A Collective Alienation Rumors have a profound effect on human interaction, and can cause stressful isolation of certain groups. The powerful effects of rumors in post-trauma societies is revealed in the articles, Narratives of Uncertainty: The Affective Force of Child-Trafficking Rumors in Postdisaster Aceh, Indonesia by Annemarie Samuels and Gendered War and Rumors of Saddam Hussein in Uganda by Sverker Finnström. Although mere stories or potentially false statements, rumors reveal the sociohistorical realities of certain areas by reflecting a collective sentiment of alienation of the people in the area. In her article, Samuels (2015) discusses the rumors that arose after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia, and the effects and affects of those rumors. After the tsunami, there was a nationwide anxiety, which caused the circulation of rumors that claimed that children who were separated from their families during the tsunami were taken out of the country (Samuels 2015). Samuels focuses on mothers, those who especially fell victim to the horrors felt from the child trafficking rumors, not knowing whether their daughters were still alive or not. Some became utterly hopeless; some fell in denial, lying to themselves about what they believed; most were forced to simply let it go and find ways to cope (Samuels 2015). All of them, however, felt a deep sense of alienation because these rumors had immobilizing effects; people who were not directly affected by these rumors eventually brushed them off as a lost cause, leaving the poor mothers to deal with their sorrow by themselves (Samuels 2015). In Finnström’s article, he focuses on the rumors that appeared from social unrest and wartime violence in Acholiland during a civil war in northern Uganda (Finnström 2009). The rumor claimed that the central government of Uganda was trying to wipe out the Acholi in a slow genocide by purposely spreading onto them fatal diseases such as HIV and Ebola (Finnström 2009). This led to an alienation from the rest of Uganda felt by the Acholi people, but even more so for a group within the Acholi community: Acholi women (Finnström 2009). Due to the organization of Acholi society being of patrilineal descent, there exists a gender hierarchy, with women situated at the bottom (Finnström 2009). This makes it easy to blame women for anything that goes wrong, which resulted in gendered rumors during this time of stress and frenzy (Finnström 2009). The gendered rumor that emerged was that the diseases came because of the women (Finnström 2009). In Acholi patriarchy, women are considered the outsiders of the family as they marry into the husband’s patrilineage (Finnström 2009). Because women are seen as the “door of entry to the group” (Douglas 1966:126), it could be interpreted that Ugandan army soldiers were able to penetrate into Acholi civilization via the women, which happened literally, when the HIV-infected soldiers raped Acholi women (Finnström 2009). The gendered violence and rumors alienated Acholi women not only from the country of Uganda, but also from within their own community (Finnström 2009). Both articles refer
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In the first article, the majority of the Acehnese people responded with compassion toward the Acehnese mothers who had lost their children (Samuels 2015). However, after years and years of having no evidence, and not having many children return to Aceh once they were old enough, the majority of the Acehnese people started reacting with frustration toward the mothers who continued to have hope and expected people to continue searching for the lost children (Samuels 2015). This led to an even more deepened feeling of alienation by the mothers because they were now being urged to give up hope (Samuels 2015). Likewise, Lisa Archuleta, a mother who had lost her daughter, Michelle, to heroin overdose, in The Pastoral Clinic, was met with frustration by the patients at Nuevo Dia (Garcia 2007). As with the women in Aceh, Lisa was also initially met with compassion, but later with hostility because the others had grown tired of listening to her grieving, and wanted a chance to let out their own grievances (Garcia 2007). This furthered Lisa’s alienation from the patients at the clinic, which prompted her to try to find another form of social belonging by having private conversations with Angela Garcia (Garcia
In the first article, the majority of the Acehnese people responded with compassion toward the Acehnese mothers who had lost their children (Samuels 2015). However, after years and years of having no evidence, and not having many children return to Aceh once they were old enough, the majority of the Acehnese people started reacting with frustration toward the mothers who continued to have hope and expected people to continue searching for the lost children (Samuels 2015). This led to an even more deepened feeling of alienation by the mothers because they were now being urged to give up hope (Samuels 2015). Likewise, Lisa Archuleta, a mother who had lost her daughter, Michelle, to heroin overdose, in The Pastoral Clinic, was met with frustration by the patients at Nuevo Dia (Garcia 2007). As with the women in Aceh, Lisa was also initially met with compassion, but later with hostility because the others had grown tired of listening to her grieving, and wanted a chance to let out their own grievances (Garcia 2007). This furthered Lisa’s alienation from the patients at the clinic, which prompted her to try to find another form of social belonging by having private conversations with Angela Garcia (Garcia