Approaches Drawing on Network and Trauma Concepts

Given the many commonalities between trauma and network, the question arises as to why the two concepts have never been used supplementary in scientific research. Despite the lack of consistent studies, there exist, however, some approaches which draw from both theories to explain other or related phenomena. Like the two concepts concerned, these approaches derive from various different disciplines.

With regard to psychic trauma, only recently psychometricians have developed a

“network model of psychopathology” (McNally 96) which is based on the idea that “a mental disorder constitutes a causal system of dynamically interacting, possibly self-reinforcing, symptoms” (McNally 96). Among the mental disorders that are in this sense constituted by “the dynamic, causal interactions among symptoms” (McNally 96) are depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, for example. PTSD as a reaction to trauma can thus be analyzed and treated by conceiving of the symptoms as nodes in a network which interrelate and activate each other. This relatively new approach gained momentum in reaction to the debates surrounding the question “whether disorders should be conceptualized categorically or dimensionally” (McNally 95) caused by the publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in 2013, and has caused some discussion with regard to its medical benefits. Even though this approach points to structural similarities between trauma and network, it has apparently not been noticed outside of the psychological field and seems not to be relevant for analyses of representations of either of the two concepts so far.

Literary scholar Luckhurst was probably the first to bring together network thinking and trauma in an attempt to grasp the many facets and the specialness of the concept of trauma.

In 2010, he applied network theory when he spoke of “the trauma knot” (“Trauma”), using the network term “knot” as a metaphor for the position of the concept of trauma in a web of

100 Other similarities between trauma and network narratives, that are not relevant for this study, include, for example, a “delayed” (Bordwell 199) or “belated” (Luckhurst, Trauma 91–92) exposition.

discourses from different disciplines. Drawing on Latour’s definition of any scientific concept as

“a very tight knot at the center of a net” (Latour, Pandora 106), Luckhurst gave an explanation of his concept of trauma as knot, which aimed at showing why trauma is often so hard to grasp:

In this model, trauma is a nodal point, a switching centre that is at once an over-determined scientific concept, developed from physiology, neurology and psychiatry, and economic and legal question of causation and responsibility, an historic emanation from industrial modernity and risk society, and a site of political advocacy for heterogeneous alliances of victims and advocates, experts and amateurs. This explains the difficulty in unpicking the full meanings impacted in the term and the unpredictable routes through which is has been disseminated in contemporary Western culture. (“Trauma” 203)

Having stated that the concept of trauma should be considered a knot in a web of different discourses which all influence its meanings and applications, Luckhurst did not probe further, however. He did not consider structural similarities between psychological/cultural trauma and networks as defined by network theory. He also did not study how network theory could be of use in the analysis of trauma and especially of representations of trauma.

Another concept which combines network and trauma concepts tentatively was developed by Steve J. Stern in his study of Chilean memory practices during and after Pinochet’s dictatorship. In his trilogy, published between 2004 and 2010, Stern uses the term “memory knot,” which he explains as follows: “Expressed theoretically: memory knots are sites of society, place, and time so bothersome, insistent, or conflictive that they move human beings, at least temporarily, beyond the homo habitus postulated by anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu.

Expressed colloquially: memory knots are sites where the social body screams” (Stern, Remembering 121). In this quote, Stern uses several expressions which imply that the memories he alludes to are indeed traumatic: “bothersome” as well as “insistent” can be read as alluding to the haunting quality often attributed to trauma. The “screams” of the “social body” further imply traumatic experience by evoking bodily pain and wounds. Stern’s explanation of the bodily side of his metaphor further underlines this point:

The idea of a memory knot is a metaphor inspired by the human body. Consider a knot in the stomach when one is nervous, a lump in the throat when one is moved, and nerve-and-muscle mass that spasms and cries out for relief. Such bodily events break the ‘normal’ flow of everyday life and habit . . ..

Memory knots on the social body also interrupt the normal flow of ‘unthinking’ reflexes and habits. They force charged issues of memory and forgetfulness into a public domain.

