the politics of trauma prof michael humphrey department of sociology & social policy ssps, arts...
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the politics of traumathe politics of trauma
Prof Michael HumphreyDepartment of Sociology & Social Policy
SSPS, ARTSUniversity of Sydney
Prof Michael HumphreyDepartment of Sociology & Social Policy
SSPS, ARTSUniversity of Sydney
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Taxi driver: “Have you found any skeletons from 1959, my cousin disappeared then?”
Nora Morales de Cortinas -Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Línea
Fundadora
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age of anxiety
trauma
‘our relationship to history has turned tragic’ (Fassin 2009)
heroes v. victims
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Trauma
trace of the tragic event
from bodily weakness
to embodiment of humanity
source of social visibility of victims
clinically - PTSD
publicly - compassion
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traumatic event
as shared experience - ‘communion of suffering’
produces a lasting form of collective identity
metaphor of trauma: used to bring everyone together
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Trauma
production of victims
make visible to others - professionals
make visible to victims themselves- victimhood
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legitimacy of traumaattraction: resilience of humanity against moral destruction
in the name of this humanity
compensation is demanded
testimony is given against oppression
proof of cruelty experienced
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from compassion to justice
trauma - source of visibility
rights - translated into claims
role of trauma in framing violence and interpreting its effects is Insufficiently recognised
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trauma & human rights lens
victims of past violence
universalising discourses
human rights (humanity)
trauma/suffering (body)
inclusive (formal equality)
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human rights lens
human rights
legitimating language for claims
remedies in law
national, international courts
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trauma lens
trauma - moral vision
who has rights?
BECOMES
who is deserving?
moral economies circumscribe rights
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truth politicsvictim-centred truth commissions
private memory, collective memory
testimony
proof
compensation
mode of governance: inscribing meaning on the suffering of the victim
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victim
vulnerability
memory - traumatic event
injustice - rights claims
culpability - individualised v. generalised
governance - produce consensus
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truth politics, victimhoodjustice
reconciliation
truth
amnesty
memory
victimhood
recognition
forgiveness
healing
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DISAPPEARED - ARGENTINA 1976-1983
Página 1221/1/2005
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la noche de los lápcies 30 yrs -
2006
el silencio es salud
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world aids day 2005
piquete against corruption 2008
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Nunca Más, 1984
CONADEP report
Amnesty 1986
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Street Protests
Beware! Beware! neighbours, there’s an assassin living next door to you!
Challenge normalization of living with repressors by shaming
http://www.prensadefrente.org/pdfb2/media/Escrachando_01.jpg
ESCRACHE
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weekly march Plaza de MayoMadres: Línea Fundadora
Headscarves embroidered with children’s names
Carry portraits of children in Plaza
Bodies as sites of past memory
custodians of ESMA
Madres: Asociación
Plain headscarves
No portraits
Children remain alive in them: perpetually pregnant
Embody their children’s activism
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Public Memorial - ESMA
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Outcomes - hierarchy of victimsChile
National Truth and Reconciliation Commission 1990-1:
investigate HRVs resulting in death
families of disappeared - the ‘most innocent’
National Commission on Imprisonment and Torture, 2004-5 :
prisoners - compensated
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Victims Law - Colombia
compensated: victims of paramilitary & guerrilla groups
not compensated: victims of the security forces - executions, disappearances
except when perpetrator found guilty (with intent or serious negligence)
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future impunity
VICTIMS LAW - COLOMBIA
denies compensation for future violence
ignores restitution of millions of hectares of land (stolen by paramilitary groups)- indigenous pops, peasants
compensates out of solidarity, denies responsibility
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Victims who persistPublic support can shift
between victims v. non-victims
between victims v. victims
Why?
demand for redistributive justice
demand for retributive justice reparations - decline
amnesty
reparations
justice
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moral economies
closure on truth politics
amnesty laws
Uruguay : recent plebiscite on amnesty laws- between those who demand justice and those who feel the time has passed
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politics of grievance
what do you do with grief?
grievance/ resentment (Robert Meister)
continue the struggle against perpetrators and the beneficiaries of previous injustice
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politics of resentmentbalance
the fear beneficiaries have of revenge
with
the moral recognition of the victim - the wrong done to them
transitional Justice - if done to the right degree, with correct restraint can secure democracy
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Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos
ley de memoria histórica de españa
buena memoriadel estado
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Democratic transition Spain
Amnesty 1977
‘equitable impunity’ - amnesty of all for all, forgetting of all for all
profound erasure designed to touch everyone, the whole society
Socialist party nervous avoidance of republican or communist symbols in electioneering
thru demonisation and stigmatisation
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Amnesty - buena memoria
personal memory of repression remained isolated
subordination of private to public memory (memory of the state)
mourning local not national
recognition limited to financial compensation, not public testimonies - 6 laws between 1979-2007)
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impunityprofound:
the negative legacies of the state (dictatorship)
destroyed legal and political vigilance
left undisturbed the decisions of special tribunals against the resistance and its repression
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irreparable damage,
‘sorry’ has no effect?
history v. socialisation of knowledge
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reparationsley de memoria histórica de españa 2007
desire for moral reparation and reconstruction of personal and family memory of those who suffered the consequences of the war and dictatorship
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http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15875987
*Magistrate Baltasar Garzón*On trial for investigating 113,000 disappeared of the dictatorship *Prosecution initIated by ‘Clean hands’ and ‘falange española’. Allege he violated the 1977 Amnesty Law! * career over?
WRONG PROSECUTION?
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Argentine courts to investigate crimes of Franco regimef Franquismo!
use principle of universal justice to investigate the crimes of Franco regime
Carlos Slepoy - one of lawyers who initiating claim (exile, Socialist militant, involved in Scilingo trial)
petitioners - major human rights bodies, victims associations, unions and the Association of Historical Memory of Spain
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moral economies
trauma obscures
conflicts (before trauma, behind trauma)
trauma chooses its victims
good/bad victim
identification / othering
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trauma consensus
trauma - disconnected from subjectivity
ritualised duty of memory
shallowness: feeling the experience of the victim
confirm victimhood as identity
consensus around pity, not causes
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Refugees
international rights of asylum
Australian policy circumscribing refugee
rights
compassion
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from compassion to rights
AUstralia - boat arrivals
testimony: prevent victims from being heard
proof : narrative, scars, trauma
compensation: conditional visas
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victims marginalised:
if their story does not fit or they belong to wrong category
if they can’t prove bodily traces of trauma
denying the trauma of one individual can mean denying the suffering of whole populations
Sri Lanka, Afghanistan now ‘safe’
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Universalising discourses
trauma
human rights
inclusive discources
become basis for division between people
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trauma event
accessible thru subjectivity, memory, feelings of victim?
victim testimony - enmeshed in forms of governmentality
conceptualisation of event, validity of memory, moral criteria of recognition
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Fassin D, Rechtman R. 2009. Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press