Representations of disaster victimhood

Framing suffering and loss after the 1934 Bihar-Nepal earthquake

Bibliographic Data

ID3609533
AuthorsEleonor Marcussen (0000-0001-5938-0966, Linnaeus University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume57
Issue2
Pages613-648
Publication date2023-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueModern Asian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0026-749X • E-ISSN: 1469-8099
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0026749x22000130
OpenAlexW4309196098
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited45

This article seeks to address a thematic thread that remains relatively unexplored in historical disaster research-victimhood-through an analysis of publications by disaster relief funds and their supporters in the aftermath of the 1934 earthquake in Bihar in northern India. By examining the representations of victimhood, I aim to explore the historical significance of perceptions and constructions of victimhood in the late colonial period. Based on photographs, illustrations, and descriptions of suffering in images and texts, the article suggests that constructions of victimhood effectively relied on imagery that contained, on the one hand, an absence of bodies and, on the other, a feminized anthropomorphization of suffering. The narratives underlying such depictions of earthquake victims are based on a constitution of victimhood that relied on contemporary historical and culturally founded imageries. The analysis of images and texts focuses on how representations of disaster victims were effective in communicating suffering to audiences. I tentatively argue that historically and culturally founded tropes of what constituted a victim formed along two narratives of victimhood that appealed to a colonial and a nationalist readership respectively. These conceptualizations of victimhood formed the basis for collecting aid for relief and reconstruction, rather than the loss of life, dispossession, social marginalization, and displacement suffered by victims of the earthquake

Art · Colonialism · Framing (construction · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Qualitative research · Social science · Sociology · Thematic analysis · Disaster Management and Resilience · Gender Studies · History · Law · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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