They make claims or cause problems that heighten attention and consciousness, thereby unsettling reflexive everyday habits and euphemisms that foster numbing. (Stern, Remembering 120)

In this quote, Stern emphasizes the unsettling and disrupting quality of the memories he deals with in his study. Moreover, memory knots are characterized by the unexpected reappearance of repressed memories which demand attention in the public sphere. Also the mix of bodily and psychic reactions brings to mind the original meaning of the term “trauma”, namely wound, its application for mental as well as bodily injuries, and the inseparability of physical and psychological aspects in various accepted definitions of trauma (Varvin 164; Luckhurst,

“Trauma” 192; Mehnert 44). Stern’s main example in this context is torture,¹⁰¹ a textbook example of traumatizing experiences since it impresses itself upon body and psyche.¹⁰² Only near the end of his remarks on memory knots, he draws an explicit line to trauma:

Memory knots on the social body organize and demand cultural attention to a charged historical trauma or turning point – an experience profoundly important to at least one or two still living generations, and in some way recognized as decisive by those who have followed them (Remembering 130).

Stern introduces the concept of memory knots in order to “trace the making of influential memory frameworks” (Reckoning 10). While it has become clear that the memories which are knotted are mostly traumatic, the concept is linked to network theory by use of the word “knot”

and its implicated function as point of heightened (mnemonic) activity in which a number of different memories are connected. Stern explains that those “specific social groups, networks, and leaders who are sufficiently motivated to organize and insist on memory constitute troublesome ‘knots’ on the social body” (Remembering 120). Hence, Stern, too, is not interested in analyzing the similarities or fruitful overlaps between network and trauma theory and especially not with regard to representations of trauma.

The notion of ‘memory knots’ appears also in some of Rothberg’s theoretical and methodological considerations, especially in his 2010 introduction to Noeuds de mémoire:

Multidirectional Memory in Postwar French and Francophone Culture. Rothberg does not refer to Stern, however, and he postulates a concept which he calls, with reference to Pierre Nora’s lieux de mémoire, “noeuds de mémoire”. His – apparently deliberately vague – attempts at

101 “Torture houses” also figure as example of geographical sites of memory knots (Stern, Remembering 123).

102 The psychic consequences typical of torture, which Edward Peters (Folter) lists, overlap for the most part with the symptoms typically attributed to PTSD, such as depression, nightmares, insomnia, restlessness, disturbed ability to communicate, and disturbed social relations (222-3), for example.

defining noeuds de mémoire exemplify that some approaches use network and trauma theory to illustrate other concepts:

A project oriented around noeuds de mémoire . . . makes no assumptions about the content of communities or their memories. Rather, it suggests that ‘knotted’ in all places and [sic] acts of memory are rhizomatic networks of temporality and cultural reference that exceed attempts at territorialization (whether at the local or national level) and identitarian reduction. (Rothberg, “Introduction” 7)

Noeuds de mémoire as we conceive them here are not static conglomerations of heterogeneous elements. As James Young and others have taught us, sites of memory do not remember by themselves – they require the active agency of individuals and publics.

(“Introduction” 8)

In the two quotes, speaking of “agency” and the openness of the network, for example, Rothberg relies heavily on network terminology to illustrate his point of memories being interlaced. Similarly, “rhizomatic” refers to Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s concept of the rhizome, which emphasizes, much like network theory, the interconnectedness of non-hierarchical elements, the constant change and renewal of the connections as well as the unpredictability of the outcome of these connections. Rothberg’s approach resembles Stern’s in that it is above all concerned with the workings of memory in a more general sense, while conceding that trauma always plays an important role in analyses of memory: “Neither sites nor knots of memory are necessarily limited to the evocation of trauma, yet as LaCapra suggests in his response to Nora, traumatic histories are often at stake in modern modes of remembrance, even if those modes sometimes disavow rupture” (“Introduction” 210). In a more recent article, Rothberg partly follows Luckhurst’s thesis when he states that “the different sites of trauma – as well as the different sites of trauma theory – are linked in networks of causality, feedback, and mediation that require a more sophisticated tracing of knots and assemblages of violence than early work on trauma provided” (“Preface” 17).¹⁰³ Even if the approach stipulated in this quote exceeds Luckhurst’s in that it does not only consider trauma theory as part of a network but also the site of trauma itself, it does not, however, come closer to an analytical application of network theory in trauma studies or vice versa than the aforementioned approaches. Hence, all three approaches by Luckhurst, Stern, and Rothberg do not consider how network theory could be of use in the analysis of trauma and especially of representations of trauma.

