Empathetic Repair after Mass Trauma : When Vengeance is Arrested

doi:10.1177/1368431008092566

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Empathetic Repair after Mass Trauma : When Vengeance is Arrested

Journal Article•DOI•

Empathetic Repair after Mass Trauma : When Vengeance is Arrested

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela¹•Institutions (1)

University of Cape Town¹

01 Aug 2008-European Journal of Social Theory (SAGE Publications)-Vol. 11, Iss: 3, pp 331-350

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the phenomenon of empathy and examine its manifestation in the context of encounters between victims/survivors of gross human rights violations and perpetrators who are perceived by victims or survivors as showing signs of remorse.

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Abstract: This article explores the phenomenon of empathy and examines its manifestation in the context of encounters between victims/survivors of gross human rights violations and perpetrators who are perceived by victims/survivors as showing signs of remorse. The article considers the factors that mediate the development of empathy through, on the one hand, the examination of the external dynamics of victim-perpetrator encounters, and on the other, the analysis of the intrapsychic dynamics of these encounters. The article argues that the defining elements of empathic experience emerge within the relational, intersubjective realm of the victim-perpetrator encounter. The article engages an interdisciplinary dialogue between Emmanuel Levinas' ethics of responsibility for `the Other' and a psychoanalytic conceptualization of the capacity for empathy. It asserts that the emotional state of empathy shared by victims and perpetrators is a result of a pivotal turn to perspective taking and gaining an integrated view of t...

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Journal Article•DOI•

Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma

[...]

Ruth P. Newton

01 Jan 1998-Psychosomatic Medicine

172 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Pedagogies of strategic empathy: navigating through the emotional complexities of anti-racism in higher education

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Michalinos Zembylas¹•Institutions (1)

Open University of Cyprus¹

22 Mar 2012-Teaching in Higher Education

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that strategic empathy can function as a valuable pedagogical tool that opens up affective spaces which might eventually disrupt the emotional roots of troubled knowledge, thus helping students integrate their troubled views into anti-racist and socially just perspectives.

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Abstract: This paper constructs an argument about the emotionally complicated and compromised learning spaces of teaching about anti-racism in higher education. These are spaces steeped in complex structures of feeling that evoke strong and often discomforting emotions on the part of both teachers and students. In particular, the author theorizes the notion of strategic empathy in the context of students' emotional resistance toward anti-racist work; he examines how strategic empathy can function as a valuable pedagogical tool that opens up affective spaces which might eventually disrupt the emotional roots of troubled knowledge – an admittedly long and difficult task. Undermining the emotional roots of troubled knowledge through strategic empathy ultimately aims at helping students integrate their troubled views into anti-racist and socially just perspectives.

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129 citations

Cites background from "Empathetic Repair after Mass Trauma..."

...In particular, this interpretation emphasizes the link between the process of rehumanization of the other and empathy (Halpern and Weinstein 2004), that is, the process which sees the other in human terms (Gobodo-Madikizela 2008)....
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...…as sufferer too, as an emotional human being; to empathize with one who wronged someone is to struggle to get over resentment, anger, and hatred (Gobodo-Madikizela 2008).1 To put this more directly, teachers and students need to actively create a reconciliatory empathetic space for this to…...
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...being; to empathize with one who wronged someone is to struggle to get over resentment, anger, and hatred (Gobodo-Madikizela 2008)....
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...‘Woundedness’, writes Gobodo-Madikizela (2008), ‘is a sign of ethical responsibility towards the other....
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Monograph•DOI•

Teaching contested narratives : identity, memory and reconciliation in peace education and beyond

[...]

Zvi Bekerman¹, Michalinos Zembylas²•Institutions (2)

Hebrew University of Jerusalem¹, Open University of Cyprus²

01 Dec 2011

TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a theoretical framework for reconciliation pedagogies in the context of teaching conflict, identity, and reconciliation pedagogy in schools, and the work of mourning in schools.

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Abstract: Part I. Introduction and Theoretical Underpinnings: 1. Introduction 2. Problematizing peace education romanticism 3. On conflict, identity and more Part II. Living and Teaching Contested Narratives: 4. Victims and perpetrators: how teachers live with contested narratives 5. (Im)possible openings 6. The everyday challenges of teaching children from conflicting groups 7. The emotional complexities of teaching contested narratives Part III. Mourning, Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Problems and Possible Solutions: 8. The nationalization of mourning in troubled societies 9. The work of mourning in schools: ambivalent emotions and the risks of seeking mutual respect and understanding 10. Forgiveness as a possible path towards reconciliation Part IV. Conclusions: Implications for Peace Education: 11. Becoming critical design experts in schools 12. Memory and forgetting: a pedagogy of dangerous memories 13. De-essentializing identity 14. Designing different paths for reconciliation pedagogies.

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82 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

To the Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas

[...]

Andrew Tallon

01 Aug 1993-American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

78 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

A Country Unmasked: Inside South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, by Alex Boraine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. xv + 466 pp. £20.00 hardback. ISBN 0‐19‐571805‐4.

[...]

Willie Henderson

01 Oct 2001-African Affairs

61 citations

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References

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Book•

The Human Condition

[...]

Hannah Arendt¹•Institutions (1)

Keele University¹

01 Jan 1958

TL;DR: The Human Condition as mentioned in this paper is a classic in political and social theory, The Human Condition is a work that has proved both timeless and perpetually timely, it contains Margaret Canovan's 1998 introduction and a new foreword by Danielle Allen.

