Cultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity PDF
Preview Cultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity
Cultural Trauma In this book, Ron Eyerman explores the formation of the African American identity through the theory of cultural trauma. The trauma in question is slavery, not as an insti- tution or as personal experience, but as collective memory: apervasiveremembrancethatgroundedapeople’ssenseof itself.Combiningabroadnarrativesweepwithmoredetailed studiesofimportanteventsandindividuals,Eyermanreaches from emancipation through the Harlem Renaissance, the Depression, the New Deal, and the Second World War to the civil rights movement and beyond. He offers insights into the intellectual and generational conflicts of identity- formationwhichhaveatrulyuniversalsignificance,aswell as providing a new and compelling account of the birth of African American identity. Anyone interested in questions of assimilation, multiculturalism, and postcolonialism will findthisbookindispensable. PROFESSOR RON EYERMAN istheholderoftheSegerstedt Chair of Sociology at Uppsala University and Professor of SociologyattheUniversityofCopenhagen,andafellowof theCenterforAdvancedStudyintheBehaviouralSciences atStanfordUniversity(1999–2000).Hisrecentpublications includeMusicandSocialMovements(Cambridge,1998). This page intentionally left blank Cultural Trauma CambridgeCulturalSocialStudies Serieseditors: JEFFREY C. ALEXANDER,Departmentof Sociology,YaleUniversity,and STEVEN SEIDMAN, DepartmentofSociology,UniversityatAlbany,State UniversityofNewYork. Titlesintheseries ILANA FRIEDRICH SILBER, Virtuosity,Charisma,andSocial Order0521413974hardback LINDA NICHOLSON AND STEVEN SEIDMAN (eds.),Social Postmodernism0521475163hardback0521475716paperback WILLIAM BOGARD, TheSimulationofSurveillance 0521550815hardback0521555612paperback SUZANNE R. KIRSCHNER, TheReligiousandRomanticOriginsof Psychoanalysis0521444012hardback0521555604paperback PAUL LICHTERMAN, TheSearchforPoliticalCommunity 0521482860hardback0521483433paperback ROGER FRIEDLAND AND RICHARD HECHT, ToRuleJerusalem 0521440467hardback KENNETH H. TUCKER, JR.,FrenchRevolutionarySyndicalismand thePublicSphere0521563593hardback ERIK RINGMAR, Identity,InterestandAction0521563143 hardback ALBERTO MELUCCI, ThePlayingSelf 0521564018hardback 0521564824paperback ALBERTO MELUCCI, ChallengingCodes0521570514hardback 0521578434paperback SARAH M. CORSE, NationalismandLiterature0521570026 hardback0521579120paperback DARNELL M. HUNT, ScreeningtheLosAngeles‘Riots’ 0521570875hardback0521578140paperback LYNETTE P. SPILLMAN, NationandCommemoration 0521574048hardback0521576830paperback (listcontinuesatendofbook) Cultural Trauma Slavery and the formation of African American identity RonEyerman PUBLISHED BY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS (VIRTUAL PUBLISHING) FOR AND ON BEHALF OF THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia http://www.cambridge.org ' Ron Eyerman 2001 This edition ' Ron Eyerman 2003 First published in printed format 2001 A catalogue record for the original printed book is available from the British Library and from the Library of Congress Original ISBN 0 521 80828 6 hardback Original ISBN 0 521 00437 3 paperback ISBN 0 511 01602 6 virtual (netLibrary Edition) Contents Acknowledgments pageviii 1. Culturaltraumaandcollectivememory 1 2. Re-memberingandforgetting 23 3. OutofAfrica:themakingofacollectiveidentity 58 4. TheHarlemRenaissanceandtheheritageofslavery 89 5. Memoryandrepresentation 130 6. Civilrightsandblacknationalism:thepost-war generation 174 Notes 223 Listofreferences 286 Index 299 vii Acknowledgments This book would not have been possible without the financial help of the SwedishResearchCouncilfortheHumanitiesandSocialSciences(HSFR)and the inspiration provided by my colleagues at the Center for Advanced Study intheBehavioralSciences,StanfordUniversityandUppsalaUniversity.Itwas duringmystayattheCenterthattheideaswhichformthebasisofthisbook tookshape;specialthankstoJeffAlexander,NancyCott,BernhardGiesen,Neil Smelser,andPiotrSztompka,aswellasthewonderfulstaffwhoprovidedthe necessarygroundworkthatpermittedmyspirittorangefreely.Mycolleagues atUppsalaUniversitylistenedpatientlytomypresentationsandprovidedin- sightfulcomments,asdidJohannaEsseveldoftheUniversityofLund.Finally, the Cambridge University Press readers and editors were extremely helpful and encouraging in their criticisms and comments. Warm thanks to Birgitta LindencronaforlendingmeherAfricanAmericancookbooks. viii 1 Cultural trauma and collective memory Whathasbeenlostisthecontinuityofthepast...Whatyouthenareleftwith isstillthepast,butafragmentedpast,whichhaslostitscertaintyofevaluation. HannahArendt Itismemorythatcounts,thatcontrolstherichmasteryofthestory,impelsit along... JorgeSemprun Introduction In this book the formation of an African American identity will be explored through the theory of cultural trauma (Alexander et al. 2001). The “trauma” in question is slavery, not as institution or even experience, but as collective memory, a form of remembrance that grounded the identity-formation of a people. There is a difference between trauma as it affects individuals and as a cultural process. As cultural process, trauma is mediated through various formsofrepresentationandlinkedtothereformationofcollectiveidentityand thereworkingofcollectivememory.ThenotionofauniqueAfricanAmerican identityemergedinthepost-CivilWarperiod,afterslaveryhadbeenabolished.1 Thetraumaofforcedservitudeandofnearlycompletesubordinationtothewill andwhimsofanotherwasthusnotnecessarilysomethingdirectlyexperienced bymanyofthesubjectsofthisstudy,butcametobecentraltotheirattempts toforgeacollectiveidentityoutofitsremembrance.Inthissense,slaverywas traumaticinretrospect,andformeda“primalscene”whichcould,potentially, unite all “African Americans” in the United States, whether or not they had themselvesbeenslavesorhadanyknowledgeoforfeelingforAfrica.Slavery formedtherootofanemergentcollectiveidentitythroughanequallyemergent collective memory, one that signified and distinguished a race, a people, or a communitydependingonthelevelofabstractionandpointofviewbeingput 1
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