Historical Trauma (post-colonial)

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According to the poet Elias Canetti, "All the things one has forgotten / scream for help in dreams." To the ancient Egyptians they were prophecies, and in world folklore they have often marked visitations from the dead. For Freud they were expressions of "wish fulfillment," and for Jung, symbolic representations of mythical archetypes. Although there is still much disagreement about the significance and function of dreams, they seem to serve as a barometer of current mind and body states.

In this volume, Deirdre Barrett brings together the study of dreams and the psychology of trauma. She has called on a distinguished group of psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers--among them Rosalind Cartwright, Robert J. Lifton, and Oliver Sacks--to consider how trauma shapes dreaming and what the dreaming mind might reveal about trauma. The book focuses on catastrophic events, such as combat, political torture, natural disasters, and rape. The lasting effects of childhood trauma, such as sexual abuse or severe burns, on personality formation, the nature of memories of early trauma, and the development of defenses related to amnesia and dissociation are all considered. The book also takes up trauma and adult dreams, including Vietnam veterans and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Holocaust survivors and perpetrators, rape victims, and firestorm survivors. Finally, this volume concludes with a look at the potential "traumas of normal life," such as divorce, bereavement, and life-threatening illness, and the role of dreams in working through normal grief and loss.

Taken together, these diverse perspectives illuminate the universal and the particular effects of traumatic experience. For physicians and clinicians, determining the etiology of nightmares offers valuable diagnostic and therapeutic insights for individual treatment. This book provides a way of juxtaposing the research in the separate fields of trauma and dreams, and learning from their discoveries.

Freudian discourses assert the nature of one's dreams to be revealing of that which remains unresolved or that which has not been properly addressed. These discourses also designate dreams as avenues of growth-that is, when analyzed and examined appropriately, dreams can be telling of the dimensions of one's personality that require further examination, subsequently allowing the individual to learn from, and about, themselves. In addition to providing an extra sensory perception of sorts, dreams, then, also operate as personal pedagogical tools. This pedagogy, unfortunately, is not exempt from internal or external influence(s), or what Freud refers to as stimuli. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud outlines four sources of stimuli that direct the dreaming process, two of which are the external sensory stimuli (the objective), and the internal sensory stimuli (the subjective); he goes on to state that it is widely understood that dreams are the culmination of several influences (Freud 31). This culmination, particularly with regards to the objective and the subjective sensory stimuli, is best exemplified in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, through the character of Antoinette. Socially underdeveloped as a result of only ever knowing herself in relation to other people (an issue addressed throughout in this work), Antoinette cannot find it in herself to be properly self-reflexive or self-examining, and thus Rhys situates her dreams at pivotal moments in the novel at instances where such examination is crucial. The absence of the self-examining action in her wakeful existence (or what may be regarded as "the real world",

In public discourse in Nunavut on the painful subject of elevated rates of suicide in the territory, one hears a wide range of opinions on the question of ‘what was the suicide rate in our society before settlement in communities?’ Opinions range from ‘Inuit never killed themselves before the Qallunaat came’ to ‘Suicide is part of our culture’ (the suggestion being that historical Inuit society had a high rate of suicide).
Greater clarity about suicide behaviour in the past may be helpful because perceptions about the frequency and nature of suicide in historical Inuit society can impact on how people understand suicide behaviour today (i.e. whether suicide behavior today reflects traditional cultural norms). This report presents data from a variety of sources that may help clarify understanding about what we know and don’t know about the development of elevated rates of suicide in Nunavut in the last 100 years.

Ruptures in identity occur through the sudden discovery of a part of our selves that has been hidden through family trauma and secrecy (Sztompka, 2000). Auto- ethnography seeks to uncloak a secret past, and amplify muted voices (Denzin, Lincoln & Smith, 2008; Ellis, Adams, Bochner; 2011; Reed-Danahay, 1997; Smith, 2012;). This is my journey of cultural healing through immersion within the principles of Kaupapa Māori (Pihama, Cram & Walker, 2002; Walker, Eketone & Gibbs, 2006). This immersion aimed to transform the colonised self into a cultural self through a transformative process of cultural recovery. This is my answer to the ancestors call for action. Through Kaupapa Māori I embody the knowledge of my ancestors who guide and support my transformations, awakening the sleeping self and lighting the fire of knowledge.

