Nungesser, Frithjof
The creativity of coping: Vulnerability, resistance, and gender in two modern torture institutions
In this paper, I will look into the relationship between vulnerability, resistance, and gender in the context of torture. The empirical material is taken from two modern torture institutions: US torture in the context of the “war on terror” (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo) and torture practices in Chinese “re-education camps” (Masanjia). Based on these two cases, I will, first, identify six channels of vulnerability: Torture practices, it is argued, aim at undermining bodily control, the “territories of the self” (Goffman), and the personal status; furthermore, they attack the social embeddedness, the identity-constitutive values, as well as the horizons of expectation of the victims. Second, I will discuss the creative coping practices that can be identified in reports of (former) inmates of the two torture complexes. As will be shown, these practices can be understood as innovative attempts to defend the six channels of vulnerability. Third, I will argue that both the specific forms of vulnerability and the strategies of resistance are linked to the gender of the inmates. More specifically, it will be shown how the patterns of violence against and coping practices of Muslim men in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo differ from the patterns that can be identified in the case of Masanjia labor camp where female inmates (mostly Falun Gong practitioners) are “re-educated”.
Frithjof Nungesser (Dr. phil.) is assistant professor (Universitätsassistent) at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Graz. His main research interests are social theory, cultural sociology, the sociology of violence, and the history of sociology. Selected publications: “Die Vielfalt der Verletzbarkeit und die Ambivalenz der Sensibilität”, Zeitschrift für Theoretische Soziologie (ZTS), 2019, 8(1), pp. 24-37; “The Evolution of Pragmatism. On the Scientific Background of the Pragmatist Conception of History, Action, and Sociality”, in: European Journal of Sociology, 2017, 58(2), pp. 327-367; “Ein pleonastisches Oxymoron. Konstruktionsprobleme von Pierre Bourdieus Schlüsselkonzept der symbolischen Gewalt”, in: Berliner Journal für Soziologie, 2017, 27(1), pp. 7-33.
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