"Posttraumatic Politics" by L. Dwyer & D. Santikarma

This quote  from a chapter titled, "Posttraumatic Politics: Violence, memory, and biomedical discourse in Bali" really transforms my approach to thinking about atrocity. Dwyer & Santikarma wrote,

[T]rauma is most productively understood not as a universal human response to certain inherently traumatizing events unassimilable by the human psyche, but rather as a socially positioned process. Trauma, in this view, includes, first, identifying what constitutes experience that cannot or should not be integrated into everyday life; second, engaging in culturally mediated responses that may range from withdrawal to resistance, from alienation to solidarity, and from disruption to the creation of new forms of emotion and interaction; and third--depending on the cultures of treatment present in a given setting--formulating means of attempting to alleviate distress. (p. 405)

Later in the piece, the authors explain how a few activist groups in Bali were internally divided about whether to address PTSD as part of their mission. "'What we need to know to make our decision,' one young man explained, 'is what's political about PTSD?"

This question really is important to think about.

Reference

Dwyer, L., & Santikarma, D. (2007). Postraumatic politics: Violence, memory, and biomedical discourse in Bali.  In L. J. Kirmayer, R. Lemelson, & M. Barad. Understanding trauma: Integrating biological, clinical, and cultural perspectives (p. 403-432). NY: Cambridge University Press.