Trafficking Trauma

This chapter describes a particular—and perhaps peculiar—cultural form that is only beginning to emerge as a form of intellectual property in need of "protection." It begins to imagine the work of storytelling as part of a larger network of relations of production and exchange. The chapter also describes a "global political economy of traumatic storytelling&s;&s; and explores the narrative work of victims as "traumatic storytelling. Traumatic storytelling is an increasingly common activity in post-conflict, democratizing societies, an activity that produces an ever-expanding volume of narratives of traumatic suffering and recovery. Traumatic storytelling was not only something that was "of the moment" in global forms of public culture—on middle-class talk shows, magazines, and movies. The commodification of traumatic storytelling, however, makes it more and more difficult for members to secure such a response. Khulumani members, however, thought that through their traumatic storytelling they were entering into a social and moral relationship, one that demanded recognition and response from their witnesses.

Medicine · Sex work and related issues