Time-Image Episodes and the Construction of Transgenerational Trauma Narratives

Abstract

Trauma and repressed memory have long served as a critical departure in collective memory studies. This article employs the time-image episode to detail how (post)memories of subsequent-generation genocide survivors are constructed when survivor-generation silences proliferate and transgenerational subjects are temporally and experientially dirempted from the violence experienced by their elders. Time-image episodes function as presently situated, imagined accounts of history and memory. They represent the circulation of narrative and nonnarra-tive forms of communication, extending the present into other temporalities. By complicating the definition of transgenerational trauma to encapsulate not only psychopathologies but also alienation from a family and cultural history, we can better understand that the trauma experienced by descendants revolves around an absence of knowledge. Empirical data on Cambodian Americans are provided to (1) redefine trauma not solely in pathological terms, (2) analyze nonphysical forms of memory, and (3) conceptualize the multiple temporalities of trauma that shape collective memory formation.