This research used a constructivist grounded theory approach in order to explore Aboriginal women’s attitudes and beliefs about sexual violence.
Data were derived from semi-structured interviews with seven professional Aboriginal women who resided in Perth, Western Australia. As the research was conducted by a non-Aboriginal person, it was overseen by a Critical Reference Group of Aboriginal women, who provided cultural guidance regarding all aspects of this study.
From the participant interviews a number of themes emerged, including the historical context that contributes to current attitudes and beliefs to sexual violence in Aboriginal communities, including the breakdown of traditional governance and family systems; and the impacts of historical/transgenerational trauma. Participants’ responses also described the contemporary factors that they identified as contributing to sexual violence in Aboriginal communities, including ongoing community disadvantage, internalised oppression and racism. Additionally, the importance of family to Aboriginal people was described by participants, along with the power of ‘shame’ in an Aboriginal context. These historical and contemporary contributing factors were seen by participants as shaping attitudes and beliefs in Aboriginal communities, along with responses to sexual violence in Aboriginal communities.
From these data a model was developed which showed the interrelationship between contributing factors as described by participants.
Additionally, the basic social process of ‘weighing up’ was identified from participant responses which involved the weighing up of competing contexts, thus determining the actions and interactions described by participants in relation to sexual violence.
Recommendations based on the findings are discussed.

In this MA thesis I examined specificities of traumatic experience in contemporary Egypt, a country whose people have witnessed cataclysmic violence that stretches from the present back to its colonial past. Drawing on phenomenology, I examine characteristics of traumatic experience in two contemporary Egyptian novels: Basma Abdel Aziz’ The Queue (2013) and Mohammad Rabie’s Otared (2014).

The recent histories of Italy and Somalia are closely linked. Italy colonized Somalia from the end of the 19th century to 1941, and held the territory by UN mandate from 1950 to 1960. Italy is also among the destination countries of the Somali diaspora, which increased in 1991 after civil war. Nonetheless, this colonial and postcolonial cultural encounter has often been neglected. Critically evaluating Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of ‘minor literature’, as well as drawing on postcolonial literary studies, The Somali Within analyses the processes of linguistic and cultural translation and self-translation, the political engagement with race, gender, class and religious discrimination, and the complex strategies of belonging and unbelonging at work in the literary works in Italian by authors of Somali origins. Brioni proposes that the ‘minor’ Somali Italian connection might offer a major insight into the transnational dimension of contemporary ‘Italian’ literature and ‘Somali’ culture.

The vestiges of Native American historical trauma manifest in various painful and selfdefeating forms of internalized oppression. An etiological understanding of this dynamic is based on research of survivors of the Jewish holocaust or Shoah. Deep correlations exist between the Jewish and Native American experiences that have been acknowledged by the Jewish people themselves. Themes of Jewish survivance are examined in relation to emerging literature on Native American revitalization efforts. Within this context, the little discussed massacre at Bear River (Bia Ogoi) is highlighted as a graphic example of Shoshone genocide and diaspora. Relocated and recombined with other tribal groups onto distant reservations and stripped of their own ancient language, culture and spiritual connection via boarding schools, and missionization, the Shoshone, like many other tribal groups in America, are manifesting shocking rates of suicide, alcoholism, physical illnesses and violent crime. Following regenerative themes of re-enactment and remembrance from Jewish and other Native groups, ancient Shoshoni ceremonies and cultural patterns are sourced as potentially vital reservoirs of ancestral memory and prereservation identity within Big Basin Native America. Of these, the naraya, an ancient Shoshoni circle dance, is discussed at some length. Historical trauma challenges specific to two Shoshone groups, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe of the Fort Hall reservation and the Northwest Band of the Shoshone Nation are discussed through the observational lens of a neighboring social worker involved in Shoshone revitalization efforts. These observations are followed by suggested Shoshoni revitalization strategies which tribal members may find helpful in restoring pre-reservation ancestral memory and reunifying Big Basin Native identity.

