Abstract
It is common for medical anthropologists to draw upon social constructivism in their research and analysis of psychological trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and argue that trauma and PTSD should not be considered as inevitable realities determined by the nature of things. This article shows that such a standpoint produces two side-effects.
First, it allows medical anthropologists to distill a purely social ontology of trauma and PTSD, by claiming that their realness is a product of psychiatric discourse, moral economy or Western hegemony. Second, it leads to the use (implicit as well as explicit) of pre-given normative claims about trauma and PTSD, ranging from refusing their inevitability to appealing for their repudiation.
Contrary to the social constructivist analyses, this article strictly considers both the ontology of PTSD and its normativity as an empirical question. Drawing on Annemarie Mol's "ontonorms", it shows ethnographically how multiple and heterogeneous PTSDs (PTSD as a disposition to violence; PTSD as proof of injustice) and war veteran identities (walking time-bombs, beggars, therapeutic heroes) are enacted and how various dangers, ideals, values and goods loom in, and back up, these enactments in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina's public arena.