Story-telling as memorialisation: Suffering, resilience and victim identities

Authors

  • Simon Green University of Hull
  • Katherine Kondor Loughborough University
  • Alicia Kidd The Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull

Keywords:

Victims, narrative, late modernity, Hungary, Gaza, story-telling, Víctimas, narrativa, modernidad tardía, Hungría, narración de historias

Abstract

Is there a relationship between story-telling and memorialisation in the construction of victim identities? This paper seeks to examine these questions and shed light on the cultural dynamics of victimisation with reference to examples from sociological theories of late modernity and empirical research with people who self-identify as victims. Using examples from recent biographic interviews with an asylum seeker fleeing conflict in Gaza and two Hungarian radical right activists, the argument will be that victim identities are constructed and reconstructed through the development of personal and mediatised narratives about suffering and resilience.

¿Existe alguna relación entre la narración y la memoria en la construcción de las identidades de víctima? Este artículo pretende analizar esas cuestiones y arrojar luz sobre las dinámicas culturales de victimización, haciendo referencia a ejemplos de teorías sociológicas de la modernidad tardía y a investigaciones empíricas con personas que se identifican a sí mismas como víctimas. Utilizando ejemplos de entrevistas biográficas recientes con un solicitante de asilo que huía del conflicto de Gaza y con dos activistas húngaros de la derecha radical, argumentamos que las identidades de víctima se construyen y reconstruyen mediante el desarrollo de narrativas personales y mediatizadas sobre sufrimiento y resiliencia.

Available from: https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1122

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How to Cite

Green, S., Kondor, K. and Kidd, A. (2020) “Story-telling as memorialisation: Suffering, resilience and victim identities”, Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 10(3), pp. 563–583. Available at: https://opo.iisj.net/index.php/osls/article/view/1096 (Accessed: 9 June 2023).

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 3 (2020): Practices of Memorialization and the Process of Social Reconstruction

Section

Thematic Articles

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