Spatialising skin: Pushing the boundaries of trauma geographies

Abstract

By focusing on the somatic qualities of trauma this paper addresses emotion and affect as a means to link together trauma's spatial, physical, subconscious and psychosocial dimensions. Its aim is to extend theoretical discussion on spatially located affectual moments of trauma by utilising the concept of skin. Skin is used here as a metaphorical and theoretical framework for examining ideas of boundaries and containment. A container is a deceptively simple idea but requires constant maintenance. Trauma, however, often threatens to spill over the boundaries of containers exposing the fluidity of boundaries both theoretical and material. Close attention is paid to the psychoanalytic idea of skin to extrapolate how trauma draws in ideas of surfaces and abjection. In some ways abjection exposes the fragility of borders, how they can be threatened from both without and within. When working across the skin, an examination of what bodies do in both the post-disaster environment (Christchurch) and in relocated spaces (Waikato) is undertaken to illuminate the theoretical premises of this work. People move toward others in order to share their experiences, thus, trauma is encountered as both: individual and social, interior and exterior, incorporating body and psyche rather than separating the terms.