Italian Experiences of Trauma through Film and Media

Abstract

This tightly focused collection of essays, edited by Alberto Baracco and Rosario Pollicino, offers a multidisciplinary and insightful study of the link between individual and collective trauma, and the ensuing formation of sub- and transnational communities through such shared experience. The collection aims to look afresh at Italianità and traumatic events through an interdisciplinary lens, by examining trauma from a sociological and psychoanalytical perspective through media studies. It acknowledges that through film and media such as documentaries, websites, TV, and advertisements, the traumatized become conscious of their interconnected position within subnational and/or transnational communities.The overarching proposition is that individual and collective trauma are not mutually exclusive (as posited by Jeffrey C. Alexander in his 2004 essay “Toward a Theory of Cultural Trauma”), but that individual trauma often creates a collective echo and resonance. In his introduction, coeditor Rosario Pollicino notes, “This approach to Italy, individual and collective trauma provides the theoretical novelty of this book . . . and allow us to map a new analysis of contemporary Italian society, and therefore open a new way to look at Italy” (11–12). Using Kai Erikson's “Trauma: Explorations in Memory” as the main theoretical framework, while respecting the canonical studies on trauma theory, the editors have grouped these essays into four sections by subject, which in turn are organized conceptually and diachronically, and span from the World War II to the present.The first section is entitled “WWII, Italy, and Transnational Trauma” and includes essays by Carmen Concilio and Paola della Valle. Through diverse case studies, these contributions contend that political borders do not restrict traumatic experiences but rather shape the communities impacted by those circumstances. These authors claim that by deconstructing the meaning of war itself, those affected can distance themselves from their traumatic memories through a process of trauma soothing.The second section, entitled “Forced Migration and Trauma,” analyzes cases of forced migration, and includes essays by Rosario Pollicino and Moira di Mauro-Jackson. This section specifically references individual and social trauma and illustrates how political processes, such as the colonization of Libya (Pollicino) and the current migrant crisis in the Mediterranean (DiMauro-Jackson), can create large migrant communities with similar traumatic experiences. These chapters portray migrants with common traumatic experiences as part of a much larger sub- and transnational network than is typically imagined.“Murder and Trauma” is the third section, and features chapters by Fabiana Cecchini, Giovanna Summerfield, and Robin Pickering-Iazzi that describe some of the most heinous atrocities—often historically ignored or devalued—such as feminicide (Summerfield), mafia-related killings (Pickering-Iazzi) and the crimes during Italy's Years of Lead (Cecchini). The authors in this section contend that murder, the most extreme form of violence, traumatizes not only the victims and their families, but their communities too. They also argue that the media plays a crucial role in building a narrative that both justifies and condemns such crimes.Contributions by Enrico Cesaretti and Alberto Baracco close the book in “Nature, Environment and Trauma.” Their essays show the usefulness of applying psychoanalysis and ecocriticism to trauma studies in order to fully grasp the breadth of such case studies and the authors’ arguments. Their studies offer new insight on how docufiction and documentaries enable viewers to act out and process eco-traumas, such as the 1980 Irpinia and Basilicata Earthquake (Baracco) and the 1964 eco-disaster in Alos, Sardinia (Cesaretti).Overall, this volume is highly commendable for promoting awareness of the collective nature of trauma experiences through its interdisciplinary contributions and theoretical approaches. As Pollicino cogently argues, this collection “analyzes trauma as a product of modern and contemporary society and its study becomes imperative in understanding new and current problems” (12). Coeditor Alberto Baracco concludes with a concise and illuminating overview of the volume by contextualizing it within the claim that “we are witnessing an aesthetic culture of trauma through the ever-increasing production of the technologically-mediated elaboration of traumatic experiences” (197). His considerations unify the essays by identifying each scholar's contribution to the subject and emphasizing the three temporal dimensions of trauma which unite these essays: present trauma, traumatic memory, and the future consequences of trauma.