This paper argues that the uncertain public status of victim narratives of sexual abuse has inhibited the information sharing and dialogue necessary for policy reform and transformative change. Through an integration of public sphere theory and relational psychoanalysis, the paper identifies the need for a transitional space for the explication of sexual abuse narratives in order to bridge the gap between private suffering and public understanding. The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse provides a case study of a transitional mechanism, with a focus on its instantiation of a therapeutic politics and the resultant synthesis of the rational–critical dimensions of public speech with the emotional depth and substance of traumatic catharsis. The paper suggests that public inquiries are uniquely positioned to act as transitional spaces between the personal and political dimensions of traumatic experience, while recognizing the challenges posed to this space by the contemporary bureaucratic state.
BenhabibS. (1992). Situating the self: Gender, community and postmodernism in contemporary ethics.
New York:
Routledge.
2.
BenjaminJ. (2018). Beyond doer and done to: Recognition theory, intersubjectivity and the third.
New York and London, UK:
Routledge.
3.
BrennanC. (2015). Trials and contestations: Ireland’s Ryan Commission. In SköldJ.SwainS. (Eds.), Apologies and the legacy of abuse of children in ‘care’: International perspectives (pp. 55–69).
Basingstoke, UK and New York:
Palgrave MacMillan.
4.
BrownW. (1995). States of injury: Power and freedom in late modernity.
Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
5.
BudiselikW.CrawfordF.ChungD. (2014).
The Australian Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse: Dreaming of child safe organisations?Social Sciences,
3(3), 565–583.
6.
CampbellS. (2003). Relational remembering: Rethinking the memory wars.
Oxford, UK:
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
7.
CheitR. (2014). The witch-hunt narrative: Politics, psychology and the sexual abuse of children.
Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.
8.
CockbainE. (2013).
Grooming and the ‘Asian sex gang predator’: The construction of a racial crime threat. Race & Class,
54(4), 22–32.
DalyK.BouhoursB. (2010).
Rape and attrition in the legal process: A comparative analysis of five countries. Crime and Justice,
39(1), 565–650.
11.
FassinD.RechtmanR. (2009). The empire of trauma: An inquiry into the condition of victimhood.
Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
12.
FordJ. (2017).
Treatment implications of altered affect regulation and information processing following child maltreatment. Psychiatric Annals,
35(5), 410–419.
13.
FosterJ. M.HagedornW. B. (2014).
Through the eyes of the wounded: A narrative analysis of children’s sexual abuse experiences and recovery process. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse,
23(5), 538–557.
14.
FraserN. (1990).
Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. Social Text,
25/26, 56–80.
15.
FraserN.HonnethA. (2003). Redistribution or recognition? A political-philosophical exchange.
London, UK and New York:
Verso.
GoldingF. (2018).
Sexual abuse as the core transgression of childhood innocence: Unintended consequences for care leavers. Journal of Australian Studies,
42(2), 191–203.
18.
GreerC.McLaughlinE. (2013).
The Sir Jimmy Savile scandal: Child sexual abuse and institutional denial at the BBC. Crime, Media, Culture,
9(3), 243–263.
HabermasJ. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society.
Cambridge, UK:
Polity Press.
21.
HermanJ. (1992). Trauma and recovery.
New York:
Basic Books.
22.
HonnethA. (2012). The I in We: Studies in the theory of recognition.
Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA:
Polity.
23.
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. (1997). Bringing them home: Report of the national inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. Sydney: Commonwealth of Australia.
KitzingerJ. (2004). Framing abuse: Media influence and public understanding of sexual violence against children.
London, UK and Ann Arbor, MI:
Pluto Press.
27.
LaniusR. A. (2015).
Trauma-related dissociation and altered states of consciousness: A call for clinical, treatment, and neuroscience research. European Journal of Traumatology,
6(1), 27905.
28.
McGarryR.WalklateS. (2015). Victims: Trauma, testimony and justice.
London, UK and New York:
Routledge.
29.
McPhillips, K., Salter, M., Roberts-Pedersen, E, & Kezelman, C. (2020) Towards a trauma-informed culture: Addressing systems of harm in the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Child Abuse and Neglect, forthcoming.
30.
Middleton, W., Stavropoulos, P., Dorahy, M. J., Krüger, C., Lewis-Fernández, R., Martínez-Taboas, A., Sar, V., & Brand, B. (2014). Institutional abuse and societal silence: An emerging global problem. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 48(1), 22–25.
