From military sexual trauma to ‘organization‐trauma’: practising ‘poetics of testimony’

Abstract

In this descriptive essay, the authors attempt to demonstrate the inadequacy of positivist and modern theoretical approaches to understand and respond to sexual trauma and other forms of traumatic organization violations, which occur before and in the aftermath of sexual trauma, in the armed forces. Modern theories which advance colonizing rationalities, positivist epistemes, and male‐identified narratives are contested in their ‘thrones of privilege’ to no longer remain the dominant and ‘only’ legitimate judgers of what is deemed ‘true’ knowledge and reality, specifically in the context of sexual trauma and violations in organizations, who is violated, what constitutes a traumatic violation, and its effect on the victim. Building upon the work of critical management scholars, knowledge/language around the topic of traumatic violations committed by the organization itself as the unit of analysis and how this relates to military sexual trauma in total institutions, specifically the armed forces, is constructed using the concept of ‘organization‐trauma’. This concept is crafted using the discursive practice coined by Rebecca Chopp, a contemporary constructive theologian, as the ‘poetics of testimony’ which is employed by the authors in a particular application. The interdisciplinary practice of poetics of testimony is proposed as an alternative discourse for both scholars and practitioners (psychologists, managers, chaplains) to employ when inquiring into the nature and processes of the sexual trauma experience in totalized institutions, particularly, but not exclusively, the armed forces. This discursive praxis provides space for survivors to narrate their own traumatic experiences including the processes which lead to traumatic experience, the nature of the trauma, and the post trauma experience. This type of engagement is important for not only understanding trauma in organizations, but for preventing and meaningfully responding to its occurrence.