November 11, 2015 - 17:01
Michelle Balaev is trying to argue that "trauma" as something happened in the past, is not necessarily equivalent to "history" as being static and as never changing fact. Each time people revisit their traumas, new feelings may emerge and their opinions may change. The changes may come from current living environment, social standards, accumulated life experiences, self-healing mechanism, etc. Therefore, trauma and trauma narratives could be used creatively by people for their own needs and own vision of the past and future. Also, trauma can be both personal and social at the same time. Even when a group of people share some enthnographic characteristics, each individual in that group may perceive the same event, or trauma differently, and may or may not always carry it. This argument challenged the view that trauma history is contagious and a historical event itself can define a whole group of people's and also their descendents' identity.
There are also many links can be made while revisiting traumas, such as the memory-physical place link, and the personal-community link. Even though my arguments about the definition of trauma and trauma narratives above may imply some negative attitudes toward history and put a lot emphasis on individuals, I still want to point out the importance of valuing history and the group consciousness. People's lives do not come from a vacuum. "Learned cultural shame" caused by expanding the definition of one single historical event over a whole group is indeed upsetting. However, we should not reject the values of history just because of that. What's more, sometimes I see huge gaps between the individuals oppressed or victimized and the communities of them struggling in the same situations. People can never be able to get over their traumas if they cannot realize that they are not the alone, and if they cannot share and learn from the experiences with others similar to them. Also, people would feel lost if they don't know enough about the historical context for their situation. Learning the histories, making links to what happened to the past, and links to others struggling in the same situations are crucial for people to know where they are and how they can move forward.