On the Nature of the Traumatogenic Event

Abstract

Historical events, however terrible, are not in and of themselves traumatic.‎ For a trauma to emerge at the level of a collectivity, ‘social crises must become ‎cultural crises’ (Alexander et al., 2004, p. 10). For an historical event ‎to become a cultural trauma, it must be socially mediated and represented, a ‎trauma narrative must be constructed. Consequently, there is always a gap‎ between the traumatogenic event and its representation, this gap creates the‎ space for the ‘trauma process’. Unlike trauma theory, therefore, cultural trauma ‎places the weight of analysis not on the historical event as such but on the ‎narrative struggle that constitutes and sustains that event as a cultural trauma.‎ Thus, we have a series of interrelated terms: history, trauma, narrative and‎ memory, that pivot around an absent presence, a traumatogenic event. It is the‎ nature of that traumatogenic event that I explore in this paper. First, I will set ‎out my theoretical differences from trauma theory and then attempt to square‎ the circle between a non-pathological conception of trauma in cultural trauma‎ theory and my own commitment to psychoanalysis. In conclusion I will put‎ forward a number of claims that I hope will be consistent with cultural trauma‎ theory. That is to say, the traumatogenic event is not given but is retrospectively‎ constructed and in this sense is ahistorical and non-narrative.‎