Expanding Trauma through Space and Time: Mapping the Rhetorical Strategies of Trauma Carrier Groups

Abstract

In this article, I detail two rhetorical strategies that trauma carrier groups—including social movement organizations, professional mental health associations, and patient advocacy groups—use to expand the relevance of trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) through space and time: the social transmission of trauma and the social affiliation of traumatic experiences. With regard to social transmission, carrier groups claim that the psychological consequences of traumatic events are shared by members of established communities (a collective experience framework) and spread through social relationships (a social network framework). They expand the relevance of trauma and PTSD beyond those who directly experience the traumatic event at issue. With regard to social affiliation, carrier groups attribute common consequences to otherwise distinct events, making trauma and PTSD relevant to a growing variety of communities and individuals. Trauma carrier groups use both strategies to generalize a vocabulary of victimization and promote affective solidarity, providing discursive tools that a growing variety of individuals and communities can use to identify with trauma and its consequences. By mapping these rhetorical strategies, I propose a framework for analyzing the microsocial dynamics of cultural trauma and the expansion of the trauma concept as a diagnostic lens for defining diverse individual and social problems.