The unsaid and the unheard: acknowledgement, accountability and recognition in the face of silence

Frosh, Stephen (2021) The unsaid and the unheard: acknowledgement, accountability and recognition in the face of silence. In: Murray, A. and Durrheim, K. (eds.) Qualitative Studies of Silence. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 254-269. ISBN 9781108345552.

Abstract

There are things that can’t be said, things that lay waiting to be said but are not, and things that we refuse to say. The literature on trauma emphasises the impossibility of speech under some circumstances, notably where something has happened that overwhelms the possibility of symbolisation. This seems to be a real phenomenon, and it is a platitude of psychoanalysis that finding ways to put such unspeakable experiences into words is an important and necessary step on the way to psychic healing. We might add to that: it is a necessary step on the way to social healing too, as the silencing of social wrongs perpetuates suffering and oppression, and finding a voice is a way of challenging these continuities. But hard as speaking out may be, it is the failures of listening that really count, it is the difficulty that witnesses have when faced with the demand to listen to a testimony that either implicates them directly, or demands some kind of painful action in response; or possibly simply shows how hard it is to witness a suffering that cannot be remedied. This chapter explores these issues in relation to a mode of analysis that draws on psychoanalysis to explore how ‘traces’ of unspoken experiences haunt contemporary texts. Such ‘texts’ include personal accounts and cultural artefacts, and a key question that has to be faced is how to ‘read out’ from these in ways that are respectful and non-colonising, yet also formed out of a kind of identification that allows silenced voices to be heard.

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