Invoking Solidarity and Engaged Listening in Publicly Active Work

This article explores publicly active graduate work that engages with survivors of violence as they become testimonial narrators. Drawing on challenges I faced in transcribing and contextualizing the testimonio of Jorge Velásquez, who narrates his experience with injustice in post-war Guatemala, this analysis addresses some of the tensions that emerge during textual interactions with violence narratives. I explore second-hand trauma, notions of pornography of violence, and the role of accountability in scholarly and public representations. Paralleling Jorge’s testimonial performance, I offer narrative strategies I employed in the process of transcription and ethnographic contextualization into a larger narrative about the lived experience of violence within a culture of impunity.