Pervasive & Problematic: Trauma in the Australian Context

Pervasive & Problematic: Trauma in the Australian Context

N20240605: Pervasive and problematic: editing trauma in the Australian context

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2024) reports that 75 percent of Australians have experienced a traumatic event in their life, and 62–68 percent of young people have experienced at least one event by age 17. Despite the prevalence and pervasiveness of trauma experience, data collected as part of Camilla Cripps’s research into the interrelation of trauma and editing practice suggests that few Australian editors can articulate an understanding of the different forms of trauma, or how the effects of these traumas can manifest in authors, readers or the editors themselves. This is particularly concerning in the Australian context, given our coloniser history, our displaced First Nations, and our extremes of environment and weather.

Recognising the local canon as being (re)assembled from a collection of diverse and ever-evolving texts on what it means to be Australian, Camilla invites you to join her for a brief overview of the insidious nature of collective trauma in an Australian context and how these trauma experiences can manifest in behaviours and reactions. Camilla will describe some of the potential adverse consequences of trauma exposure in editing professionals, and how principles of trauma-informed practice can assist editors to safely and responsibly address, and actively pre-empt, the adverse consequences of working with traumatic narratives and traumatised authors, and through their own trauma histories.

There are no files associated with this item.