Hauntological Dramaturgy

Investigating vicarious trauma: dramaturgical challenges for qualitative research

“…Indeed, several interviews with Ocean Ranger rescue workers exposed a more primary form of trauma (direct experience as opposed to vicarious experience) since they actually did witness living and dead men in the water on the night of the disaster. Impression management of these accounts involved crafting an eerie scene in a hauntological dramaturgy (D'Cruz, 2022) where thoughts of dying men were reconstituted as stars in the night sky.I saw those men. In the pitch of darkness, the water-activated lights of the life jackets were like stars in the night sky.…”

“…The dramatic performance of the self in the Ocean Ranger interviews apparently does not end with the death of an individual. “Hauntological dramaturgy” (D'Cruz, 2022) alerts us to the performative trappings of death, including conversations and associations with the ghosts of deceased persons to provide a different perspective. Reporters from Life Magazine interviewed and took pictures of friends at Torbay Cemetery digging a grave for a recovered corpse (Heffernan, 2009, p. 27).…”

“…Like Heffernan, I let the situated voices do much of the talking. In various ways, these voices put us in touch with aesthetic inquiry (Biehl-Missal, 2012) and modes of remembering the dead, mourning them and seeking a more nuanced story on behalf of the dead (D'Cruz, 2022). Past research regarding disaster reporting has mostly focused on specific events and has ignored the opportunity to critically analyze the performance of those who do the writing.…”

“…Although I suggest that dramaturgy could be applied to a greater extent to meaningfully engage with trauma studies, the dramaturgical perspective is usefully present in the trauma literature. For example, D'Cruz (2022) examines haunted remembrances of the dead through theatrical performance; Sandahl (2008) explores how disability and the trauma of disablement performs dramaturgically; Akehurst and Scott (2021) discuss dramaturgical tension in traumatic bereavement; Brizzell and Lepecki (2003) use “dramaturgy's subversive project” to call attention to what they call the threads of trauma; and Muuz (2015) presents a dramaturgy of violence in a traumatic setting of victimization and conflict. The theoretical framework for this paper addresses the theme of self-performance rather than simply seeing VT interviews as passive research data.…”

“…To introduce a critical viewpoint for the commemoration of the Ocean Ranger, I emphasize dramaturgy's ability to identify opportunities for storytelling, impression management and remembrance (Boje et al. , 2004; Corrigan and Rixon, 2017; D'Cruz, 2022). Research about vicarious interaction often places its interest in the stories instead of the storytelling process (Myers, 2021).…”