Nathaniel Champion
Student
ENGL 1102-498
19 November 2017
Annotated Bibliography: Have we become numb to suffering & trauma?
Despite a recent increase in attention within the social sciences, suffering remains for the most part outside of the purview of sociologists and the public alike. Without sympathy for those who are suffering or going through trauma we allow ourselves to become numb to horror and tragedy.
Harvey, Daina Cheyenne. “A Quiet Suffering: Some Notes on the Sociology of Suffering.”
Sociological Forum, vol. 27, no. 2, 2012, pp. 527–534
Daina Harvey in this brief essay reiterates recent call in these pages to document those less well-marked forms of domination—both on the side of those who exercise power and those who experience it—and to move the conversation further along, use this opportunity, via some ethnographic insights from a year-long ethnography of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, to make some remarks on what a sociology of suffering might look like. They also note some of the causes of suffering in the Lower Ninth Ward in order to both familiarize the reader with what is going on there and in an attempt to denaturalize the suffering. After a field note and excerpts from a conversation with Lee, a resident of the Lower Ninth Ward, they show
…show more content…
The autobiography lies at a crucial nexus in the drift of trauma in narrative, an era during which trauma ceases to adopt pre-historical forms and is officially assembled into terrorist weaponry. Trauma in A Month and a Day results from state terrorism—it is transparently political, and is thereby a link between the archetypes of trauma that precede it and the sub-state terrorism that comes in its wake. The essay concludes that SaroWiwa’s diary is a milestone on the route from personal trauma to the trauma of state terrorism in Nigerian
A storm such as Katrina undoubtedly ruined homes and lives with its destructive path. Chris Rose touches upon these instances of brokenness to elicit sympathy from his audience. Throughout the novel, mental illness rears its ugly head. Tales such as “Despair” reveal heart-wrenching stories emerging from a cycle of loss. This particular article is concerned with the pull of New Orleans, its whisper in your ear when you’ve departed that drags you home. Not home as a house, because everything physical associated with home has been swept away by the storm and is now gone. Rather, it is concerned with home as a feeling, that concept that there is none other than New Orleans. Even when there is nothing reminiscent of what you once knew, a true New Orleanian will seek a fresh start atop the foundation of rubbish. This is a foreign concept for those not native to New Orleans, and a New Orleanian girl married to a man from Atlanta found her relationship split as a result of flooding waters. She was adamant about staying, and he returned to where he was from. When he came back to New Orleans for her to try and make it work, they shared grim feelings and alcohol, the result of which was the emergence of a pact reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. This couple decided they would kill themselves because they could see no light amongst the garbage and rot, and failure was draining them of any sense of optimism. She realized the fault in this agreement,
He does not provide statistics or matter-of-fact statements to present the outcomes of Katrina. Instead, Rose writes about what he himself experiences as a result of the storm. This author is not weaving together a tale of imaginary faces in an attempt to gain sympathy. He writes as himself experiencing instances of tragedy, camaraderie, and despondency. There is no logical format for what subject matter he may explore. In this anthology of articles he utilizes dark humor, such as when he writes of the stench and subsequent war of refrigerators; optimism, such as when he describes the characters that remain and the absoluteness of Mardi Gras; nostalgia, such as when he reflects upon memories with his children and his first visit to New Orleans; and dejection, such as instances when he himself begins to lose hope and realize the poor outlook for his
The theme examined East St. Louis and its non-favorable living conditions, a black community profoundly in lack observably beneath the poverty line breakable due to dangers of non- stability with few jobs and meager pay as a result of a fiscal deficit. City hall, the administration building of a municipal government, a representation of power appearing to be powerless without wealth. Constitutes an area of emergency as it becomes clearer the reality of this adversity is regarded within the social problem perspective on a macro level. According to Kozal (1999) “The U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development describes it as “the most distressed small city in America” (Pp. 343-35). By far, this illustrates social problems are not necessarily self-inflicted”. Certainly this tragedy is a c...
