Against trauma: silence, victimhood, and (photo-)voice in northern Namibia
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Date
2015
Authors
Becker, Heike
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
The article shows how the discourses of trauma, victimhood and silence regarding
local agency contributed to the production of the nationalist master narrative in
postcolonial Namibia. However, I point out repositories of memory beyond the
narratives of victimhood and trauma, which began to add different layers to the
political economy of silence and remembrance in the mid-2000s. Through revisiting
visual forms of remembrance in northern Namibia an argument is developed, which
challenges the dichotomy between silence and confession. It raises critical questions
about the prominent place that the trauma trope has attained in memory studies, with
reference to work by international memory studies scholars such as Paul Antze and
Michael Lambek (1996) and South African researchers of memory politics, particularly
the strategies of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The fresh Namibian
material supports the key critique of the TRC, which suggests that the foregrounding
of pain and victimhood, and rituals of therapy and healing entailed a loss of the political
framings of the testimonial moments.
Description
Keywords
Trauma, Victims, Silence, Namibia, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)
Citation
Becker, H. (2015). Against trauma: silence, victimhood, and (photo-) voice in northern Namibia: special issue. Acta Academica: Silence after violence and the imperative to'speak out', 47(1), 116-137.