COLLECTIVE TRAUMA OF COLONIALISM IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN SHORT STORIES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21831/litlit.v3i2.2257Keywords:
Collective trauma, postcolonial, Southeast Asian short stories, Kai EriksonAbstract
Although colonial rule in Southeast Asia has formally ended, sociocultural and psychological wounds persist. If left unaddressed, this trauma can hinder efforts toward regional cohesion, cultural resilience, and sustainable development. This study examines the representation of collective trauma caused by colonialism in Southeast Asian short stories. It draws on Kai Erikson’s concept of collective trauma, postcolonial theory, and Claudio Guillén’s theory of comparative literature. The method employed is systematic content analysis with context-based inference. The primary texts analyzed include: Recuerdos de Patay by Caroline S. Hau (Philippines), Variola by Iksaka Banu (Indonesia), Victoria and Her Kimono by M. Shanmughalingam (Malaysia), and The Interview by Gopal Baratham (Singapore). Data collection was carried out through close reading, note-taking, and analytical observation. The data were analyzed qualitatively using content analysis. The findings reveal various dimensions of postcolonial collective trauma portrayed in the stories, including social disintegration, psychological dislocation, the erosion of communal bonds, intergenerational transmission of trauma, collective identity as victims, and transformations of meaning systems. These findings suggest that literature serves not only as a witness to historical wounds but also as a cultural space for negotiating memory, identity, and healing. In the Southeast Asian context, social healing is essential in shaping regional identity through the understanding of literature and culture.
Downloads
References
Abad, G. H. (Ed.). (1999). A habit of shores: Filipino poetry and verse from English, 60's to the 90's. University of the Philippines Press
Abdillah, N. (2023). A fictocritical narration of the complexity of nation-building in Malaysia. Kajian Malaysia, 41(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.21315/km2023.41.1.1
Abdillah, N. (2023). The roots of social trauma: Collective, cultural pain and its consequences. Society and Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.1177/21568693231159937
Al-Saidi, A. A. H. (2014). Post-colonialism literature the concept of self and the other in coetzee's waiting for the barbarians: An analytical approach. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 4(11), 2277-2284. https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.4.11.2277-2284
Anantama, B. S. M., & Widodo, S. T. (2021). Hybridity and mimicry in the novel pangeran dari timur Iksaka Banu’s work. International Journal of Multiculural and Multireligious Understanding, 8(9), 188–195. http://dx.doi.org/10.18415/ijmmu.v8i9.2984
Anderson, C. (2012). Subaltern lives. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139057034
Aung-Thwin, M. (1973). Editorial foreword. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 4(1), 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022463400016485
Avcı, Ç. (2024). Alienation in maryse condé’s le cœur à rire et pleurer. Çankaya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 18(1),1-13. https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.1389292
Axel, B. K. (2001). The nation's tortured body: Violence, representation, and the formation of a Sikh "diaspora." Duke University Press
Banu, Iksaka. 2019. Teh dan Pengkhianat. Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia
Baratham, G. (2014). Collected short stories. Marshall Cavendish Editions
Betsayda, M. (2021). Faith and facility: The role of the Catholic Church and English language in Filipino-Canadian integration [Master's thesis, University of Toronto]. TSpace. https://hdl.handle.net/1807/106855
Bolton, K. (2000). The sociolinguistics of Hong Kong and the space for Hong Kong English. World Englishes, 19(3), 265-285. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-971X.00179
Cabusao, J. (2019). Decolonization and Filipino American identity: Contested terrains. Kritika Kultura, (32), 88–115. https://journals.ateneo.edu/ojs/index.php/kk/article/view/2592
Casanova, F. (2017). The origins of the Philippine literary canon in Spanish. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 48(2), 219-239. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022463417000031
Chobanyuk, M. (2025). Postcolonial criticism: Literary aspect of Ukrainian literary studies. Slovo i Chas, (1), 45-60. https://doi.org/10.33608/0236-1477.2025.01.45-60
Coloma, R. S. (2013). Care of the postcolonial self: Cultivating nationalism in The Philippine Readers. Journal of Asian American Studies, 16(3), 309-339. https://doi.org/10.1353/jaas.2013.0028
Cruz, I. R. (Ed.). (2000). The best Philippine short stories of the twentieth century. Tahanan Books
Darsono, M. I. B., & Fahruddin. (2024). Environmental exploitation in the colonial period: An ecocritical analysis of Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Buru quartet. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 14(2), 512–520. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1402.24
Diaz, A. R. (2015). Entrapments of subjectivity: Colonialism and the postcolonial in Nick Joaquin’s Cave and Shadows. Humanities Diliman, 12(2), 1–25
Doran, C. (2003). Adventure tales, colonialism, and Alexander Montgomery's Australian perspective. Australian Literary Studies, 21(2), 132-143
