Sexuality after War Rape: From Narrative to Embodied Research

This book examines the potential impact of rape survivors' traumatic experiences in post-conflict zones. With specific attention to given the experiences of women who were sexually abused during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, it addresses the sexuality of survivors, which has so far been inadequately researched, and challenges the stereotypical and victimized images and narrations that have so far prevailed in academic and public discourse about women survivors while exploring the effects of those narratives on the political, social and economic status of the survivors themselves. The book questions the processes of re-victimization that can follow fieldwork with survivors and introduces the theoretical and practical foundations of applied drama and community theatre as a research approach in this field, revealing its potential as a means of expressing a range of ethnographic, anthropological and case study research findings. Based on the narratives of advocates, scholars and different social stakeholders, together with new drama-based methodologies employed directly with survivors, this volume contests assumptions about the sexualities of survivors of sexual violence and revealing the emancipatory potential of testifying.