The preceding sections have made the case that there are universal aspects of the biological and psychological response to trauma. A comprehensive understanding of trauma, however, must explore how collective cultural meanings articulate with the individual psychological and biological responses identified through neuroscience and clinical research. This is true for individual idiosyncratic experiences no less than the large-scale social catastrophes of genocide and war that are the concern of the many of the chapters in this section.

This section presents reflections on the meanings of trauma from anthropological perspectives. The contributors represent the subfields of physical, psychological, and cultural anthropology. They examine the social construction of our concepts of trauma, its political and rhetorical uses, and the role of social and cultural knowledge and practice in both individual and collective responses to violence.

Physical anthropology is concerned with integrating an evolutionary understanding of biology with an appreciation of humans as fundamentally cultural beings. The task of the psychological anthropologist is to understand the influence of culture on the dynamics of individual experience (and the emergence of cultural phenomena through the interaction of individuals). A central tenet of psychological anthropology holds that individual meaning has a collective dimension that resides in shared knowledge, institutions, and practices. Hence, individual experience cannot be reduced to individual cognition or psychodynamics, but requires close attention to the cultural and historical contexts of experience. This is equally true of trauma and its aftermath.