Broadly, my research looks at the psycho-social sequela of colonial and state violence, namely the U.S.- backed civil war in El Salvador (1980-1992). The war left irreparable wounds among the survivors. War trauma travels intergenerationally and it is felt and expressed differently among the children of the survivors.
I used the ERI/PS2 fellowship, to (1) compensate war survivors and their children for their participation in a series of arts-based workshops and (2) interview Salvadoran psychologists about their analysis of war trauma through the lens of liberation psychology. Their analysis was important for re-defining my theoretical frameworks. All of the participants were compensated for their time and emotional labor.
Healing-centered & Trauma-Informed Arts-Based Workshops
“Our radical imagination is a tool for
decolonization, for reclaiming our
right to shape our lived reality.”
–Adrienne Maree Brown
Being trauma-informed is not enough when working with war survivors. In fact, a healing-centered approach is necessary because it generates the conditions for talking about traumatic events and memories in ways that are oriented toward the practical healing of those wounds. This is the reason why it was important to offer a series of tangible resources such as the healing-centered creative writing workshops. The workshop series consisted of (1) A Poetry Workshop, (2) A “Letter To My Younger Self” Workshop, and (3) a Speculative/Science Fiction Workshop.
Each workshop integrated elements of culturally-sensitive psychological praxis, such as inviting participants to reflect on how the elements (earth, wind, fire, water) can help them process, move, and transmute their traumas into something creative, joyful, imaginative, and restorative. Below is an example of a poem and speculative fiction story that were written by an adult child of war survivors.
Author
Joanna Beltrán Girón
PS2 Public Research Fellow
Joanna Beltrán Girón‘s (she/they) activist research centers the wisdom of Salvadoran survivors of the U.S.-backed war who are at the forefront of historical memory activism through the use of various storytelling techniques such as body maps, embroideries, archives, testimonies, poetry, & speculative fiction.