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Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Jeffrey C. Alexander, Ron Eyerman, Bernhard Giesen, Neil J. Smelser, and Piotr Sztompka. Berkeley, CA, and London, UK: University of California Press, 2004. ix+314 pp. (Cloth US$65.00; Paper US$24.95)
Evidence from around the globe shows that past triumphs and traumas contribute to the construction of collective ethnic and national identities with similar logics. Yet many groups, along with some social scientists who study them, consider the idea that collective identities and experiences are socially constructed repulsive. This book investigates social constructions by treating cultural trauma as a condition mediated by actors and institutions, and drawing examples from man-made traumas where it is possible to discern perpetrators' responsibility and guilt. Central to the investigation is the moral interplay between whom you represent, a victim or a perpetrator, and with whom you identify. Collective suffering and discrimination are important adhesives for many groups. Collective identities are constructed in relation to other groups, and certain traumatic historical events can be used to create identities. The book's main thesis, though, is that events do not in themselves create collective trauma, given that societies may experience substantial disruptions without becoming traumatized. Instead, the book focuses on the human capacity to identify with others, imagine what they have been through, and mediate such identifications and experiences.
Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity presents seven contributions by the five co-authors. Jeffrey Alexander opens the book by outlining a theory of cultural trauma. The book's analytical framework, one of its main strengths, focuses on how trauma becomes and remains public through mediation and interpretation...