Engaging Violence

<p>This volume opens up new ground in the field of social representations research by focusing on contexts involving mass violence rather than on relatively stable societies. Representations of violence are not only symbolic but in the first place affective and bodily especially when it comes to traumatic experiences. Exploring the responses of researchers educators students and practitioners to long-term engagement with this emotionally demanding material the book considers how empathic knowledge can make working in this field more bearable and deepen our understanding of the Holocaust genocide war and mass political violence.</p> <p>Bringing together international contributors from a range of disciplines including anthropology clinical psychology history history of ideas religious studies social psychology and sociology the book explores how scholars students and professionals engaged with violence deal with the inevitable emotional stresses and vicarious trauma they experience. Each chapter draws on personal histories and many suggest new theoretical and methodological concepts to investigate emotional reactions to this material. The insights gained through these reflections can function protectively enabling those who work in this field to handle adverse situations more effectively and can yield valuable knowledge about violence itself allowing researchers teachers and professionals to better understand their materials and collocutors.</p><i> <p>Engaging Violence: Trauma memory and representation</i> will be of key value to students scholars psychologists humanitarian aid workers UN personnel policy makers social workers and others who are engaged directly or indirectly with mass political violence war or genocide.</p>