Abstract

PARALES QUENZA, CARLOS JOSÉ  and  RAMIREZ-CORTAZAR, FELIPE. The Installation of Trauma in Two Communities in Colombia: Collective Trauma and Discursive Frames. Rev. colomb. psicol. [online]. 2023, vol.32, n.1, pp.21-30.  Epub Aug 20, 2022. ISSN 0121-5469.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcp.v32n1.96617.

Communities that experience extreme violence suffer damage in their social structure. This affects interpersonal relationships, feelings of social integration, and personal identities. In this article, we propose the concept of installation of trauma as both a sociopolitical construction and a strategy of meaning that allows a community to elaborate traumatic events. The installation consists of the scaffolding of resources, both material and symbolic, that offer situational interpretations of an experience. Focusing on symbolic elements, specifically on discursive frames, or structures of meaning with communicative purposes, we analyze the discursive frames of two communities that faced events of extreme violence (massacres), with the aim of studying the terms of installation and elaboration of collective trauma. This helped identify generic and specific discursive frames that allowed the community the construction of the trauma narrative. The concept of trauma installation serves to study psychosocial holding strategies in communities facing tragedy.

Keywords : collective trauma; discursive frames; massacres; social memory; victims; violence.