This book is a collection of essays that develops and applies the theory of cultural trauma . My introduction will outline that theory and describe how it emerged as a fruitful tool for comparative analysis of historical events. The outline is simple: I begin with the origins of the theory, then continue through a series of applications that have turned an concept into a research framework, one that has now reached the level of a paradigm in comparative historical analysis. Finally, I will conclude with a synopsis of the chapters contained in this volume.
As a conceptual framework for analyzing historical events, cultural trauma has its origins in the meeting of a group of sociologists at Stanford Universityâs Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS). The group was organized by Neil Smelser , director of the CASBS, and Jeffrey Alexander , then professor of sociology at UCLA, and together we spent the academic year spanning 1999â2000 in the centerâs bucolic setting. Other members included me (I was associated with Swedenâs Uppsala University at that time), Bjorn Wittrock (also of Uppsala), Bernhard Giesen (of Konstanz, Germany), and Piotr Sztompka (of Krakow, Poland). We were brought together to reflect on and develop theories of social integration/polarization, not trauma; however, we soon found that we had nothing very interesting to say about the former, but much to say about the latter. This realization emerged as much from internal group tensions as from a common theoretical understanding or research interest. These tensions were more historical than personal, for once we decided that a sociological conception of âtraumaâ would be an interesting topic for discussion, an emotional confrontation broke out between Sztompka and Giesen concerning events in Poland and Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War . Giesen (the German) suggested that German refugees forced out of Poland and other parts of Europe suffered from collective trauma . That German suffering could be placed within the same conceptual framework as that suffered by Poles enraged Sztompka (the Pole) and led to a very heated and almost physical confrontation. With the distance of time, I can see now that this incident and the powerful emotions it evoked among serious scholars revealed that we were on to something, that a social concept of trauma connected to collective memory might be an entrĂ©e into a fertile field of research. In this way, developing a sociological theory of trauma became our focus. We began to organize our sessions around a new set of readings, which individual members of our group suggested and then took responsibility for presenting. This continued over the course of the year and eventually included invited speakers, such as the Stanford historian Norman Neimark, an expert on genocide, and Kenneth Thompson of the Open University, a leading scholar on the subject of moral panics.
In addition to reading the classical psychological theories suggested and presented by Neil Smelser (a practicing psychoanalyst as well as a sociologist), we read and discussed the more recently developed literary approaches to trauma by Cathy Caruth (1996) and others, including the sociologist Kai Erikson (1994) and the historian Arthur Neal (1998). All this was facilitated by the helpful and accommodating research librarians at Stanford University. In the collective volume we later published (Alexander et al. 2004), Smelser authored a chapter contrasting psychological and cultural trauma . As for myself, I came to the center with a long interest in African American culture, and I used the group as a sounding board for developing a theory about collective identity , collective memory , and the origins of the term African American . The theory of cultural trauma that we were developing provided me with a conceptual framework to bring together the various strands of my research into coherent form. This became the basis for my chapter in our collective volume, âCultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African American Identityâ and for the book of the same title I wrote concurrently. Because history intervened, my own book was published in 2001âbefore our collective volume, Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity (2004)âcreating a small controversy about the first usage of the term âcultural trauma,â as well as my having to reply to many quires concerning my citation of an as-then nonexistent book on cultural trauma as a resource. It was an unforeseen incident that was the cause. As our collectively edited volume was in press, two high jacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, and our publisher, the University of California Press, decided that in the wake of that event no book bearing the phrase âcultural traumaâ could appear in print without some mention of it. The book was thus delayed so that Neil Smelser could write what is now the epilogue, âSeptember 11, 2001 As Cultural Trauma â (2004b) and a new cover depicting the burning Twin Towers could be created.
The notion of cultural trauma that emerged out of our discussionsâand later crafted into a coherent theory by Jeffrey Alexander (2004a) and Neil Smelser (2004a)âprovided the framework with which to present the results of our year together. In our co-edited book, Alexander and Smelser offered formalized definitions of cultural trauma that were then followed by case studies applying the concept. Alexander , who in the bookâs preface offers a slightly different history of our meetings, writes, âCultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, making their memories forever and changing their future identities in fundamental and irrevocable waysâ (2004a: 1). By placing emphasis on âfeelingâ and âgroup consciousness,â Alexander laid out a meaning-centered, constructivist path to trauma, as feelings require interpretation and consciousness calls for articulation and representation . After distinguishing psychological- from cultural trauma, Smelser further distinguished social- from cultural trauma , where the latter is defined as a âmemory accepted and publicly given credence by a relevant membership group and evoking an event or situation which is (a) laden with negative affect, (b) represented as indelible, and (c) regarded as threatening a societyâs existence or violating one or more of its fundamental cultural presuppositionsâ (2004a: 44). Both Smelser and Alexander link cultural trauma to articulation and the social processes that lead to its representation and acceptance. Continuing Alexanderâs criticism of a ânaturalisticâ approach to trauma, Smelser argues, traumas are âmade not bornâ (2004a: 37); this was another marker of a constructivist approach to trauma. Thus there were two distinct âothersâ that a cultural conception of trauma defined itself against. The first was the pathological and individual -oriented notion of trauma that Freud and others had developed. The second concerned the debate within the philosophy of social science between constructivism and realism. In declaring, traumas are âmade, not born,â Smelser made his position clear : collective trauma required interpretation. Nothingâno matter how powerful or hurtfulâwas culturally âtraumaticâ in itself. Interpretation and acceptance are meaning-centered cultural processes that require communication and communicators, what Alexander had identified as âcarrier groups .â What these groups âcarriedâ was at the time still unclear, but their necessity as agents in the process of trauma articulation and transmission was deemed essential. With this initial presentation of a nonpathological and constructivist notion of cultural trauma , the remaining chapters in the book apply the framework across a range of cases: mine focuses on African American identity formation and stresses collective memory and its narration; Giesenâs âTrauma of the Perpetrators â (2004) focuses on the construction of post-Second World War German national identity; Sztompkaâs âTrauma of Social Changeâ (2004) develops a model of postcommunist transition with Poland as the example; Alexanderâs âOn the Social Construction of Moral Universalsâ (2004b) presents a case for historicizing the âHolocaust â; and Smelserâs epilogue explores the unfolding trauma processed related to the events of 9/11.
The careful reader of Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity will note that the line between constructivist and realist or naturalistic notions of trauma was not easily maintained. The same may be said of the intention to offer an alternative to the pathological notion of trauma of psychoanalysis. In his powerful essay on perpetrator trauma , Giesen uses Freudian terminology to describe the time lag between incident and articulation in the âtrauma process,â invoking a period of âlatency,â while Sztompka offers a model for studying societal transition in his examination of Polandâs post-communist phase, a model that fits comfortably within the realist traditions of social science. My own chapter on African American identity formation attempts to tread the line running between all these positions. I stress the powerful emotions that the slave condition engendered, while at the same time highlighting the narratives âtragic and progressiveâthat were constructed by succeeding generations of African Americans as a means to understand and channel those emotions. Such initial lack of consistency and coherence was no hindrance to the innovative discussions that led to the articulation of this framework or to its growing popularity. Sociology, after all, is known for its being multilayered and rife with internal tension. Over the many years of emergence as an academ...