3 - The Construction and Reconstruction of Survivor Identities

Summary

Chapter 3 explores survivors’ constructions of identity during and post enslavement. It is argued that the denial of personhood in slavery causes a destruction of identity, but that the giving of narrative plays a vital role in the reconstruction of identity. The chapter surveys the ways in which slavery strips individuals of their cultural, political and/or social identity leading to the formation of multiple identities in survival. Divorced from their past while at the same time defined by it, it reveals the way survivors identify as the child, the parent, the sibling, the survivor, the hero, the victim, and as activist. The chapter moves on to show that the giving of narrative is one means through which survivors can explore and re-sculpt their inner landscape and their external presence, reduce their feelings of shame, isolation and spectralisation, while at the same time acknowledging these multiple identities for themselves and to the audience.