Resumen: El nütram dentro de la Narrativa Mapuche Contemporánea de base oral, se plantea como una de las modalidades discursivas etnoliterarias primordiales desde la que se transmite la memoria mapuche, es por ello que podemos encontrar una comunidad de voces dentro de relatos que son parte del patrimonio comunitario mapuche que es entregado de generación en generación y que, en parte, es plasmado dentro de soportes como el libro; por ello, ejemplificaremos nuestra propuesta a través de Pulotre. Testimonios de vida de una comunidad Huilliche (1900-1950) (1999) de Bernardo Colipán. De este modo, posicionaremos al nütram como una herramienta que retrama la historia que abre la herida colonial desde un punto de vista propio, impulsando procesos de endoculturación a través del rescate de la memoria colectiva, por ende, se relevan los relatos cotidianos con el fin de absorber el tiempo histórico presente dentro de ellos; con esto se propone privilegiar una historio-grafía vivencial (Colipán 1999), dado que desde las fuentes orales se construye un discurso histórico que subyace en el testimonio de vida. Abstract:

This thesis looks at ideological and cultural decolonization in the context of the Urban Native Community of Vancouver. The oppression that First Nations populations endured during colonialism has left a strong impact. Communities struggle with ample traumas, ranging from ill health to addiction and substance abuse, high school dropouts and high incidences of crime and violence. In this ethnographic case study I spent seven months in this highly diverse urban native community. I wanted to learn about the historical and contemporary causes of peoples' colonial traumas, and, perhaps more importantly, about the ways in which they heal them. Decolonization is not simply a political notion: decolonization means that we have to examine both the base and the superstructure of our society, and the way we have internalized these. As the participants in this study showed me, it is a long and tedious process, in which we can leave no stone unturned, and from which there is no return.

This is my MA Thesis, presented in 2003 at the Free University of Amsterdam, for the completion of my degree in Cultural Anthropology. The things that I learned during this journey continue to inspire me and guide me in the academic work I do today in my Caribbean community of Curacao, the Dutch Caribbean. May my journey inspire someone else also.

Key words: First nations, Vancouver, British Columbia, decolonization, colonialism, racism, residential schools, healing.

The guide is part of a third phase of trans-disciplinary action research (bricolage) in the South African context although the findings are relatable to other unequal and transitional contexts. It consists of an analytical framework which is a groundtruthed and calibrated adaptation of Galtung's triad of cultural-structural-direct violence.

This is a cost-benefit analysis of a highly success historic trauma healing program developed by a First Nation in Manitoba. This program is grounded in the community's sacred teachings and has proven to be very successful in addressing complex issues such as incest.

What constitutes violence in a 'post'-colonial, 'post'-slavery, 'post'- apartheid, 'post'-conflict society?  Who decides on when to insert 'post' and thus discontinuity of something that others experience as continuous?  How can violence be reduced in its structure and not only its individual expressions?

, Eero Tarasti dit que le sujet devient un ötre existentiel par le processus s6miotique : en cr6ant la douleur psychique ne doit pas 6tre seulement un acte thdrapeutique Kathleen Woodward a ainsi notd qu'il nous manque un discours plus expressif sur le processus int6rieur de deuil. En citant des pensdes psychanalytiques de J.-B. Pontalis Woodward place le concept de douleur psychique entre les pöles contradictoires m€lancolie/deuil de la psychanalyse freudienne, qui n'est ni pathologique et incessante comme la m6lancolie, ni saine et de dur6e limit6e comme le processus de deuil. Elle prendra I'exemple barth6sien de "l'affection intentionnelle" du deuil par la photo de sa möre. (Woodward l990l9l, 94-lO2).

