How is a new category “born”? On mechanisms of formation,cycles of recognition,and the looping effect of “national trauma”

Abstract

This article explores the mechanisms underlying the formation of a new category in the Israeli therapeutic field—“national trauma.” By comparing the two different paths of emergence of this category, the research reexamines the meaning of Hacking’s concept “looping effect” and, in particular, the issue of awareness of the categorized individuals and the categorizing knowledge-producers to the effects of a categorization. This study demonstrates that the formation of “national trauma” is both an intentional product of the efforts and ideology of practitioners and an unintentional outcome of their scientific and interventional activities. The comparative analysis allows us to elaborate the distinctions between the different social circles of recognition of new professional categories and different forms of affinity between the new category and an established social group. Understanding these distinctions is particularly valuable in relation to those problematic cases in which the new professional category is a highly contested object.