Entanglements of Trauma: Relationality and Toni Morrison's Home

Abstract

The conceptual field of trauma theory in postcolonial studies has from the start enabled the inclusion of interdisciplinary research, but postcolonial literary critics have long hesitated to develop innovative approaches to explore new areas for trauma theory. Now, however, there is a widespread understanding that a broader, interdisciplinary, comparative, and relational approach to trauma will open ways of accommodating not only culture-specific, but also broader ethical and political registers of trauma research for postcolonial studies. This relational, non-oppositional approach is what this article explores and demonstrates in an analysis of Toni Morrison’s novel Home (2012). It argues that Morrison addresses, absorbs and transforms pre-existing discourses on trauma and race, contributing to conceptualizations of modes of healing and redress not currently privileged in cultural trauma theory.