Historical trauma is a source of race-based stress that contributes to the disproportionate impact and experience of life-course traumas which may include; adverse childhood experiences, structural health inequities, and the impacts of incarceration. Historical trauma should be considered when examining these traumas disproportionately affecting American Indian and African American communities. A framework to understand the impact of historical trauma on health is Historical Trauma Theory (HTT). This framework is helpful for understanding the four components of trauma experience; the truth and power of the historical trauma experience, the physical or psychological historical trauma response, the inter-generational transmission of historical trauma and its effect on future generations, and paths for transcending the trauma.

Draft Presentation on Social Justice Conflict Resolution practice. This is based on an interlinked gap found in practice that explains why practitioners are not structurally responsive. 

It is part of an ongoing action research process in South Africa's unequal, transitional context.

The colonial and post-colonial economic development in the present day Egbema society represents experiences of most societies of the Niger Delta hinterland who witnessed and responded to the mutations occasioned by western imperialism. The Atlantic commerce distorted the economic processes of the people who were forced into the Atlantic trade and peasant production in line with the dictates of Atlantic commerce, including slave trade which completely disarticulated their economy. The post-colonial era that featured petroleum oil exploration and exploitation in Egbema, where oil was discovered in commercial quantity, dealt the final blow to Egbema economic coma. The oil exploitation of the present neo-colonial era has completely disorganized the economic mainstay through arable land reduction and pollution of the environment (Air, Water and Land), leading to discontent, protests and militancy. The paper therefore, traces the causes and course of Egbema's current economic woes through the developments during the colonial, post-colonial and neo-colonial petroleum oil dispensations and concludes that western imperialism, manifesting through the different epochs been responsible for Egbema's poor economic situation, leading to crises, and pervading youth sub-culture characteristic of other Niger Delta Communities.

Key Words: Colonial, Post-Colonial, Petroleum Oil and Crises.

This book is divided into three parts of different lengths.  Chapter one deals largely with examples of symbolic/traumatic violence. Examples of structural/traumatic violence appear in chapter two, psychological/traumatic violence in chapter three, and physical/traumatic violence in chapter four.  While these concepts are distinct for analytical purposes, the aspects of invisible/visible violence, denial and the trauma it generates overlap in all the stories, poems, and analyses.  In chapter five the mental map, structure of invisible/visible violence is described. The epilogue presents ideas on how we can contribute to the reduction of violence in its structure.

Increasingly, understanding how the role of historical events and context affect present-day
health inequities has become a dominant narrative among Native American communities.
Historical trauma, which consists of traumatic events targeting a community (e.g., forced
relocation) that cause catastrophic upheaval, has been posited by Native communities
and some researchers to have pernicious effects that persist across generations through
a myriad of mechanisms from biological to behavioral. Consistent with contemporary
societal determinants of health approaches, the impact of historical trauma calls upon
researchers to explicitly examine theoretically and empirically how historical processes
and contexts become embodied. Scholarship that theoretically engages how historically
traumatic events become embodied and affect the magnitude and distribution of health
inequities is clearly needed. However, the scholarship on historical trauma is limited.
Some scholars have focused on these events as etiological agents to social and
psychological distress; others have focused on events as an outcome (e.g., historical
trauma response); others still have focused on these events as mechanisms or pathways

by which historical trauma is transmitted; and others have focused on historical
trauma-related factors (e.g., collective loss) that interact with proximal stressors. These
varied conceptualizations of historical trauma have hindered the ability to cogently theorize
it and its impact on Native health. The purpose of this article is to explicate the link
between historical trauma and the concept of embodiment. After an interdisciplinary
review of the “state of the discipline,” we utilize ecosocial theory and the indigenist
stress-coping model to argue that contemporary physical health reflects, in part, the
embodiment of historical trauma. Future research directions are discussed.

A  few people are experiencing difficulty in accessing the session in which feedback on a forthcoming book is sought.  This is the link:

https://www.academia.edu/s/70938d7041/analysing-narratives-of-invisiblevisible-violence-disrupting-denial

On October 27th 2021, Olatoun Gabi-Williams delivered this paper at a seminar hosted by the Department of Policy Studies, Bristol University. Participating in the seminar were Dr. Tayo Ajirotutu, Head of the Department of Psychology at Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba and Tunde Koleoso, retired Assistant Director of Social Welfare. The excellent reader of a relevant excerpt from Purple Hibiscus was Titilayo Olajide, Psychology a student of the University of Lagos.

