Atrocity, the Trauma Narrative and the Victim-Subject

The first step on the road to the formation of the citizen-subject and the ‘person’ in the contemporary culture of HR is the subject-making by the victim through a traumatic narrative. Paul Gready summarizes the ‘methodology’ of HR discourse this way:

It identifies a victim, a violator or perpetrator, and a form of redress. Its trademark methodology is naming and shaming. This approach informs the cast or characters of the HR narrative, the template for their stories and the nature of their (largely adversarial) relationships

(2010: 182).