Collective trauma? Isolating and commoning gender-based violence

Abstract

This paper considers the tensions between individual and collective experiences, responses and framings in gender-based violence (GBV). I explore three concepts that aid understanding of GBV -isolating, collective trauma and commoning -and question their utility in understanding trauma and the process of survival. The arguments are evidenced with survivors' testimony from a participatory action research project on experiences of trauma from GBV. First, the isolating of survivors, taking multiple forms, is not just 'how it is' , but a condition created and exploited by perpetrators and buttressed by social perceptions and practices to reduce access to sources of support. Second, I consider whether GBV might be thought of as collective trauma, a concept from Black and postcolonial literatures to describe structural traumas that are communal in nature. I explore the collective aspects of experiencing, surviving and rebuilding from GBV, and resonances and discontinuities with this notion of collective trauma. Third, commoning emphasises mutual aid in resistance to violence, and better reflects diverse experiences of GBV. It offers an alternative promise of collective care in an era of shrinking and neoliberalising service provision, illuminating existing practices by which GBV survivors and feminist organisations work to make and remake survival.

Using an Intersectional Lens on Vulnerability and Resilience in Minority and/or Marginalized Groups During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Narrative Review

“…Such openness may be discussed in terms of having experienced vulnerability, which in turn did not result in personally closing up to protect oneself but embracing these experiences to build strength. Further endeavors should acknowledge Black, postcolonial, indigenous, queer, and feminist perspectives in trauma and resilience research, as they have already pointed out the role of collective trauma and its social, political, and structural implications ( Pain, 2020 , 2021 ) but are not well-integrated in many trauma and resilience research studies. Additionally, it shows that multiplicity of resilience and resilience narratives has to be acknowledged and understood in their contextual, subjective, and constructivist embedding ( Hutcheon and Lashewicz, 2014 ; Powell et al, 2014 ).…”

“…Feminist views on trauma theory emphasized social locations and intersections in the construction of trauma ( Burstow, 2003 ; Quiros and Berger, 2015 ) and multiple interpretations of the term “trauma” ( Tseris, 2013 ). Black, postcolonial, and indigenous analyses added a social and political understanding of trauma to a clinical one, with the latter focused on (emotional) response to traumatic events ( Pain, 2020 , 2021 ). Social and political aspects can be located in collective trauma as a shared, collective experience and a transgenerational understanding of trauma ( Pain, 2020 ), including the impact of trauma due to membership to specific groups ( Burstow, 2003 ).…”

Gaza and the Great March of Return: Enduring violence and spaces of wounding

“…Wounds exact a painful physical and emotional toll on individual and family life in Gaza, attesting to Pain's (2021b) observation that trauma is often experienced collectively. Those who were shot during the demonstrations understandably have great difficulty coming to terms with their injuries and many continue to experience pain and distress for a long time after being injured.…”

“…Geographers have usefully employed the concept of slow violence to make sense of a variety of multi-scalar harms across many different contexts, with lively debates recently filling geography journal special issues and an edited collection (Cahill & Pain, 2019;O'Lear, 2021;Pain, 2021aPain, , 2021bPain & Cahill, 2022). These works do an excellent job of surveying geographical work on slow violence, so rather than reviewing the burgeoning literature, this section draws more narrowly on feminist and Black geographies scholarship to advance two critiques of slow violence in the spirit of making space for a concept of violence that pays specific attention to its enduring qualities.…”

“…Pain points out that chronic and complex trauma are ‘longer lasting’, and on the basis that they are ‘more likely to be collectively experienced’, acute trauma is dropped from the analysis ((Pain 2021a) p. 973). While these distinctions might have purchase in the modes of psychological trauma that animate Pain's concept of geotrauma, and while it is imperative to move beyond the narrow medicalised and individualising scope of traditional trauma interventions (Pain 2021b), I suggest in section 4 that it is important to keep acute temporalities in view not only because they mix with chronic forms of harm in ways that geographic scholarship on violence and trauma have not yet fully appreciated but also because acute harm can be engineered, precisely, to be longer lasting. Moreover, patterns of wounding in Gaza and other conflict zones demonstrate a collective experience of acute (as well as chronic) harm, suggesting that solidarities can be built across multiple temporalities of harm.…”