e de Miklós Horthy, o líder húngaro do entreguerras. O artigo então argumenta que além de permitir que Orbán criasse uma barreira defensiva contra qualquer tipo de crítica de atores internacionais e domésticos, essas interpretações acerca da história húngara restauram a proeminência de uma abordagem “populista-urbanista” do entreguerras e permitem que Orbán crie uma imagem exclusiva do nacionalismo húngaro. Isso então acaba servindo para legitimar o presidente húngaro e o seu partido ao mesmo tempo em que negam aos partidos de oposição quaisquer chances de reivindicar-se como representantes do povo húngaro.
I argue that the Levitical Prayer offered in Neh 9:5–37 ( LP ) offers a version of Judean history that does not include the Babylonian exile. Instead, it narrates an unbroken chain of possession of Judean territory that spans from the conquest and settlement of Canaan to the post-monarchic context of the prayer’s composition. Drawing insights from the study of cultural trauma, I make the case that the interpretive importance of such a catastrophic event cannot be assumed for subsequent Judean communities who sought to form a sense of cultural identity through the retelling of a shared past. Potentially traumatic events like the Babylonian exile are not actualized naturally; communal trauma is instead the product of social processes in the present that serve the needs of present and future communities. An elision of the Babylonian exile from a piece of post-monarchic period literature like the LP does not, therefore, require the interpretative conclusion that the prayer was written by the descendants of Judeans who avoided exile and remained in Judea during the sixth century ʙᴄᴇ. Importantly, neither does it exclude the possibility that the LP was produced by a community whose ancestors were displaced and resettled in Babylonia during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II . Through this analysis I invite scholars to explore a broader range of interpretative possibilities in their study of Ezra-Nehemiah as a composition and the understanding of the defining elements of Judean identity in the post- monarchic period.
El objetivo del artículo es ofrecer algunas herramientas analíticas para comprender la polarización en el contexto político y social catalán a partir de la literatura sobre la dimensión emocional en la política contenciosa. Apoyándonos en la perspectiva de considerar las emociones como un constructo sociocultural de Arlie Hochschild, y en su investigación sobre los procesos de polarización en EE.UU., mostraremos, cómo el orgullo de sentirse catalán se puede transformar en una regla del sentir de los grupos secesionistas. También a lo largo del texto exploraremos, cómo influyen las emociones en la construcción del «nosotros» versus «ellos», o cómo emociones morales como la rabia, el orgullo, el ultraje y la indignación, o los vínculos afectivos como el odio y el desprecio son variables determinantes en el proceso de radicalización de la narrativa política entre soberanistas y secesionistas, conservadores y progresistas, y elites y grupos políticos de base.
This article enquires into questions of state violence, cultural trauma, commemoration, and memory practices with respect to the Cheju April 3rd Incident or "the 4.3 (1947-1954), which is regarded as the precursor of the Korean War. Drawing on Hirsch's concept of "postmemory, this paper explores the way in which the divergence of state memory and local individuated memory of violent events is mediated in commemoration rituals of ancestor worship and reburial ofdead bodies exhumed from mass graves.
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In this article, I propose a collaborative preaching model for healing collective trauma. It begins with the preaching context of a society in the grip of collective trauma after a traumatic event. Taking the May 1998 tragedy in Jakarta, Indonesia, as a case study and employing descriptive, historical, and analytical methods, this study argues that the Church is called to respond to collective trauma in its ministries as part of God’s mission. The research focuses specifically on the ministry of preaching and explores theories of trauma-aware preaching to affirm that preaching can indeed be a medium for healing collective trauma. I then present a collaborative preaching model for collective trauma healing by integrating a conversational preaching approach with the local Indonesian traditions of gotong-royong and musyawarah-mufakat.
In this article, I emphasize the importance of maintaining and transmitting indigenous languages to the next generations, and I explore the motivations and difficulties of indigenous language speakers to do so when living far away from their native language community. The article is an autoethnographic analysis that amplifies the insider’s perspective and reflects on my own thoughts, perceptions, and emotional reactions regarding my language use practices. Specifically, I analyze the use of the Udmurt language with my children and the process of writing a blog in Udmurt. As a researcher of the Udmurt language, I use my previous sociolinguistic studies in the analysis and place it within the broader context of indigenous peoples from Russia. Indigenous languages often involve the use of multiple languages simultaneously, including language mixing, which is entirely natural. In societies with a monolingual language ideology, such practices are seen as signs of linguistic incompetence, leading to feelings of shame or inferiority among indigenous speakers. This negatively impacts the preservation of indigenous languages. Raising sociolinguistic and emotional awareness about how indigenous languages function and sharing personal experiences, including negative ones, can help overcome these challenges.
The paper investigates, through the prism of cultural trauma theories of Jeffrey C. Alexander and other scholars, the case of Cypriot composer Solon Michaelides (1905-1979) and his creative responses to the Turkish military invasion of the northern part of Cyprus in 1974. The resulting trauma from the shock caused by the war is engrained in the composer?s creative oeuvre, since several of his compositions, including the Hymn and Lament for Cyprus and My Kyrenia, became a part of the cultural trauma narration.
