My interest in the process and effects of the witnessing act guides the purpose of this
study. Here, I initiate a deeper understanding of the vicarious witnessing experience from the
perspective of the witnessing participant. My central question is: How do individuals make
sense of vicariously witnessing trauma through narrative, visual, and evidence-based
representations of traumatic events in the concentration camps of Europe?
Vicarious witnessing begins with abstract representations of the event. The evidence is
witnessed firsthand, but the event itself is represented through various perspectives such as
photographic or artistic images, survivor stories, or physical remnants. Witnessing the evidence
evokes a potent embodied experience, so that a person can make the statement, "I have
imagined what another has experienced, hence I believe I know." It is through the imagination
that a witness forms a picture of the trauma. Undoubtedly, there is immense power in meeting
another's experience in the realm of imagination. Compassionate action and social justice is
based in this area of human empathy.
To best achieve my purpose, I use a narrative method that involves two types of
analysis, interpretive readings and narrative instances, as an approach to understand the
participant's experience of vicarious witnessing. Participants in this study construct three types
of narrative texts-written, spoken, and visual. Each textual perspective shapes the meaning that
the participant attempts to express. As a first level of analysis, interpretive readings of the texts
include general, specific, visual, and relational readings. Secondly, through exploring the
interaction between various parts of these texts, and between the texts themselves, I explore
three types of narrative instances--single-text, intratextual, and intertextual. Each analysis of a
narrative instance is matched specifically to each participant, and I believe, is uniquely
adequate for understanding the experience of vicarious witnessing.
My inquiry outlines how individuals make sense of vicariously witnessing trauma,
clarifies the meaning that participants make of the vicarious witnessing experience, shows the
risks and coping involved in vicarious witnessing, and presents the kinds of social action that
vicarious witnessing evokes. In the field of counselling psychology, the witnessing experience
is an important aspect of trauma theory that has been left unexplored by psychologists. My
research enlarges the social and theoretical conversation concerning the vicarious witnessing
experience.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/14998 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Keats, Patrice Alison |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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