103 Other scholars who adopted Luckhurst’s idea include Buelens et al.; Rothe.

Closest to a practical application of network thinking on representations of trauma come Neil Narine’s studies of what he calls “Global Network Films”. These films, like Crash or Babel, are network narratives in Narine’s understanding because their “narrative centrally or allegorically dramatizes a social network” (214), and the protagonist “investigates and unearths a complex set of global relations in which s/he is implicated” (214). Even though he does not focus on representations of trauma in his analyses, trauma reoccurs again and again in Narine’s study since another feature of this film genre is that “a naïve Western protagonist’s sense of isolation is ruptured by a traumatic event or revelation” (214). For Narine, network narratives and trauma are inherently linked because network narratives deal with the problems of capitalism and globalization and thus transport images and knowledge of trauma (213).

Consequently, “Global Network Films” “challenge the meta-discourses of transnational flows, connectedness, and harmonious networked relations by embracing these logics in order to examine the trauma, impotence, mis-communication, and alienation that networks can produce” (223).¹⁰⁴ Of special significance for this paper is Narine’s suggestion that trauma not only motivates the action of these films but functions also as a connection in the underlying networks:

In these films, a traumatic event or discovery typically shatters a Western protagonist’s ordered world, connecting multifarious people and motivating their various journeys through the narrative action. Networks thus emerge where there appeared to be none before, and discrete agents find themselves connected (213).

The relations between networks, globalization and trauma are even more complex according to Narine. On the meta-level of international discourses on trauma, the global circulation of films which make use of network narratives to make visible traumatic experiences can “centralize these traumas at the heart of American (and global) popular culture and its discussions, enabling even the most ignorant among us to begin the work of making sense of our relation to migrant oil workers, child laborers, and Islamic militants” (Narine 224). Network narratives of trauma, then, are at the same time part of (cultural) globalization’s processes and can contribute to a critique of those same and other processes. The results of Narine’s film analyses thus link trauma, features of globalization and network narratives in several ways: first,

104 Moreover, the films Narine discusses “dramatize and interrogate how suffering can proliferate as transnational trading networks metastasise” ((211)) and “their relatively new ‘multi-plot’ grammar … aptly envisions and

‘cognitively maps’ the intertwining lives enrolled in these networks” ((211)).

Narine states that network narratives are the most suitable mode of representing globalization since globalization follows network logic. Second, globalization, as prime example of a network, causes traumatization which can best be disclosed in network narratives. Third, trauma is often the driving force of network narratives. Fourth, the global circulation of network narratives in film directs attention to the traumas underlying globalization which link people from different parts of the world.

Closest to considering the relationship between network theory and the representation of one specific collective trauma comes Schober, who focuses in her article on Let the Great World Spin on McCann’s use of the network for “offering an alternative conception of experiencing and dealing with contemporary reality after the events of 9/11” (392). This alternative conception is, according to Schober, based on a positive experience of being part of a network, of being connected to others, which offers stability and security (397). I agree with Schober that the novel does not succumb to typical postmodern fears of “being trapped inside a system” (Schober 387). Instead, “[t]he idea of network offers a counter-narrative to the notion of fragmentation and collapse, invoking a vision of an underlying structure which, in its creative potential, defies any complete annihilation” (Schober 401). Moreover, in Schober’s argument, memory and network become intertwined since, in her view, in Let the Great World Spin memory is conceived of as a network “connecting to past, present, and future” (399).

While Schober is certainly right in her analysis of McCann’s approach to 9/11 and of his memory concept, she does not, however, consider the other traumas present in the novel and does hence not explain how networks play a role in the juxtaposed representation of several collective historical traumas.

In conclusion, even though networks have played a role in the novel since at least the 19th century, as Bordwell has shown, and despite the commonalities between the two concepts I have outlined above, network theory has so far not been applied explicitly and consistently to analyze trauma representations. However, especially with regard to novels depicting several historical traumas, bringing together network and trauma theory promises to be very productive.