Trauma and Other Historians

Abstract

I f one practical way to defi ne trauma is to consider it as a chronic inability to access and process catastrophic events, that is, as a systematic and haunting blockage of memory formation and reclamation of past experiences, then historians have an inherent stake in the concept. This basic observation is not new, of course, but until now only historians of the Holocaust have evinced serious and consistent interest in the vast literature on Trauma Studies. Most historians-for example those who work with the distant past, with non-Western societies, or with less extreme historical events-have not had to engage with the historical implications of trauma. In as much as historians use the term, they do so from the lay standpoint that considers trauma as a horrible and tragic man-made event or a natural disaster. In its popular and very elastic usage the event (trauma) and its consequences (always "traumatic") run the risk of remaining unexplored and largely unexplained, and thus, paradoxically, actually traumatic in the sense of not allowing access to the past. While remaining cognizant of the bland usage of the concept of trauma, the goal of this special issue is to offer a modest commentary on what Trauma Studies can offer to "Other Historians" and, perhaps, on what they can offer in return. The work presented here is of a provisional nature and is the product of a year-long seminar by a diverse group of historians at the Institute of Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and the international conference, "Trauma and History," that they organized. Admittedly, we "Other Historians" are latecomers to a subject that became well known with the publication of The Empire of Trauma, in which aut hors Didier Fassin and Richard Rechtman remark: "Over the last twentyfi ve years, trauma has become established as a unique way of appropriating the traces of history and one of the dominant modes of representing our relationship with the past." 1 Since that publication, the concept of trauma has only grown as a major signifi er of our age. A century ago, when the term "trauma" (literally, a wound) was fi rst used in order to describe the symp

Intersectional trauma: COVID-19, the psychosocial contract, and America’s racialized public health lineage.

“…Intersectional trauma refers to the psychosocial marginalization of individuals across multiple axes of identity, including race, ethnicity, gender, nativity status, religion, sexual orientation, mental health status, and so forth (Di-Capua, 2015). This comparative review for a broadening of this construct, one which is inclusive of how other fundamentally social phenomenon, such as public health disasters, formatively influence one’s wellbeing, place, and identity and effectively reshape one’s cultural health capital (Shim, 2010).…”

“The Fight is Two Times as Hard”: A Qualitative Examination of a Violence Syndemic Among Young Black Sexual Minority Men

“…Scholars have recently examined how syndemics research may benefit from intersectionality, which highlights how social oppressions along the axes of race, gender, class, or sexual identity influence syndemic health and social conditions (Carnes, 2016; Quinn, 2019; Smith et al, 2022). Applied to this study, an intersectional approach to examining syndemics considers how violence is shaped by power dynamics, structural factors, oppression, and marginalization, and how that can shape health outcomes (Di-Capua, 2015). This conceptualization of violence recognizes the societal and systemic contributions to violence and trauma experienced by YBMSM, including oppression and marginalization (Baird et al, 2021).…”

“The fight is two times as hard”: A qualitative examination of a violence syndemic among young Black sexual minority men

“…Scholars have recently examined how syndemics research may benefit from intersectionality, which highlights how social oppressions along the axes of race, gender, class, or sexual identity influence syndemic health and social conditions (Carnes, 2016;Quinn, 2019;Smith et al, 2022). Applied to this study, an intersectional approach to examining syndemics considers how violence is shaped by power dynamics, structural factors, oppression, and marginalization, and how that can shape health outcomes (Di-Capua, 2015). This conceptualization of violence recognizes the societal and systemic contributions to violence and trauma experienced by YBMSM, including oppression and marginalization (Baird et al, 2021).…”