Oppression-Based Trauma

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Trauma studies is a multidisciplinary field where both the clinical disciplines and the arts and humanities have made distinct and valuable contributions over the decades. In recent years, post-colonial critiques of the field have put focus on developing conceptions of oppression-based, collective trauma (Holmes et al, 2016; Hirschberger, 2018) that are descriptive of, and appropriate for, communities living under systemic repression from both state and non-state actors.  
 
This panel brings together two academic members from diverse disciplinary backgrounds in Trinity to focus attention on how collective, oppression-based trauma is understood and lived in two different geographies and communities. We are interested in having a conversation that would shed light on how myriad cultural forms can present opposition and defiance to political repression.

Abstracts: 
Mandy Lee
The Hongkonger community has experienced trauma as a result of social unrest in 2019, with prevalence of suspected PTSD in 2019 estimated to be 12.8% (CI 11.2–14.4) of the population according to a Lancet study (Ni et al, 2020). Whilst such physical unrests have been suppressed with the introduction of the National Security Law since 2020, given overwhelming evidence documenting the negative impact of oppression on the mental health of its targets, Liberation psychologists have called for the recognition of "oppression-based trauma", which focuses attention on the systemic, institutional, and psychological trauma outside of the immediate threat of physical injury or death (Holmes et al, 2016). Such "oppression-based trauma" emphasizes the everyday, ongoing nature of collective social trauma, which moves away from the event-based "catastrophe" model that had hitherto dominated trauma studies. Using narrative inquiry methods of both texts and visual imageries, I explore the lived experiences of this community using a combination of publicly available found narratives online, and through anonymous responses obtained from an online writing project. These narratives showcase collective social trauma as told in Hongkongers’ own words, as well as their narratives of resilience or “idioms of resistance” (Kim et al, 2019) against such authoritarian oppression. 

Dr. Rebecca Carr
The formation of the Black American identity, which began construction in slavery (Baldwin 2022), continues to be shaped by ongoing oppression-based systemic and social trauma. The perpetual hegemonic dismissal of accountability for wrongdoing undermines efforts to include stories of Black identity within the broader horizon of the nation’s identity. In recent years, films and series about the Black American experience have emerged from the horror genre. This presentation offers a discursive analysis of recent productions (2017-2024) that utilise horror genre conventions to articulate pain and exist despite exclusion from the dominant paradigm. These productions contribute to a corpus of narratives that represent and confront trauma, thereby resisting erasure and challenging ignorance. These and other artistic creations contribute to the process of cultural trauma (Eyerman, 2001, 2025), while constructing an identity beyond the one it was interpellated (Machery 2012).

Biographies: 
Mandy Lee
Mandy Lee is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Health Policy and Management (CHPM), School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin. A sociologist of health and illness by background, her research interests include trauma studies, narrative medicine, and research ethics. She has taught research methods and research ethics at the graduate level, was responsible for co-establishing the Joint Research Ethics Committee for CHPM and Centre for Global Health, and had supervised patient- and staff-experience-based health systems Masters' dissertations for over 15 years. Her current research project is focused on exploring trauma, resilience, and resistance of the Hong Kong pro-democracy community through narrative inquiry, the interim findings of which have been presented at international conferences (BSA 2024, ESA 2024, Enter Mental Health Conference 2024, ISA 2025, and Global Hong Kong Studies Conference 2025). She is the Co-Chair of the Trinity Medical and Health Humanities network, and an affiliate member of the Trinity Centre for Resistance Studies.  

Dr. Rebecca Carr
Rebecca Carr is a teaching fellow in European Studies at Trinity College Dublin, where she has won two teaching awards. Carr is the film coordinator for the Trinity Centre for Resistance Studies. She holds degrees in Psychology, and in Film, Literature and Drama, and an MPhil in Textual and Visual Studies. In 2021, she completed her PhD on cultural trauma and the reconstruction of collective identity in films from the genre she calls “aftermath cinema”. Her research interests include exploring the intersection of politics, ideology, identity and cultural mythology in cinema and other arts.

Please indicate if you have any access requirements, such as ISL/English interpreting, so that we can facilitate you in attending this event. Contact: mslee@tcd.ie