{"id":105444,"date":"2017-01-26T17:29:08","date_gmt":"2017-01-26T22:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=105444"},"modified":"2017-11-03T14:27:14","modified_gmt":"2017-11-03T18:27:14","slug":"what-i-mean-when-i-say-negotiate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2017\/01\/26\/what-i-mean-when-i-say-negotiate\/","title":{"rendered":"What I Mean When I Say: \u2018Negotiate,\u2019 with Alex Dauge-Roth"},"content":{"rendered":"

A professional athlete negotiates a contract extension. A hiker negotiates difficult terrain.<\/p>\n

Professor of French and Francophone Studies Alexandre Dauge-Roth is known internationally for his research into the narratives of survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. When he uses the word \u201cnegotiate,\u201d he means this:<\/p>\n

“For the survivor of genocide or another traumatic experience, the meaning and memory of that experience has an ongoing resonance, or rather a haunting dissonance, that requires constant negotiation, which is triggered\u00a0by the cultural and political demands that define the present from which the traumatic past is re-envisioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more than a decade, Dauge-Roth and his students have traveled to Rwanda to interview survivors and hear their stories. This indirect act of \u201cbearing witness,\u201d he explains, is nevertheless a \u201cmutually transformative encounter for both survivor and interlocutor\u201d \u2014 one that demands an approach to\u00a0 testimony as a \u201csocial and cultural practice of negotiation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Alexandre<\/a>

Alexandre Dauge-Roth, associate professor of French and francophone studies, shown during a class. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

On the one hand, he continues, \u201csurvivors negotiate the possibility of having their trauma socially recognized and their present-day demands heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concept of negotiation \u201chighlights the fact that cultural and existential trauma requires an ongoing and demanding effort.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the other, \u201cwe \u2014 the listening community \u2014 must negotiate the historical place, cultural resonance, and political meaning we are willing to give to a highly disturbing experience that embodies the transgression of all ethical norms and the collapse of the social bond.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, the concept of negotiation \u201chighlights the fact that bearing witness to cultural and existential trauma requires an interruption, a demanding effort to listen, and an ongoing creativity. The meanings of experiences of pain and suffering are confined neither to a past experience nor to survivors alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

All testimonial encounters between survivors and their interlocutors engage \u201cmultiple views, expectations, trajectories, histories, dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, and all the relationships of power and knowledge that the cultural negotiation of a traumatic past entails within a mutually shared present.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Academic disciplines often assign particular and surprising meanings to common words. The series \u201cWhat I Mean When I Say\u201d explores those meanings.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alexandre Dauge-Roth researches the narratives of survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. When he uses the word \u201cnegotiate,\u201d what does he mean?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":91885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[711,11100,10116],"class_list":["post-105444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","tag-alexandre-dauge-roth","tag-french-and-francophone-studies","tag-what-i-mean-when-i-say"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105444"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106451,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105444\/revisions\/106451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}