Genocide and Mass Violence
Memory, Symptom, and Recovery

Genocide and Mass Violence brings together a unique mix of anthropologists, psychiatrists, psychologists and historians to examine the effects of mass trauma.

Devon E. Hinton (Edited by), Alexander L. Hinton (Edited by)

9781107694699, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 November 2014

448 pages, 20 b/w illus. 11 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.66 kg

'Genocide and Mass Violence is an extremely successful volume that not only brings together an amazing and interesting collection of research and collaborators but forces the reader to consider how experiences of violence continue to unfold beyond the battlefield. Its cross-disciplinary approach gives the reader new insights and perspectives that would otherwise be lacking from a single-field examination and produces a truly unique work.' Anthropos

What are the legacies of genocide and mass violence for individuals and the social worlds in which they live, and what are the local processes of recovery? Genocide and Mass Violence aims to examine, from a cross-cultural perspective, the effects of mass trauma on multiple levels of a group or society and the recovery processes and sources of resilience. How do particular individuals recall the trauma? How do ongoing reconciliation processes and collective representations of the trauma impact the group? How does the trauma persist in 'symptoms'? How are the effects of trauma transmitted across generations in memories, rituals, symptoms, and interpersonal processes? What are local healing resources that aid recovery? To address these issues, this book brings into conversation psychological and medical anthropologists, psychiatrists, psychologists and historians. The theoretical implications of the chapters are examined in detail using several analytic frameworks.

Foreword: what does trauma do? Arthur Kleinman
Introduction: an anthropology of the effects of genocide and mass violence: memory, symptom, and recovery Devon E. Hinton and Alexander L. Hinton
Part I. Private and Public Memory: 1. The Vietnam War traumas Heonik Kwon
2. Haunted by Aceh: specters of violence in post-Suharto Indonesia Byron J. Good
3. Remembering and ill health in post-invasion Kuwait: topographies, collaborations, and mediations Conerly Casey
4. 'Behaves like a rooster and cries like a (four-eyed) canine': the politics and poetics of depression and psychiatry in Iran Orkideh Behrouzan and Michael M. J. Fisher
5. Embodying the distant past: Holocaust descendant narratives of the lived presence of the genocidal past Carol A. Kidron
6. Half-disciplined chaos: thoughts on contingency, story, and trauma Vincent Crapanzano
Part II. Symptom and Syndrome: 7. 'The spirits enter me to force me to be a communist': political embodiment, idioms of distress, spirit possession, and thought disorder in Bali Robert Lemelson
8. 'Everything here is temporary': psychological distress and suffering among Iraqi refugees in Egypt Nadia El-Shaarawi
9. Key idioms of distress and PTSD among rural Cambodians: the results of a needs-assessment survey Devon E. Hinton, Alexander L. Hinton and Kok-Thay Eng
10. Attack of the grotesque: suffering, sleep paralysis, and distress during the Sierra Leone war Doug Henry
Part III. Response and Recovery: 11. The chaplain turns to God: negotiating post-traumatic stress disorder in the American military Erin Finley
12. Acehnese women's tales of traumatic experience, resilience, and recovery Mary-Jo Delvecchio Good
13. Rwanda's Gacaca trials: toward a new nationalism or business as usual? Christopher C. Taylor
14. Pasts imperfect: talking about justice with former combatants in Colombia Kimberly Theidon
15. Atrocity and nonsense: the ethnographic study of dehumanization Alexandra Pillen
16. Growing up on the frontline: coming to terms with war-related loss in Gonagala, Sri Lanka Kenneth E. Miller and Sulani Perera
17. The role of traditional rituals for the reintegration and psychosocial well-being of child soldiers in Nepal Brandon Kohrt
Commentary: wrestling with the angels of history: memory, symptom, and intervention Laurence J. Kirmayer.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Psychology [JM], Anthropology [JHM]