THE RING-SHAPED ISLAND:
A New Metaphor for Speaking of Trauma
8. Social and Clinical Activity and the Ring-Shaped Island
The meanings of social and clinical activity can be described as creating RSIs, defying gravity and wind, and lowering the water level so that the number of marginalized and oppressed who surmount the island and speak out about their trauma would increase and as a consequence their silenced voices would be audible.
At the beginning, a small tip of an atoll emerges. As the water level drops, there appear more such atolls. As the water level drops further, a ring of atolls (Figure 5) becomes visible. Soon the gaps between the atolls are linked to form land. This is still a small atoll island, but it is the birth of a RSI (Figure 6). If the water level drops farther, the land will become firm and broad, forming a substantial RSI (Figure 1). We transform a phenomenon into a social issue by making it visible as a public concern. Here is an example.
Figure 5. Ring of atolls.
Figure 6. Birth of a Ring-Shaped Island.
Once, a former military ‘comfort woman’ spoke out. There might have been other women like her who spoke out before her, but their voices were engulfed by the high waves.
Most others were killed, died premature deaths from ill health, or could not give voice to anything because they had been isolated, driven into feelings of shame.
Partly because of social change that made gender discrimination, human and women’s rights issues recognizable, the water level surrounding the former ‘comfort women’ dropped, and some of their faint voices were heard before being swallowed by the waves.
Encouraged by this, there appeared many more women who had shared the same experience. Echoing this, the number of supporters increased. Partly through internet technology, the circle of support was widened to reach around the globe (Stetz & Bonnie, 2001).
The water level dropped much farther, allowing the emergence of a large RSI of the former military ‘comfort women’ issue.
Issues of sexual harassment and domestic violence went through a similar process of transformation[i].
At first, the victimized were isolated. Each had been driven into thinking that s/he was the only one experiencing such injury and the one to be blamed. But those voicing resistance appeared. The first vocal one may have encountered fierce accusations and, weighted down by them, may have sunk into the inner sea again.
But those who spoke up increased one by one, and recognized each other’s existence. Through naming what happened as ‘sexual harassment’ or ‘domestic violence,’ they gained a way of building links with one another (Yoshihama & Sorenson, 1994).
There emerged those who sued the perpetrators, published their experiences (such as the memoir of the plaintiff in the first sexual harassment case in Japan (Haruno, 2001) ), formed self-help groups, supported plaintiffs in court cases, and managed shelters.
All together they created a solid RSI.
But once the guard is down, the water level rises. Gravity pulls things down and the wind blows into the inner sea those who are inside the ridge; those who are outside are tossed into the outer sea.
If all standing on the island disappear, it is a victory for the perpetrators.
If all goes silent and forgotten, it is the perfect crime. It is no wonder that the victimized and their supporters are divided, isolated, exhausted, and forced to give up.
We must be alert and resist the gravity, wind and waves that divide us, isolate us and exhaust us. ‘Emotional literacy’ that recognizes the harshness of the gravity and senses the complexity of the wind is essential to prevent people from falling from the RSI into the sea.
We also need to accept our own limitations and be flexible, to avoid being caught up in demanding questions and criticisms from others or from within oneself, as I noted at the outset.
Too many people operate under the assumptions of the conical island model, that those who are nearer to the center of a traumatic incident have more right to speak, should and can speak, or must already be speaking about it.
This is the very reason why questions such as, ‘Can a survivor speak for the dead?’ ‘Can one lightly injured speak with more authority than one gravely injured?’ or ‘Can a non-survivor represent a survivor?’ are asked.
Post-colonialist theory has taught us to question penetratingly the positionality of a storyteller, and that this is necessary to reveal the power and bias of a majority claiming to exercise neutral and universal judgment.
However, born out of this deep questioning also is the shallow misunderstanding that no one but the survivor in question can speak about her/his experience. It is often true that those who speak for others deprive them of voice.
But if supporters, or those who can speak for those affected by an atrocity, keep silent or leave the scene and become mere bystanders because of fear of being criticized[ii], this also leads to depriving the most affected of their voices.
More positive would be to acknowledge the fact that there is a hole of silence, but also a space surrounding the hole where survivors and their supporters can speak.
We can then pose concrete questions: how the issue is formulated; how big the inner sea is and who are there; how wide and high a TI is formed; where a certain person positions her/himself in the island; what kind of speech s/he has been uttering or not; in which range of people on the island does this person’s utterance fit; how aware is this person of others on the same island but in different positions; and so on.
Researchers and academics[iii] can also play a practical role in the process of RSI formation; to prepare a trigger for a RSI to emerge from the sea (e.g.for example, finding hidden historical material); to create a new concept such as ‘sexual harassment’ and to draw a picture of a RSI from a fresh viewpoint; to assess and measure the width and depth of the inner sea (for example,e.g. making a list of the names of the ‘disappeared’); to bring out and disseminate information to the outer sea about those who are crawling on the inner slope; to pass information from outside or from above to those who are on the inner slope (for example,e.g. giving statistics on rape to an isolated rape survivor); to make solid and uphold the basis of the island (for example,e.g. providing good medical care and a safe place to survivors); to lower the water level (for example,e.g. giving public lectures for general audiences) and so on.
There are variations of these roles depending on academic discipline or areas of specialty and these roles can be abused in ways that prevent a RSI from forming.
[i] Regarding the change in water level on the issue of domestic violence in Japan, see (-----, 2002).
[ii] The question of positionality is usually posed from the victimized standing on the inner slope to their supporters on the outer slope of the TI. The question cannot be addressed to the people in the outer sea (because they do not listen), and it can push supporters into the outer sea.
[iii] Three researchers’ positions can be considered: a “helicopter” position for an etic kind of research; a fieldworker position for an emic kind of research emphasizing participatory observation as if to see the world from the ground level; and a “survivor researcher” position in which the victimized, or the actor who is the focus itself of the research, studies her/his own issue by looking at it from the inner sea and the inner slope. “Survivor research” involving post-colonialism, feminism, disability studies can be both liberating and painful. For details, see (-----, 2007)