Este artículo reflexiona sobre las creaciones culturales como aportes para la construcción de paz. Se parte del supuesto de que los procesos de transición requieren de transformaciones culturales; esto es, reconfiguraciones en los modos de pensar y actuar acerca de la diferencia, el conflicto y la justicia, que se apoyan en distintos tipos de expresiones culturales que, históricamente, han sido claves para situar valores y representaciones sociales en el imaginario colectivo. El texto inicia con una conceptualización sobre las creaciones culturales y su contribución a la construcción de paz, que se centra en el modo en que se tramitan dolores y se representan simbólicamente traumas colectivos. Posteriormente, se exponen modos en que se han dado estos aportes y se puntualizan dimensiones expresadas en estas creaciones y cómo pueden ser leídas en relación con la construcción de paz. Se finaliza con algunas reflexiones en torno a los efectos sociales del arte desde una mirada ontológica de la hermenéutica y desde el vínculo entre arte y ritual.
The article provides the results of an analysis of the discursive realization of the linguocultural concept of «eco-anxiety». The analysis was carried out based on publications in the Guardian for the years 2015–2023. Within the framework of the thematic discourse of eco-anxiety, actional subdiscourses are considered: informative, regulatory, subjective-expressive and prognostic. Based on the linguistic means and speech strategies presented in the aforementioned subdiscourses, we construct the conceptual, associative, figurative and value components of the concept of «eco-anxiety». Eco-anxiety is viewed as associated with the affects of grief, anger, loneliness, guilt and helplessness. The findings show that the structure of the concept includes the components “source of anxiety” and «object of accusation». The article also consideres the apocalyptic modality of the eco-anxiety discourse. Discourse participants in their speech acts construct a cultural trauma and either take responsibility for existing problems and their solution or deny them. The results of discourse and content analysis showed that the significant penetration of eco-anxiety into British linguistic culture not only determines the emotional background of subjects, but also regulates and predicts their actions.
Die Jenischen waren in der Schweiz im 20. Jahrhundert antiziganistischer Diskriminierung ausgesetzt, die auch von kirchlichen Akteur:innen ausging. Durch Kindswegnahmen und die religiöse Erziehung in katholischen Institutionen gedachte man, aus den ›sittlich verwahrlosten‹ Jenischen ›korrekte‹ Menschen zu machen. Diese gewaltsamen Ereignisse wirken unter Jenischen als kollektives Trauma und prägen als solches den religiösen Identitätsbildungsprozess. Der auf einer qualitativen religionswissenschaftlichen Studie basierende Aufsatz zeigt drei mögliche Arten, das Trauma zu erinnern und die damit verbundenen Herausforderungen zu überwinden.
This essay examines the connectedness between cultural trauma theory and decolonial studies in pastoral theology, demonstrating the denotation of collective trauma in South Korea and Korean Christianity from past colonial and war experiences. Although cultural trauma theory is well established in studying the case of the Holocaust and Western context, it has not yet explored the trauma of the Third World in a fully fledged manner. Rather, it still employs a Western-centered discourse that is unable to explain the disparity of power dynamics based on colonial values. Therefore, a critical analysis is essential to develop a decolonial discourse between cultural trauma theory and pastoral theology. The case of Korean cultural trauma and its relation to Korean Protestantism is a good starting point for addressing decolonial pastoral care in that the Korean church is still complicit in the colonial religious inheritances concerning its colonized ways of thinking and psyche. Throughout this essay, I argue that Korean social identity and Protestantism are reproducing the harmful reaction of in-group exclusion under the impact of cultural trauma. Finally, I provide a pastoral theological analysis of this discussion in order to suggest a new possibility of decolonial pastoral care for the traumatized Korean society and Christianity.
Shortly after the cultural traumas occur, the politics of memory evolves among cultural groups/nations involved. This policy has had a profound effect on the thoughts and memories of different segments of the population, especially historians. On the other hand, every king and ruler considers part of his cultural power to create and control archives.
Uremia massacre in the first world war, global collective trauma & major global cultural trauma, and the most important Memorial Day among all the Assyrian Diaspora. the present study explores the different narratives of the Uremia Massacre recorded by the iranian and foreign priests, soldiers, missionaries and diplomats. The narratives of this suffering can be classified into three categories: humiliating, hostile, and moderate. The humiliating narrative of the Muslims, the narration of the middle Kurds and the Ottoman armies, the narrative of the hostile Assyrians, Armenians and the Russian and British armies are portrayed as evil. In these narrations, they were accompanied by deceived, defenseless, infidel and mercenary codes. In fact, the Assyrians are even subalter to the Jews in terms of the social, economic, and cultural level of their communities & diasporas. on the other hand, Governments are responsible for the massacre and are taking extensive measures to collective amnesia about the cultural trauma. These factors have led to the continuation of the evil-based politics of the memory and the elimination-based politics of the archive in relation to their identities.
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