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Abstract: The past year has seen a resurgence of interest in the political thinker Hannah Arendt, "the theorist of beginnings," whose work probes the logics underlying unexpected transformations-from totalitarianism to revolution. A work of striking originality, The Human Condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then-diminishing human agency and political freedom, the paradox that as human powers increase through technological and humanistic inquiry, we are less equipped to control the consequences of our actions-continue to confront us today. This new edition, published to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of its original publication, contains Margaret Canovan's 1998 introduction and a new foreword by Danielle Allen. A classic in political and social theory, The Human Condition is a work that has proved both timeless and perpetually timely.

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7,650 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality Change

[...]

Carl R. Rogers¹•Institutions (1)

University of Chicago¹

01 Dec 1992-Journal of Consulting Psychology

TL;DR: An attempt to state, informal terms, a theory of psychotherapy, of per-sonality, and of interpersonal relationships which will encompass and contain the phenomena of the experience of the therapist.

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Abstract: For many years I have been engaged in psy-chotherapy with individuals in distress. In recentyears I have found myself increasingly concernedwith the process of abstracting from that experi-ence the general principles which appear to beinvolved in it. I have endeavored to discover anyorderliness, any unity which seems to inhere inthe subtle, complex tissue of interpersonal rela-tionship in which I have so constantly been im-mersed in therapeutic work. One of the currentproducts of this concern is an attempt to state, informal terms, a theory of psychotherapy, of per-sonality, and of interpersonal relationships whichwill encompass and contain the phenomena ofmy experience.

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4,285 citations

Book•

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

[...]

Hannah Arendt

28 Mar 2011

TL;DR: The first edition of "Eichmann in Jerusalem" appeared as a series of articles in "The New Yorker" in 1963 and was later published as a book in 1970 as discussed by the authors.

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Abstract: Hannah Arendt's portrayal of the terrible consequences of blind obedience, "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil" contains an introduction by Amos Elon in "Penguin Classics". Sparking a flurry of heated debate, Hannah Arendt's authoritative and stunning report on the trial of German Nazi SS leader Adolf Eichmann first appeared as a series of articles in "The New Yorker" in 1963. This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt's postscript commenting on the controversy that arose over her book. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence, "Eichmann in Jerusalem" is as shocking as it is informative - a meticulous and unflinching look at one of the most unsettling (and unsettled) issues of the twentieth century. Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was for many years University Professor of Political Philosophy in the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research and a Visiting Fellow of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. She is also the author of "Eichmann in Jerusalem", "On Revolution", and "Between Past and Future". If you enjoyed "Eichmann in Jerusalem", you might like Elie Wiesel's "Night", available in "Penguin Modern Classics". "Deals with the greatest problem of our time ...the problem of the human being within a modern totalitarian system". (Bruno Bettelheim, "The New Republic"). "A profound and documented analysis...Bound to stir our minds and trouble our consciences". ("Chicago Tribune").

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2,986 citations

"Empathetic Repair after Mass Trauma..." refers background or methods in this paper

...There exists a tension within political theory about the ‘touchy-feely’ concept of emotions, which has been variously referred to as ‘anti-political’ (Arendt, 1998) or a ‘swampy’ issue that contributes to ‘semantic confusion’ (Fletcher, 1966: 15). This is surprising, especially since some of the critics of the place of psychology in forgiveness themselves allude to the primacy of emotions in their formulations of the concept of forgiveness. Arendt (1998), for example, refers to the process of forgiveness as the opposite of vengeance, a reaction to trauma and putting an end to the effects of the original trauma....
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...It invites too, victims and villains to share in the common idiom of humanity, to re-‘discover’ the other’s human face, which is consistent with the Arendtian idea of pursuing political action by beginning anew. This woundedness, and the remorse that animates it, draw perpetrators into relationship with victims. Interestingly, Jankélévitch (2005) distinguishes between relational forgiveness (‘Forgiveness is a dialogue’) and the ‘soliloquy’ of remorse....
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...Hannah Arendt (1998) argues that ‘action’ is the essence of value in human life; human beings have the freedom and capacity for action....
[...]
...In The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt (1998) writes that those offences we call ‘“radical evil” . . . transcend the realm of human affairs’ and are therefore neither punishable nor forgivable....
[...]
...After exploring the process of forgiveness and explaining some of its challenges, I will argue, first, that the notion of the ‘unforgivable’ is no longer tenable in light of what we have witnessed in the work of South Africa’s TRC and in reconciliation efforts in other countries such as in post-genocide Rwanda; Arendt’s (1998) ideas and worldview were shaped and inspired by her observations and reactions to the events of World War II, particularly the Holocaust, at a time before alternative notions of justice, for instance, restorative justice, came into popular use in Western culture....
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Journal Article•DOI•

The Human Condition

[...]

Leonard Carmichael, Hannah Arendt

21 Jan 1960-Technology and Culture

2,741 citations

Book•DOI•

Empathy : a social psychological approach

[...]

Mark H. Davis¹•Institutions (1)

Eckerd College¹

20 Feb 2018

TL;DR: In this article, a multidimensional approach brings together cognitive, sociobiological and behavioural perspectives providing students with a thorough, balanced and well-synthesised presentation of contemporary empathy research.

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Abstract: This multidimensional approach brings together cognitive, sociobiological and behavioural perspectives providing students with a thorough, vet balanced and well-synthesised presentation of contemporary empathy research. The author approaches the topic in two ways: 1. through empirical work which is examined in a variety of empathy-related areas, clearly recognising the theoretical context; 2. through an organisational model which puts the smaller pieces into one, more coherent whole.

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2,171 citations