In the aftermath of atrocities: research on the intergenerational transmission of trauma and violence

This chapter explores how, over time, scientific research has dealt with questions about effects of mass atrocity violence on people born after the violence. It shows that the interdisciplinary field of scholarship on the intergenerational transmission of violence and trauma has been growing and suggests important themes in emerging scholarship. The roots of the field are traced to clinical work with Holocaust descendants in the 1960s. Holocaust offspring appeared to suffer from psychopathological problems that until then could only be attributed to personal exposure to violence. Over the past two decades, attention has broadened to include various mass atrocity violence contexts and diverse disciplinary perspectives. The new orientations and perspectives are promising, yet further empirical and conceptual work is needed, also in order to understand when transmission does not occur and prevent legacies of mass atrocity violence impacting on new violence.