Story-telling as memorialisation: Suffering, resilience and victim identities

• Main Authors: Simon Green, Katherine Kondor, Alicia Kidd
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law 2020-06-01
• Series: Oñati Socio-Legal Series
• Subjects: victims; narrative; late modernity; hungary; gaza; story-telling; víctimas; narrativa; modernidad tardía; hungría; narración de historias
• Online Access: http://opo.iisj.net/index.php/osls/article/view/1096

Is there a relationship between story-telling and memorialisation in the construction of victim identities? This paper seeks to examine these questions and shed light on the cultural dynamics of victimisation with reference to examples from sociological theories of late modernity and empirical research with people who self-identify as victims. Using examples from recent biographic interviews with an asylum seeker fleeing conflict in Gaza and two Hungarian radical right activists, the argument will be that victim identities are constructed and reconstructed through the development of personal and mediatised narratives about suffering and resilience. <br /><br /> &iquest;Existe alguna relaci&oacute;n entre la narraci&oacute;n y la memoria en la construcci&oacute;n de las identidades de v&iacute;ctima? Este art&iacute;culo pretende analizar esas cuestiones y arrojar luz sobre las din&aacute;micas culturales de victimizaci&oacute;n, haciendo referencia a ejemplos de teor&iacute;as sociol&oacute;gicas de la modernidad tard&iacute;a y a investigaciones emp&iacute;ricas con personas que se identifican a s&iacute; mismas como v&iacute;ctimas. Utilizando ejemplos de entrevistas biogr&aacute;ficas recientes con un solicitante de asilo que hu&iacute;a del conflicto de Gaza y con dos activistas h&uacute;ngaros de la derecha radical, argumentamos que las identidades de v&iacute;ctima se construyen y reconstruyen mediante el desarrollo de narrativas personales y mediatizadas sobre sufrimiento y resiliencia.<br /><br /> <strong>Available from:</strong> <a href="https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1122" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1122</a>