The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood (review)

In The Empire of Trauma, Didier Fassin and Richard Rechtman examine the history of trauma and explore the transition of the victim from a marginalized to a respected role, and trauma itself, once considered a personal defect, to a moral category. Fassin, a leading French social anthropologist, and Rechtman, a psychiatrist, respectively, do not seek to evaluate the validity of this change, but rather examine its societal implications. Their conclusion is unsettling: while trauma allows victims to gain society's support, it has also become a politically charged, moralizing force that decides who qualifies as a victim. Moreover, personal experience and individual history are erased and replaced by the universalizing force of trauma.

The Empire of Trauma is divided into four parts, each with several chapters. Part I traces the history of trauma from the mid nineteenth century to the present day. Trauma used to be viewed as an abnormal response reflecting the victim's character rather than the situation. Yet in the late twentieth century a major shift modified the common perception to one of normal responses to extreme situations.

Parts II through IV explore case studies, which exemplify both a shift in the concept of trauma and how politics play a role in the way the concept operates in society. Part II, "The Politics of Reparation," examines the 2001 explosion of the AZF chemical factory in Toulouse, France. Fassin and Rechtman argue that this event demonstrates a turning point in which trauma left the clinical realm and entered the public realm in France. The emphasis of disaster response was on psychological support and providers need not be experts but merely listeners. Moreover, one need not be diagnosed with trauma to be considered a trauma victim—one qualified merely through their presence. However, there were many factors that determined how traumatized someone was considered, which in turn affected reparations. Some of the factors were based on proximity to the event, but others were dictated by social determinants, such as professional and economic status.

Part III, "The Politics of Testimony," examines humanitarian psychiatry through a case study of Palestine, which Fassin and Rechtman say demonstrates a key shift in humanitarian psychiatry to a focus on bearing witness. Organizations began to replace first-hand testimony with second-hand testimony, but not without shortcomings. The idea that just bearing witness is an act of humanitarianism was a novel idea. Fassin and Rechtman argue that bearing witness requires that you eliminate otherness so that you can see the person as another self, and the concept of trauma makes this possible. Yet, as they point out, this functions much better at a theoretical level than in reality. When the testimony of Israelis and Palestinians are both put forth by humanitarian organizations, the specific histories get erased and melded into a larger narrative of trauma.

Part IV, "The Psychotraumatology of Exile and Asylum," examines shifts in the way that trauma factors into the asylum process. Asylum seekers are viewed with more suspicion now than a few decades ago, and there has been a shift whereby "political violence takes precedence over all other experiences, all other forms of suffering that the concept of exile, by virtue of its imprecision, so flexibly encompasses" (238). The concept of exile has been replaced by a narrow definition of trauma, which has in turn now requires a form of proof. Whereas people used to need a certificate from a doctor, now in lieu of this, a psychiatrist's certification is an expected and necessary part of the asylum application in France. Interestingly, this proof of trauma has actually silenced the individuals and disempowered them. The fact that an expert's confirmation of their trauma is required devalues their own word.

In the conclusion, "The Moral Economy of Trauma," Fassin and Rechtman reiterate their goal to avoid questioning whether or not trauma victims are legitimate, but rather to examine the effects of...