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Violent Reverberations pp 59–89Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Universalizing Trauma Descendant Legacies: A Comparative Study of Jewish-Israeli and Cambodian Genocide Descendant Legacies

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Part of the book series: Culture, Mind, and Society ((CMAS))

Abstract

The chapter presents a comparative ethnographic study of Cambodian genocide descendants and Israeli Holocaust descendants. Challenging the foundational assumptions of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and trauma theory regarding the psychosocial legacy of descendants, both descendant samples reject the pathologized profile of transmitted PTSD, are disinterested in accessing the familial past, and avoid public commemoration. Differing Jewish-Israeli and Buddhist Cambodian culture-specific attitudes regarding wellness and illness and the centrality/marginality and function of memory work in everyday life are shown to account for divergent Cambodian and Jewish-Israeli legacies. Comparative findings raise questions pertaining to the cultural competency of Euro-Western forms of therapeutic intervention, humanitarian aid and hegemonically imposed glocal commemorative sites within culturally diverse populations where a universalizing semiotics of suffering elide culturally particular responses to atrocity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

    Carol A. Kidron

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  1. Carol A. Kidron
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Centre for Advanced Study, Oslo, Norway

    Vigdis Broch-Due

  2. University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Bjørn Enge Bertelsen

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Kidron, C.A. (2016). Universalizing Trauma Descendant Legacies: A Comparative Study of Jewish-Israeli and Cambodian Genocide Descendant Legacies. In: Broch-Due, V., Bertelsen, B. (eds) Violent Reverberations. Culture, Mind, and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39049-9_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39049-9_3

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-39048-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-39049-9

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