ABSTRACT

In this chapter I explore two major themes in relation to memory and child sexual abuse, often overlooked in debates over how to assess recollections of abuse and their impact on adult life. The chapter discusses (1) how survivors develop a construct of their own sense of agency in the past and (2) the material contexts that shape such recollections. Drawing on interviews carried out with survivors, I show how agency in memory and material contexts are interconnected and thoroughly interdependent. Material contexts, I argue, contain symbolic, imagined and actual references to relationships that surround the individual (Reavey and Brown, in press).