Violence in Place, Cultural and Environmental Wounding

Human life is intimately woven into place, through nations and homelands, monuments, sacred sites and territories it becomes the anchorage point for ethnic, cultural and national identities. Yet is it also place that becomes the battle field, war zone, death camp, mass grave, desecrated site and destroyed landscape in the midst or aftermath of cultural wounding.

Much attention has been given to the impact of trauma and violence on human lives across generations: but what of the spaces in which it occurs? How do trauma and violence impact upon place? And how do the non-human species with whom we coexist also suffer through episodes of conflict and violence? This book generates innovative insights into the relational nature of place and cultural trauma and healing. Understanding how violence and trauma take their toll on place is central to better understanding human suffering and healing, as well as what might be needed for the reconstruction and recuperation of wounded spaces. The book adopts a moral ecology framework to consider the complexity of social and political lives as set within spatial, geographical, biological and ideological contexts. A range of international case studies are explored, from Australia, South America, Asia and Europe. This book brings together discourse on human experiences of trauma and violence with a reflection on how both place and non-human species might also be a part of that experience.

Amanda Kearney, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.