Wounded

Abstract

Most gunshot victims do not die. In some estimates, 80 percent live to see another day. Yet social scientists continue to focus on gun homicide. What happens to individuals who get shot and survive? How do they experience life after the shooting? This article examines how gunshot injuries transform the lives of victims. In practical ways, gunshot injuries complicate sleeping, eating, working, and other previously taken-for-granted activities. These disruptions also have much larger existential significance to victims. Indeed, daily experiences with a wounded body become subjective reminders that individuals are no longer who they used to be. Ironically, in some interactions, being wounded becomes attractive and advantageous to victims. Together, these themes illustrate the need for more sustained ethnographic work on the foreground of violent crime victimization.