Citation

Uehara ES, Farris M, Morelli PT, Ishisaka A. Cult. Med. Psychiatry 2001; 25(1): 29-61.

Affiliation

University of Washington, Seattle, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2001, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

11270665

Abstract

If "narrative" implies a form of discourse in which sequenced events are meaningfully connected, an "anti-narrative" is a chaotic discourse form "of time without sequence, telling without mediation, and speaking about oneself without being fully able to reflect on oneself" (Frank 1995: 98). This paper examines narratives and anti-narratives in the oral discourses of survivors of the Cambodian killing fields. Through an extended analysis of two cases, we demonstrate the internal logic and "eloquence" of anti-narratives--i.e., the ways in which anti-narrative patterns vividly express and reveal a survivor's complex and continuing experience of atrocity.

Language: en