Trauma and Meaning Making (At the Interface / Probing the Boundaries, 138)

Trauma and Meaning Making highlights multiple practices of meaning making after traumatic events in the lives of individuals and communities. Meaning making consists both in a personal journey towards a new way to exist and live in a world shattered by trauma and in public politics locating and defining what has happened. In both perspectives, the collection evaluates the impact achieved by naming the victim/s and thus the right of the victim/s to suffer from its aftermath or by refusing to recognise the traumatic event and thus the right of the victim/s to respond to it. A range of paradigms and techniques invite readers to consider anew the specificities of context and relationship while negotiating post-traumatic survival. By delineating how one makes sense of traumatic events, this volume will enable readers to draw links between practices grounded in diverse disciplines encompassing creative arts, textual analysis, public and collective communication, psychology and psychotherapy, memory and memorial.

Danielle Schaub is Associate Professor at Oranim, Israel and Adjunct Professor at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her publications include Identity, Community, Nation (2004), Reading Writers Reading (2006), Interior Views: Photopoetry (2009) and Tissage et métissage dans l’oeuvre de Gérad Etienne (2013). Her research currently focuses on literary and therapeutic representations of trauma.
Elspeth McInnes is an early childhood researcher in the School of Education at the University of South Australia. Her research interests include child well-being, development and learning, social policy, family services and early childhood workforce professional learning.