Full Description
This powerful last work by pioneering oral historian Fran Leeper Buss examines how painful memories of traumatic experiences can be transformed into positive action for social good. In her more than 40 years gathering the life stories of working-class women, Buss found commonalities in the ways in which her subjects faced structural inequalities of race, class, and gender, as well as sufferings caused by poverty, child abuse, gun violence and war. Some of these women subsequently went on to become participants and leaders in a variety of movements for social change. In this wide-ranging book, Buss shows how her subjects employed storytelling, art, spirituality and other methods to create sense and meaning from traumatic memories and then make positive contributions to movements for labor rights, sanctuary for Central American refugees, gun violence prevention, peace, and other causes. Buss also relates her own story of medical malpractice and disability and discusses the work of historical and contemporary thinkers on the concepts underlying her ideas. She provides unique and original insights into how women who have endured great trauma are able to redeem their memories through communal action for a better world.
Contents
Part One: Memory
Chapter One
Redemption and Memory: Definitions
Chapter Two
The Complex Topic of Justice
Chapter Three
Beginnings
Chapter Four
Doing Oral History
Part Two: Trauma
Chapter Five
Trauma: Definitions
Chapter Six
Cultural Trauma: Witness and Recovery
Chapter Seven
Collective Trauma and Accompaniment of the Traumatized
Part Three: Testimony
Chapter Eight
Testimony: Definitions
Chapter Nine
Relationships in Testimony
Chapter Ten
Testifying, Silencing, and Using Symbols
Part Four: Justice
Chapter Eleven
Justice: Definitions
Chapter Twelve
Seeking Justice through Resistance
Chapter Thirteen
Alliances and Intersectionality
Chapter Fourteen
Teología de Conjunto
