Decolonization of Trauma and Memory Politics: Insights from Eastern Europe

Budryté, Dovilé

doi:10.3390/h5010007

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Within Ukraine, the topic of subjective poverty is often discussed in terms of nostalgia for socialism (Symonchuk, 2003;Zlobina, 2004) or as part of the Ukrainian performative identity constructed around the notions of victimhood and oppression (Moore, 2012;Budryte, 2016). These explanations of subjective poverty lead to pervasively exclusionary welfare politics which direct the attention away from the issues surrounding pensions, social insurance and labour policies, and instead stigmatise the most disadvantaged groups (Kovács, Polese and Morris, 2017).…”

Section: Subjective Poverty In Post-socialist Countriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Imperialism is discussed mostly in reference to Soviet times and repression of Ukrainians by Russians (Doyle, 1986;Kuzio, 2002;Barrington, 2009;Szeptycki, 2011;Applebaum, 2017). Lack of scholarly exploration of internalised inferiority to Western Europe could be due to resistance amongst intellectuals of lumping postcommunist countries with the rest of the developing world (Budryte, 2016). At most, the comparison to Western Europe is discussed as the idealisation of the West before the fall of the Soviet Union (Yurchak, 2005) and disappointment with the outcomes of the transition (Loveless, 2013;Aleksievich and Shayevich, 2016).…”

Section: Misrecognition and Self-respectmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ukraine's poor majority: Exploring the driving factors of subjective poverty

Homonchuk

2022

Int J Soc Welfare

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Existing scholarship indicates that there are divergences between objective and subjective poverty; yet subjective poverty remains under-researched and not well understood. This research contributes to addressing this gap by identifying and exploring influential factors contributing to high rates of subjective poverty in Ukraine, where nearly 70 per cent of people self-identify as being poor. This rate is surprisingly high given that the World Bank and the National Statistical Service of Ukraine estimate poverty in the country to be around 30 per cent. To understand the drivers of high rates of subjective poverty, the thesis investigates the questions 'what does selfidentification as poor entail in the context of Ukraine?' and 'why does the attribution of subjective poverty not correlate with income and material circumstances?' The questions are explored through a qualitative case study in Rivne city in Western Ukraine, using recognition theory as the main theoretical lens. The analysis draws on data from 50 in-depth semi-structured interviews across low-and high-income groups and across three age groups, with individuals ranging from 20 to 81 years old.Completing this thesis has been a journey of personal and intellectual transformation, which would have been possible without the generous support of the Clarendon and the Jack Kent Cooke Foundations, to whom I am enormously grateful. I am deeply indebted to my supervisor Fran Bennett, who has been incredibly patient, supportive, and encouraging throughout the last four years. I am further grateful to my examiners Professor Mary Daly, Professor Nicolas Duvoux, Professor

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Section: Subjective Poverty In Post-socialist Countriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Misrecognition and Self-respectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ukraine's poor majority: Exploring the driving factors of subjective poverty

Homonchuk

2022

Int J Soc Welfare

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“…This "other" Europe could easily be described as a "region of memory" (Olick, 2016) that emerged as a "backlash against a Soviet-imposed memory" (Frȍhling, 2020: 23). Despite differences among their cultural and historical traditions and the direct impact of the Western project of European integration, these countries share the characteristics of a post-colonial and obsessively post-catastrophic space (Budryte, 2016;Mink and Neumayer, 2013: 1-22;Törnquist-Plewa, 2021: 15-17).…”

Section: Some Conclusion On Historical Trauma and Memory Warsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legitimation crisis, memory, and United States exceptionalism: Lessons from post-communist Eastern Europe

Ciobanu

Şerban

2021

Memory Studies

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The article examines how the experiences of post-communist transitional justice policies could inform current controversies in the United States regarding its reckoning with the past. To lay the ground for this analysis, three facets of American exceptionalism—the dual state reality, the triumphalist myth, and the denialist myth—are identified as principal obstacles that have preempted any substantive reparations for the crimes against humanity perpetrated against enslaved Africans and their descendants. This is followed by a presentation of how the 1989 revolutions in East and Central Europe failed to promote an inclusive and pluralistic model of the past. Instead, current representations of the past rooted in essentialist and ethnocentric historical narratives are weaponized by non-democratic political actors. Finally, the authors caution against misguided representations of historical trauma and memory wars in the United States that could potentially reproduce White supremacist ideologies and escalate existent political and cultural divisions.

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“…Even when ‘trauma work’ is undertaken and a trauma process is very much under way, the deadlocks it confronts and drawbacks it presents are more complex than previous West-centric case studies have allowed us to appreciate. Thus, a decolonial approach to trauma theory can evade the ‘monumentalism of traumas’ (Budryte, 2016), expanding the range of cultural trauma processes that are recognised as such beyond the usual modes of public remembrance, apologies, memorialisation, and other institutionalised practices. Instead, it would measure the degree to which the traumatic events are imprinted on the consciousness of ordinary people, communities, and collective identities, regardless of how hopeful they might be about reparations.…”

Section: Unproductive Compassion and The Right To Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Right to Meaning: A Syrian Case Study

Azmeh

2021

Cultural Sociology

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This article unsettles what the literature describes as the ‘central paradox’ of cultural trauma theory: the idea that while atrocities are most prevalent in the ‘non-western world’, successful cultural traumas have primarily emerged in western societies. Examining the engagement of exiled Syrian intellectuals with the traumatic events of the 2011 revolution-turned-war in their country, the author argues that it is not a failure in the ‘cultural trauma process’ itself that prevents horrific events in non-western contexts from becoming recognised as cultural traumas. Instead, it is the failure to translate narratives of wrongdoing into formal acknowledgements and material or symbolic reparations. This failure is articulated by Syrian intellectuals as a ‘denial of meaning’. Many Syrian intellectuals construed the emancipatory demands of the Syrian uprising as claims for a right to meaning, that is, demands to restore language and existential purpose through public engagement and the revival of politics and speech. Equally, they saw as ‘denial of meaning’ the reality that their trauma work did not prevent the endurance and gradual rehabilitation of the regime but was met instead with the relegation of the movement to the agenda of the War on Terror. Thus, building on the discourses of exiled Syrian intellectuals, the article presents the idea of the right to meaning as a framework for understanding global inequality. Such a framework rests on a perceived dichotomy between those entitled to ‘meaning’ and those whose lives are accepted and treated as devoid of it or denied it.

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Decolonization of Trauma and Memory Politics: Insights from Eastern Europe

Cited by 7 publications

References 27 publications

Ukraine's poor majority: Exploring the driving factors of subjective poverty

Ukraine's poor majority: Exploring the driving factors of subjective poverty

Legitimation crisis, memory, and United States exceptionalism: Lessons from post-communist Eastern Europe

The Right to Meaning: A Syrian Case Study

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