| This project presents the urgency in articulating the grounds of freedom that are harmed in violence toward women, reflected in trauma. The terms of freedom draw from an Arendtian understanding of the ontological prerequisite of freedom, namely plurality or what I call the relational grounds of freedom. To this extent, trauma from violence represents a breach in the intersubjective web of relations that make up the world. Therefore, the exploitation of the plural terms of our existence harms our freedom, our ability to appear, to act, to move, to judge. Consequently, freedom is related to the social categories of representation of women that mediate the possibility of freedom, indicating the underlying codification of sexism ubiquitous in violence to women. Central discussions within the project feature these overarching Arendtian ideas coupled with a critique of the predominant frames of trauma from violence that fail to account for the world loss deeply implicated in the self-crisis that follows violence and underlies various symptomatic features of trauma. Therefore, part of the dissertation seeks to reframe the terms of trauma to that of freedom and away from merely technocratic medical and psychical models of illness and pathology. Further, the dissertation considers issues in advocating for women traumatized by violence, featuring the reinstitution of the originating political purposes and practices of early shelters and clinics. |
