Communicating the Unthinkable : A Psychodynamic Perspective

• Experiences of genocide have often an emotionally and intellectually evasive quality which makes them difficult, and sometimes impossible, to share with others. Analyzing documentary films and academic teaching, through psychodynamic concepts of containment, trauma, and memory, two qualitatively different ways of communicating the experience of genocide are found: embodied representation and contained representation. While the first communicates the traumatic or unthinkable content of genocide, the second communicates the non-traumatic or thinkable. The author proposes that any student and scholar of needs to move between the grey opacity of genocide experience, and the clear understanding of embodied and contained representation.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialantropologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Anthropology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

genocide

communication

psychodynamic theory

representation

memory

wordless

epistemology

political violence

experience

trauma

embodiment

containment

documentary film

academic teaching

Cambodia

Sierra Leone

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