Among us “Third World Women”, Trauma, Colonialism and Political Organization

Abstract

This chapter proposes to analyse the centrality of trauma in the production of ties of solidarity and political organizing among women survivors of State violence, experienced inside and outside prison walls. Written in first person by both a Brazilian and a South-African woman, the paper proposes to consider trauma as a central element to understand solidarity, but also political organizing. Based on both of the authors’ experiences of mobility, the paper takes into account the centrality of trauma in colonial historiography.