The Survivor in Contemporary Culture and Public Discourse: A Genealogy

Abstract

This article sketches a genealogy examining the production of the concept of "the survivor" in contemporary culture and public discourse across five discursive sites in mainly western (particularly Anglo-American) cultures: the Holocaust, psychotherapy, feminist discourses of childhood and sexual abuse, reality TV, and discourses of health and illness. It argues that the survivor has become a meaningfully visible, cultural notion and a desirable role that individuals are encouraged to assume, rendering the categories of victim and the dead false and illegitimate. The article concludes by arguing for the need in contemporary public and highly mediated space to expand the range of explanatory frameworks through which individuals, especially those experiencing suffering, come to think, judge, and act.

The Psychic Life of Neoliberalism: Mapping the Contours of Entrepreneurial Subjectivity

“…Stories about past difficulties re-constitute the entrepreneurial self because they demonstrate that it has the capacities to tackle problems. Tellingly, the survivor discourse emphasizes the individual's emergence from suffering, but not its causes (Orgad, 2009). Empowerment is thus framed as an individual endeavour and wider socio-political issues remain unaddressed.…”

Overcoming the Overcoming Story: A case of “compulsory heroism”

“…Its contemporary manifestations run the gamut from "success" stories of weight loss programmes, to "survivor" narratives of traumatic events (see Shani Orgad 2009). In Disability Studies, there has been extensive critique of the overcoming story for well over twenty years (see for example Jenny Morris 1997;Tanya Titchkosky 2007;Susan Wendell 1996).…”

”Whatever Does Not Kill Me Makes Me Stronger”: A Sociological Analysis of Uses of the Concept of Resilience. The Case of Boris Cyrulnik’s Self-Help Books Readers

“…On the other hand, the forms of expressing suffering necessarily take on the cultural categories that are more or less within the individual's immediate grasp ("ordinary language"). The categories of trauma (Fassin and Rechtman 2007), survival (Orgad 2009), and resilience are part of this whole. They are used by individuals who are practically led to answer such basic questions as "have I suffered a lot?," "Is my suffering similar to the one of others?," "What meaning does my suffering have?," "How does one reweave the fabric of ordinary life after a major negative attempt?"…”