Blogpost at the School of Policy Studies:
https://policystudies.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2022/02/15/situating-chimamanda-adichies-purple-hibiscus-in-the-child-welfare-policy-context-in-nigeria/


Reading on YouTube
https://youtu.be/gXtej4K5les

The Hollow Water First Nation Community Holistic Circle Healing (CHCH) strategy is the most mature healing process in Canada. While integrating elements for a number of federal and provincially funded services (i.e., policing, justice, corrections, health and social services) CHCH provides a unique opportunity to explore the costs associated with its various components. Clearly, Aboriginal culture, value-system and process differ significantly from the dominant society. In order to perform research that is ethical, careful and thorough, comparable linkages between Justice and Aboriginal criteria must be explored in different ways. The real value of CHCH work can only be identified by the community members impacted by the healing process; typically, however, the benefits of this process have not been acknowledged nor measured by the dominant society. Yet, the benefits of the CHCH activity have touched all aspects of life in Hollow Water, many of which, cannot be given a specific dollar value. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to adequately place a dollar value on the depth, quality, commitment and sustainability of the substantial healing work achieved in Hollow Water, and the impressive track record CHCH holds. To overcome what appears to be a significant obstacle, the research team collaborated with the community to develop a common understanding of the CHCH research & healing process with community members and to express the core elements/dynamics/process of CHCH healing activity. This collaboration resulted in a clear comparison of some aspects of the CHCH process with mainstream judicial, victim and family services available in Manitoba. In addition, it provided an indication of many value-added benefits of the CHCH program, which are difficult to measure, unique and have far-reaching community healing implications. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION The CHCH is process centred. Staff activities are a part of a larger flow of action that contributes to the entire healing process-a process that is based on the seven Midewin teachings of the Anishnabe people, which are the foundation for the 13 step CHCH healing process. The heart and soul of CHCH is in its spiritual core which is the fulcrum that affects change. Unlike other mainstream systems (justice, family/social services) the process i EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .

In this paper, I will delve into some of the key issues seen by the protagonists in each of the post-colonial-era novels that are addressed. From there, I will compare the experiences of each protagonist, and take a deeper look into the hardships of each as they struggle against the hand of patriarchal regimes.

Melissa Carey too, negotiates different (and sometimes contested) worlds, moving between a colonized world, te ao Māori (the Māori world) and the spirit world, te pō. In The transformative experiences of cultural healing: An autoethnography of Kaupapa Māori, Melissa takes us with her as she heals a rupture she didn’t know existed. Raised in Australia and now in her mid-thirties, family secrets start to unravel and Melissa discovers 'a brown secret hidden beneath [her] white skin'. Her forgotten ancestors call her to action, and so begins her journey of healing. This chapter locates the inexplicable and the haunting within cultures that seemingly rely upon certainty and surety.

The student, practitioner, and academic in the psychological arena may ' ask a very valid and practical question: Why another cross-cultural treatise dealing with Native American psychology? It seems that psychological literature dealing with some of the very complex issues of providing theoretical and practical guidance in this area already abounds. As we see it, the existing literature on the subject is sorely lacking in relevant theoretical constructions upon which to base a fundamental approach that actually has some efficacy in ameliorating some of the problems facing our community.

With Marguerite Duras being the most disputed French artist after World War II, symbolising trauma represents the most problematic crux of contemporary trauma research. This books brings together these troublesome issues by way of integrating Duras's aesthetics and the challenge of working through major historical trauma. Starting from the concept of an embodied mind as developed in current social neuroscience, the study illuminates the stylistic devices of the famous India Cycle that arose from Duras's relentless struggle with the trauma of French colonialism. It reveals how converting trauma into fiction can become a powerful emotional strategy for surviving traumatic events, which may provoke necessary changes in our cultural memory through collective sharing.