ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explains into the field by developing survivor-to-survivor storytelling projects that, for many participants, became effective spurs to emotional healing. He describes the project’s methods and precepts as evidence for the assertion that our greatest opportunity for enhancing the emotional health of disaster survivors worldwide lies in their own, shared spoken words. Soldiers in combat, jailed prisoners, cancer patients, stigmatized minorities, or disaster victims form intense communal bonds, creating a common expressive vocabulary to confront and transcend adversity. In studying large-scale disasters from the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake to Hurricane Katrina, Solnit identifies the tendency, long recognized by folklorists and historians, for cultural outsiders and the media to blame the poorest, most vulnerable, and stigmatized victims for the disaster. The author focuses a greater degree of community and solidarity among participants than he had seen in any earlier context.
