Not Being Able to Speak Is Torture: Performing Listening to Painful Narratives

Abstract

Abstract This Note discusses a new creative approach to intervene in the interaction between survivors who contribute their memories of a painful past and the public they want to reach. It proposes that by turning both the narrator and the public into performers of listening, they are placed in a relational context that offers an alternative space in which victims’ and the public’s memories, emotions and thoughts in a transitional context can be worked through. The method thereby corrects the notion of the public as a disembodied, virtual totality underlying state-led transitional justice institutions.