Email this article Retrieving psychosocial signs of structural violence in postcolonial Jamaica
Abstract
Physical and psychological assaults on group life wound not only community well-being but, also, individual subject formation, altering the way people think, feel and act. In this paper, reference is made to an emblematic human rights violation in postcolonial Jamaica in which at least 76 civilians were killed by the state. In an oral history project, 26 inner city community residents who survived state violence and endured collective trauma memorialize loved ones lost but they do not break historical silences about the meaning of the event. In order to retrieve psychosocial signs of structural violence I use diacritical hermeneutics as an analytic tool and interpretive method to describe possible meanings of oral history participants’ speech and silences. This approach is proposed as a method through which radical community psychologists may excavate unarticulated experiences and latent meanings of social suffering. Knowledge generated by such interpretive voice-centered methodologies may support diagnoses of social suffering leading to the development of praxes that promote healing and, ultimately, the restoration of community well-being.
References
Bell, D. (in press). Researching to transgress and transform. In Melling, A. & Pilkington, R. (Eds.), Paulo Freire and transformative education: Changing lives and transforming communities. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Fanon, F. (1967). Black skins, white masks. (R. Philcox, Trans.). New York, NY: Grove Press.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum International.
Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, peace, and peace research. Journal of Peace Research. 6(3). 167-191.
Gunst, L. (1996). Born fi’ dead: A journey through the Jamaican posse underworld. New York, NY: Holt Paperbacks.
Hook, D. (2013). (Post)apartheid conditions: Psychoanalysis and social formations. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. (2012). Report on the situation of human rights in Jamaica. Washington, DC: Organization of American States. http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/docs/pdf/Jamaica2012eng.pdf
Kearney, R. (2011). Eros, diacritical hermeneutics, and the maybe. Philosophy Today, 55, 75-85.
Kearney, R. (2012). Diacritical hermeneutics. In. M.L. Portocarrero, L.U. Umbelino & A. Wierciński (Eds.). Hermeneutic rationality. La rationalité herméneutique (pp. 179-196). Berlin, Germany: LIT Verlag.
Lacan, J. (2004). Ecrits: A selection. (B. Fink, Trans.). New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
Laymen for Religious Liberty Ministries (2011). The road to Tivoli [Video file]. Retrieved on May 22, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX9pWgzW_Bc
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007). On the coloniality of being. Cultural Studies, 21(2), 240-270. doi: 10.1080/09502380601162548
Martín-Baró, I. (1996). Writings for a liberation psychology. Boston, MA: Harvard.
Ministry of Justice. (2016). Report Western Kingston Commission of Enquiry 2016. Retrieved on August 8, 2016, from http://moj.gov.jm/content/report-western-kingston-commission-enquiry-2016
Mitchell, S. & Black, M. (1996). Freud and beyond: A history of modern psychoanalytic thought. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Office of the Public Defender. (2013). Interim report to parliament concerning investigations into the conduct of the security forces during the state of emergency declared May, 2010 – West Kingston/Tivoli Gardens ‘incursion’–the killing of Mr. Keith Oxford Clarke and related matters. Retrieved on August 6, 2016, from http://www.opd.gov.jm/images/articles/pdf/tivoli/Tivoli%20Interim%20Report%20and%20Bundle%20of%20Appendices%202010.pdf
Oliver, K. (2001). Witnessing: Beyond recognition. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.
Oliver, K. (2004). The colonization of psychic space. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.
Statistical Institute of Jamaica (2001). Communities maps. Kingston: Statistical Institute of Jamaica. http://statinja.gov.jm/Maps/Communities%20Maps.pdf
Taussig, M. (1999). Defacement: Public secrecy and the labor of the negative. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Taylor, J. M., Gilligan, C., & Sullivan, A.M. (1995). Between voice and silence: Women and girls, race and relationship. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Teo, T. (2015). Theoretical psychology: A critical-philosophical outline of core issues. In I. Parker (Eds.), Handbook of Critical Psychology (pp. 117-126). London, UK: Routledge.
Full Text: PDF
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
