Histories of victimhood / edited by Steffen Jensen and Henrik Rnsbo.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Jensen, Steffen, editor.

Rnsbo, Henrik, editor.

Series:

Ethnography of political violence.

Ethnography of political violence

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Suffering--Developing countries--Psychological aspects.

Suffering.

Victims--Developing countries--Psychology.

Victims.

Victims of crimes--Developing countries--Psychology.

Victims of crimes.

Political violence--Developing countries--Psychological aspects.

Political violence.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (281 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The word and concept of victim bear a heavy weight. To represent oneself or to be represented as a victim is often a first and vital step toward having one's suffering and one's claims to rights socially and legally recognized. Yet to name oneself or be called a victim is a risky claim, and social scientists must struggle to avoid erasing either survivors' experience of suffering or their agency and resourcefulness. Histories of Victimhood engages with this dilemma, asking how one may recognize and acknowledge suffering without essentializing affected communities and individuals. This volume tackles the theoretical and empirical questions surrounding the ways victims and victimhood are constructed, represented, and managed by state and nonstate actors. Geographically broad, the twelve essays in this volume trace histories of victimhood in Colombia, India, South Africa, Guatemala, Angola, Sierra Leone, Turkey, Occupied Palestine, Denmark, and Britain. They examine the implications of victimhood in a wide range of contexts, including violent occupations, displacement, war, reparation projects, refugee assistance, HIV treatment, trauma intervention, social welfare projects, and state formation. In exploring varying forms of hardship and identifying what people do to survive, how they make sense of their own suffering, and how they are frequently either acted upon or ignored by humanitarian agencies and states, Histories of Victimhood encourages us to see victimhood not as a definite and definable category of experience but as a changeable and culturally contingent state. Contributors: Sofie Danneskiold-Samsøe, Pamila Gupta, Ravinder Kaur, Stine Finne Jakobsen, Andrew M. Jefferson, Steffen Jensen, Tobias Kelly, Frédéric Le Marcis, Walter Paniagua, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Darius Rejali, Henrik Ronsbo, Lotte Buch Segal, Nerina Weiss.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Introduction. Histories of Victimhood: Assemblages, Transactions, and Figures

Chapter 1. Why Social Scientists Should Care How Jesus Died

Chapter 2. Bodies of Partition: Of Widows, Residue, and Other Historical Waste

Chapter 3. “Extremely Poor” Mothers and Debit Cards: The Families in an Action Cash-Transfer Program in Colombia

Chapter 4. How to Become a Victim: Pragmatics of the Admission of Women in a South African Primary Health Care Clinic

Chapter 5. Negotiating Victimhood in Nkomazi, South Africa

Chapter 6. Between Recognition and Care: Victims, NGOs and the State in the Guatemalan Postconflict Victimhood Assemblage

Chapter 7. Recognizing Torture: Credibility and the Unstable Codification of Victimhood

Chapter 8. The Power of Dead Bodies

Chapter 9. Why Is Muna Crying? Event, Relation, and Immediacy as Criteria for Acknowledging Suffering in Palestine

Chapter 10. Departures of Decolonization: Interstitial Spaces, Ordinary Affect, and Landscapes of Victimhood in Southern Africa

Chapter 11. Performances of Victimhood, Allegation, and Disavowal in Sierra Leone

Chapter 12. Victims in the Moral Economy of Suffering: Narratives of Humiliation, Retaliation, and Sacrifice

Epilogue. Histories of Victimhood: Assemblage, Transaction, and Figure

Contributors

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780812209310

0812209311

OCLC:

877363621