Carol Stack finds herself in a curious place as a young white woman venturing into a black neighborhood in hopes of alleviating negative stereotypes and bringing illumination into a semiosphere that is altogether ignored or even despised. While she defined her purpose as the attempt to “illustrate the collective adaptations to poverty of men, women, and children within the social-cultural network of the black urban family” (28), her methods are not merely those of an outside observer spouting back information, but truly that of an actively engaged participant. Staying true to the guidelines of participant observation studies, Stack did not attempt to isolate or manipulate the culture she saw, and instead of donning the lab coat, as it were, and playing the role of the experimenting scientist, or simply sneaking in, Stack was very human in her interactions and dealings, participating as actively as possible in peoples’ real lives in The Flats. (Hedrick).
A black slave from Barbados,Tituba, states that her “slave sense has warned her that, as always, trouble in this house eventually lands on her back” (8). As a black woman who lives in a never ending subordinate position, her instincts tell her to prepare herself so that once again she is not the
…many people now acquire "victimhood" through counseling. Being a "victim" draws sympathy. It explains the tragedies, the failures, the hardships, the health problems and the disappointments of life. It relieves people of some of life's natural burdens: dealing with complexity, facing things beyond their control, and accepting responsibility for decisions and actions.
To understand positive psychology and trauma, one must first understand what each term means. First, positive psychology is the study and focus on the best in human behavior. It is a fairly new perspective being observed and used by psychologists from all over the world. The goal of positive psychology is to study and promote conditions that can help people to achieve happy, healthy, and productive lifestyles. It is derived from research and theories from many areas of psychology and tying them together while focusing on the positive aspects of human behavior. What does it mean to be positive? Being positive is displaying affirmation, acceptance, or certainty toward an object, idea, or person.
In the ethnography “Understanding Inner-City Poverty: Resistance and Self Destruction under U.S Apartheid,” Philippe Bourgois, in East Harlem New York, researches the misunderstanding of inner-city poverty with an intersectional approach because of the way he incorporates the culture of resistance, race, class, and gender.
Miller, Jean Baker. “Domination and Subordination.” Race, Class, and Gender in the United States. Ed. Paula Rothenberg. New York, NY: Worth Publishers, 2010. 108-114. Print.
Trauma is the fourth leading cause of death overall for all ages in the United States. Trauma is
Waldron-Moore, Pamela, Anthony McKinney, Ariel Howard and Amanda Brown. 2007. “A Question of Social Justice: The Case of Louisiana Communities and their Struggle for
Moreover, although experiences vary, there are those which may be shared by African-Americans collectively. Using Trethewey’s Beyond Katrina as a primary example, one may find specific themes which are shared collectively by people of African descent, and those include the effect of the absence of the familial male, tragedy as a motivating force for African-Americans, and the history of America as told by the oppressor.
Sudhir Venkatesh’s ethnography Gang Leader for a Day is a summary of his research through the University of Chicago in the 1990s. Venkatesh chose to do research on poor African-Americans in Chicago, and their experiences in public housing developments. He concentrated his study on the Robert Taylor Housing to better understand how residents lived and differentiated from those in other parts of the city. Venkatesh’s target population was those living in harsh living conditions, primarily black and poor. Throughout this paper, I will be addressing Venkatesh’s research and its limitations. I will also share my opinion on Venkatesh’s analysis and understanding of his findings about the residents, and how his experiences mesh with my own. In
Trauma relates to a type of damage to the mind that comes from a severely distressing event. A traumatic event relates to an experience or repeating events that overwhelmingly precipitated in weeks, months, or decades as one tries to cope with the current situations that can cause negative consequences. People’s general reaction to these events includes intense fear, helplessness or horror. When children experience trauma, they show disorganized or agitative behavior. In addition, the trigger of traumas includes some of the following, harassment, embarrassment, abandonment, abusive relationships, rejection, co-dependence, and many others. Long-term exposure to these events, homelessness, and mild abuse general psychological
The characters of Olanna and Ugwu in Adiche’s Half of a Yellow Sun deal with the traumatic memories of the Biafran war in varying ways. The way each character copes with the trauma speaks to their character and illustrates the way they have understood culture through their personal experience of the Biafran war. Their ideologies that they were brought up with shape their experiences, clarifying their actions in dealing with traumatic experience. The interaction between these two characters, Olanna and Ugwu confront the ways in which one could deal with ‘burning’ memory and effects of the Biafran war. Their personal histories foreshadow the manner in which they attempt to move forward.