Erikson, K. T. (1976). Everything in its path: Destruction of community in the Buffalo Creek flood. Simon and Schuster
Erikson, K. T. (1995). Notes on trauma and community. In A. Kaplan (Ed.), Trauma: Explorations in memory (pp. 183-199). Johns Hopkins University Press
Erikson, K. T. (2023). Everything in its path: Destruction of community in the Buffalo Creek flood (50th anniversary ed.). Simon and Schuster
Ertanto, B. (2022). Contested spaces: Entanglement of Chinese migration, gender discrimination, and colonial resistance in Olivia Hos' Working Woman. Journal of Language and Literature, 22(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.24071/joll.v22i1.3456
Esguerra, C. (2021). Linguistic resistance and counter-colonialism in Philippine short stories in English. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 57(3), 354-368. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2020.1840817
Espiritu, R.-R. (2020). The Philippine Refugee Processing Center: The relational displacements of Vietnamese refugees and the indigenous Aetas. Journal of Asian American Studies, 23(1), 31-58. https://doi.org/10.1353/jaas.2020.0002
Ezpeleta, A. (2020). Claudio guillén en harvard, génesis del comparatismo español. 1611: Revista de Historia de la Traducción, (14). https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_1611/rhdt.2020144064
Fanon, F. (2008). Black skin, white masks. Grove Press
Franek, L. (2014). Two personalities of comparative literary studies (claudio guillén and dionýz Ďurišin). World Literature Studies, 6(2), 18–30
Goings, A. (2023). Corporate colonialism, class, and conflict in southeastern Alaska's canneries. The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 22(1), 23-42. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537781422000356
Golding, D., & Kopsick, K. (2019). The colonial legacy in Cambridge assessment literature syllabi. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 55(6), 729-743. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2019.1664981
Guillén, C. (1993). The challenge of comparative literature. Harvard University Press
Hajra Umer, M. F. M., & Batool, H. (2025). Exploring trauma and text worlds in the novel the spinners tale: A cognitive poetic analysis. Journal of Contemporary Poetics
Hanif, I. U. S. (2018). War trauma, collective memory, and cultural productions in conflict zones: Kashmir in focus [Doctoral dissertation, University of Kashmir]
Hau, C. S. (2004). On the Subject of the Nation: Filipino Fiction from the Field, 1906-2004. Anvil Publishing
Hau, C. S. (2004). Recuerdos de Patay. In On the Subject of the Nation: Filipino Fiction from the Field, 1906-2004. Anvil Publishing
Hirschberger, G. (2018). Collective trauma and the social construction of meaning. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01441
Ibrahim, A. (2014). Malay literature in Singapore: Lines of thought and conflicting ideas. ISEAS Publishing
Kameo, Y. A. G. (2024). Mountains and women's struggle in Southeast Asian short stories: A case study of ecofeminism. Diglosia: Jurnal Kajian Bahasa, Sastra, dan Pengajarannya, 7(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.30872/diglosia.v7i1.703
Krippendorff, K. (2019). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology (4th ed.). SAGE Publications
Lake, M., & Reynolds, H. (2017). Drawing the global colour line: White men's countries and the international challenge of racial equality. Cambridge University Press
Larbaoui, M. (2019). Exploring the theme of cultural identity in the poem Song of Lawino: The use of Halliday’s transitivity in revealing ideologies. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 10(6), 145-151. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.10n.6p.145
López-Calvo, I. (2019). Resourceful liberation: Approaches to national freedom in Philippine literature. Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, 67(1), 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1353/phs.2019.0000
Macaro, E., Curle, S., Pun, J., An, J., & Dearden, J. (2017). A systematic review of English medium instruction in higher education. Language Teaching, 50(1), 1-38. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444817000350
Macasaet, G. M. Q. (2015). Cultural values in selected Southeast Asian countries as reflected in representative short stories: A comparative study [Doctoral dissertation, University of Santo Tomas]
Macasaet, J. A. (2015). The postcolonial short story in the Philippines. De La Salle University Publishing House
Mattar, N. (2021). Diffractive spaces: An analysis of Malaysian cyberpunk. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 57(3), 328–342. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2021.1896639
Michael, Y. (2016). Violence and community: Collective and cultural trauma in black america [Doctoral dissertation, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey]
Mohamad Rashidi Pakri, M. H. A., & Chin, G. V. S. (2022). The modern Malay: A comparative study of Katherine Sims’ Malacca Boy (1957) and Mahathir Mohamad’s The Malay Dilemma (1970). Kemanusiaan, 29(1), 1–25
Mukherjee, A., & Quayson, A. (2023). Introduction: The postcolonial scholar. The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, 10(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1017/pli.2023.1
Mukti, H. H. W., & Budiyanto, D. (2023a). Intersectional identities of nyai and their resistance to oppressiveness in Indonesian short stories. SAGE Open, 13(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440231168423
