Narratives of Trauma: Adolescent Refugees in West Philadelphia

Elizabeth B. Raposa, University of Pennsylvania
Serena S. Stein, University of Pennsylvania

2008-2009 Penn Humanities Forum on Change
Undergraduate Mellon Research Fellows

http://humanities.sas.upenn.edu/08-09/fellows_uhf.shtml

Abstract

Elizabeth B. Raposa, College '10, Comp Lit, Psychology

Serena S. Stein, College '09, Anthropology, Comp Lit

Trauma and Metamorphosis: The Narratives of African Refugees in Philadelphia (Joint Project)

Beyond the terror and trauma of conflict, adolescent refugees face numerous challenges when adapting to critical lifestyle changes in a new country, grappling with destabilized notions of self and world. This project draws on in-depth interviews and the literature of refugee narratives to explore issues of individual identity, as well as shared patterns of experience among young adult refugees currently living in West Philadelphia. Exposure to violence and trauma organizes thought along dichotomies of past and present, homeland and country, and prior and possible selves. We engage the ways that traumatic events are narrated and incorporated into the sense of self, how refugee collectives are organized and interpreted, and, moreover, how exile and relocation constitute a transformative event.