31.
MitchellS. A. (1993). Hope and dread in psychoanalysis.
New York:
Basic Books.
32.
MitchellS. A. (2014). Relationality: From attachment to intersubjectivity.
London, UK and New York:
Routledge.
NelsonS. (2016). Tackling child sexual abuse: Radical approaches to prevention, protection and support.
Bristol, UK and Chicago, IL:
Policy Press.
35.
OlafsonE.CorwinD. L.SummitR. C. (1993).
Modern history of child sexual abuse awareness: Cycles of discovery and suppression. Child Abuse & Neglect,
17, 7–24.
36.
OlickJ. K. (2007). The politics of regret: On collective memory and historical responsibility.
London, UK and New York:
Routledge.
37.
O’SullivanE. (2015). The Ryan Report: Reformatory and industrial schools and twentieth-century Ireland. In MeadeR.DukelowF. (Eds.), Defining events: Power, resistance, identity in 21st century Ireland (pp. 200–2017).
Manchester, UK:
Manchester University Press.
PilgrimD. (2018). Child sexual abuse: Moral panic or state of denial?
London, UK and New York:
Routledge.
40.
PrasserS. (2006). Royal Commissions and public inquiries in Australia.
Chatswood, Australia:
LexisNexis.
41.
ReitsemaA.GrietensH. (2016).
Is anybody listening? The literature on the dialogical process of child sexual abuse disclosure reviewed. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse,
17(3), 330–340.
Salter, M. (2012). Invalidation: A neglected dimensions of gender-based violence and inequality. International Journal for Crime and Justice, 1(1), 3–13.
47.
Salter, M. (2013). Justice and revenge in online counter-publics: Emerging responses to sexual violence in the age of social media. Crime, Media, Culture, 9(3), 225–242.
48.
Salter, M. (2016). The privatisation of incest: The neglect of familial sexual abuse in Australian public inquiries. In Y. Smaal, A. Kaladeflos, & M. Finnane (Eds.), The sexual abuse of children: Recognition and redress (pp. 108–120). Melbourne: Monash University Press.
49.
Salter, M. (2017). Organized child sexual abuse in the media. In N. Rafter & M. Brown (Eds.), Oxford research encyclopedia of crime, media and popular culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
50.
Salter, M. (2018). Child sexual abuse. In W. Dekeseredy & M. Dragiewicz (Eds.), Routledge handbook of critical criminology (pp. 316–333). London and New York: Routledge.
51.
Senate Community Affairs Committee. (2001). Lost Innocents: Righting the Record – Report on child migration. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
Schwartz, H. L. (2000). Dialogues with forgotten voices: Relational perspectives on child abuse trauma and the treatment of severe dissociative disorders. New York: Basic Books.
54.
SköldJ. (2015). Apology politics: Transnational features. In SköldJ.SwainS. (Eds.), Apologies and the legacy of abuse of children in ‘care’ (pp. 13–26).
Basingstoke, UK and New York:
Palgrave MacMillan.
55.
SköldJ.SwainS. (2015). Introduction. In SköldJ.SwainS. (Eds.), Apologies and the legacy of abuse of children in ‘care’: International perspectives (pp. 1–12).
Basingstoke, UK and New York:
Palgrace MacMillan.
56.
StanleyN.ManthorpeJ. (2004). Introduction: The inquiry as Janus. In StanleyN.ManthorpeJ. (Eds.), The age of the inquiry (pp. 1–16).
London, UK and New York:
Routledge.
57.
SwainS. (2015). Why sexual abuse? Why now? In SköldJ.SwainS. (Eds.), Apologies and the legacy of abuse of children in ‘care’: International perspectives (pp. 83–94).
Basingstoke, UK and New York:
Palgrave MacMillan.
58.
WhittierN. (2009). The politics of child sexual abuse: Emotion, social movements, and the state.
London, UK and New York:
Oxford University Press.
59.
WinnicottD. W. (2005). Playing and reality.
London, UK and New York:
Routledge.
60.
WrightK. (2017).
Remaking collective knowledge: An analysis of the complex and multiple effects of inquiries into historical institutional child abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect,
74, 10–22.
61.
WrightK.SwainS.McPhillipsK. (2017).
The Australian Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect,
74, 1–9.