Mukti, H. H. W., & Budiyanto, D. (2023b). The representation of Nyai’s resistance in post-colonial Indonesian short stories. Diksi, 37(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.21831/diksi.v37i1.51234
Nafees, A. (2025). From suffering to resistance: Palestinian short stories as narratives of collective and cultural trauma. Journal of Postcolonial Writing. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2025.1234567
Nordholt, H. S. (2011). Indonesia in the 1950s: Nation, modernity, and the post-colonial state. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004253509.i-370
Nugraha, S. D. (2019). On the beginning of modern Indonesian literature. Kawistara, 9(2), 219–233. https://doi.org/10.22146/kawistara.38654
Nurul Atiqah Amran, & Termizi, A. A. (2020). The visible flâneuse in Chan Ling Yap’s Where the Sunrise is Red. 3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature, 26(4), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2020-2604-01
Pakri, M. (2022). Colonial residues: Race and class in Malaysian literature. NUS Press
Perry, M. S. (2017). Feasting on culture and identity: Food functions in a multicultural and transcultural Malaysia. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1nzfxh0.10
Qolbi, L. F. (2025). Postcolonial ecocritical perspectives in Indonesian literature. Jurnal Lingua Susastra, 2(1), 1–15
Rahman, M. K. F. (2025). Deconstruction and subversion in literature: Countering the hegemony of colonial discourse. Journal of Postcolonial Writing and Literary Theory, 2(1), 15-30. https://doi.org/10.53121/jpwt.2025.2.1.15-30
Rahmayati. (2021). Roehana Koeddoes’s resistance to Dutch colonialism in Belenggu Emas by Iksana Banu [Tesis sarjana, Universitas Gadjah Mada]. Institutional Repository Gadjah Mada University. http://etd.repository.ugm.ac.id/
Ranwarat Poonsri, R. T. (2022). Southeast Asian literature in English: Gender and political issues in Laotian, Burmese and Vietnamese short stories. Journal of Mekong Societies, 18(1), 1-20
Reddy, G., & van Dam, R. M. (2020). Food, culture, and identity in multicultural societies: Insights from Singapore. Appetite, 149, 104633. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2020.104633
Richard T. Chu, & Hau, C. (2013). Beyond nation and empire? Questioning the role of religious orders, colonial governments, and nationalist movements in the history of Christianity in Asia. Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, 61(4), 395–426. https://doi.org/10.1353/phs.2013.0025
Robert, J. D. (2021). Postcolonial criticism in Sabah: A review. Kajian Malaysia, 39(2), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.21315/km2021.39.2.1
Rosalia Suryani, V. Y. (2024). Nature and people connection in the three selected Indonesian short stories. KREDO: Jurnal Ilmiah Bahasa dan Sastra, 7(2), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.24176/kredo.v7i2.10234
Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Pantheon Books
Sanjaya, W. Z. A. T. (2023). Ikhsaka Banu’s reconciliation and resistance to the traumatic discourse of postcolonial subjects [Tesis master, Universitas Ahmad Dahlan]. Institutional Repository Ahmad Dahlan University. https://etd.uad.ac.id/
Saxena, V. (2019). The returning echoes of our memory: Networks of memory and postcolonial trauma in Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 55(6), 729–743. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2019.1664981
Shanmughalingam, M. (2018). Marriage and mutton curry. Epigram Books
Shanthini Pillai, Menon, P. S., & Vengadasamy, R. (2016). The marginalisation of Malaysian texts in the English language curriculum and its impact on social cohesion in Malaysian classrooms. Kajian Malaysia, 34(2), 1–23
Sherry Simon, P. S.-P. (2001). Changing the Terms: Translating in the Postcolonial Era. University of Ottawa Press
Show, Y. X. (2021). Narrating the racial riots of 13 May 1969: Gender and postmemory in Malaysian literature. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 57(4), 451–465. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2021.1925335
Sulistyo, E. S. H. (2020). Bumiputra authors resistance toward political hegemony and canonization of Balai Pustaka in the novel Hikayat Kadiroen and Student Hidjo. LITERA, 19(3), 382–395. https://doi.org/10.21831/ltr.v19i3.34521
Syofyan, D. (2022). Notes of some Indonesian literary critics. Lire Journal, 6(1), 1–12
Thumboo, E. (2020). Bukit panjang: Place-history-poem. Kritika Kultura, (34), 5-25
Umer, H., Batool, H., & Hajra, M. F. M. (2025). Exploring trauma and text worlds in the novel the spinners tale: A cognitive poetic analysis. Journal of Contemporary Poetics, 6(1), 45-60
Villanueva, D. (2011). Companion to comparative literature, world literatures, and comparative cultural studies: Possibilities and limits of comparative literature today. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 13(5). https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1904
Yuxin Liu, & Zhao, Y. (2023). Research review and theory reflection on Malaysian English literature. 3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature, 29(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2023-2901-01
Zhu, Q. (2022). Exile to the equator: Chinese anti-colonialism and nationalism in Southeast Asia, 1939–1946. Journal of Chinese Overseas, 18(1), 30-56. https://doi.org/10.1163/17932548-12341438
Downloads
Published
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Literature and Literacy
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
