In gaining an instrumental part, becoming a fashion, the victimhood theme has drawn attention to its fascinatory and manipulative aspects, and has asked for a critical reconsideration.
This volume makes note of an attempt to sustain a conversation about changes in the ways the processes of victimization are written out and comprehended. The contributors aim to expose some recent instances and modalities of cultural and political constructions of victimhood in various parts of the world. Our concern with the overlapping areas of victimhood and rhetoric points to the ambiguous manner in which language and images thread their way into the critical discourses of today, and even devise a vicious reversal of the victimized/victimizer positions.
Although we ask: can the victim’s real ever be fully represented?, we keep holding on the simple assurance that only an attempt at representation of the real in an actual performance can bring us closer to the victimizing event, make us grasp its other contested constructions and foresee the materiality of the effects of its linguistic implications.
We try to suggest a comparative approach that would link different experiences of victimization, possibly enabling a cognitive exchange, and emphasize the necessity of raising the writers’ and readers’ awareness of the narrative consequences of victimizing processes and the policies following on from them.
