How trauma stories from elsewhere can help us through the pandemic

A woman wearing a mask and reading a book

By Otaiba Ahsan

Reading about how other nations have dealt with past trauma may help us handle pandemic anxiety here in Canada, say instructors in U of G’s College of Arts.

Drs. Gordana Yovanovich, Pablo Ramirez and Joubert Satyre are working with students on a collection of essays that show how Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx literatures shape the role and nature of community during traumatic experiences such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We believe there are many parallels between experiences the general public is facing during this pandemic and character experiences in various Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx works of literature,” says Yovanovich, a professor in the School of Languages and Literatures (SOLAL). “There is a lot of valuable information from different writing pieces that can be applied to how we deal with this pandemic.”

Ramirez is an instructor in the School of English and Theatre Studies, and Satyre works in SOLAL.

For this project, the researchers have read novels and newspapers, followed social media and used their own experiences. They compared those stories with moments in history when communities had to deal with similarly threatening experiences.

The students’ writing addresses wide-ranging topics, including how virtual communities have assisted women affected by domestic violence, how communities are helping migrants during the pandemic and how women have taken on greater roles as caregivers during COVID-19.

The collection is intended for undergraduate and graduate students, although team members think it will also help general readers cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We pay attention mostly to the body and ignore the spirit,” says Yovanovich. “But spiritual strength is very important in dealing with traumatic experiences, such as the one brought to us by the pandemic, and I feel that our work will be able to help deal with this stress in some capacity.”

This project started in March 2020 and was conducted mostly in Ontario. One researcher studied the impact of COVID-19 on Venezuelan migrant communities in Colombia.

Team members plan to publish their work as a collection in the journal Memory, Identity and Community. They will also speak at a U of G conference held by the Latin American and Caribbean studies program.

This research is funded by the University of Guelph COVID-19 Research Development and Catalyst Fund.