Between Trauma and Perpetration: Psychoanalytical and Social Psychological Perspectives on Difficult Histories in the Israeli Context

Abstract

This study explores the applicability of psychoanalytic trauma-centered perspectives and social psychological intergroup comparison perspectives to difficult histories of the Israeli context. The study describes 2 test cases of difficult histories in the Jewish-Israeli context at the levels of curriculum policy, teachers, and learners. The first is the Holocaust, a history of victimhood, and the second is the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem, a history of perpetrating harm onto others. Findings show engagement with Holocaust history is officially encouraged through an ever-expanding curriculum and arouses almost universal enthusiasm and pride. By contrast, engagement with Palestinian plight was hampered by erratic curricular policy. It has led to teachers hovering between evasion and risk-taking, incurring hostile student reactions as well as facilitating student openness to the other’s voice. These phenomena seemingly contradict the psychoanalytically inspired view of trauma as difficult history and may be better interpreted from a social psychological perspective. The implications of this study stress the potential of the psychoanalytically inspired “pedagogy of remembrance” in structuring engagement with trauma and point to the utility of social psychological theory in predicting and overcoming learner resistance. This study also illustrates the risks and promises difficult histories of perpetration may hold for educators.