Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE May 2014 Rummaging Through the Wreckage: Geographies of Trauma, Memory, and Loss at the National September 11th Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center Jacquelyn Micieli-Voutsinas Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Micieli-Voutsinas, Jacquelyn, "Rummaging Through the Wreckage: Geographies of Trauma, Memory, and Loss at the National September 11th Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center" (2014). Dissertations - ALL. 126. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/126 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ABSTRACT This dissertation traces the emergence of 9/11 memory as it is shaped in relation to the event’s memorialization at nationally-dedicated landscapes of memory. Focusing on the National September 11th Memorial & Museum, The National Flight 93 Memorial, and the National Pentagon 9/11 Memorial, my research examines how cultural memory is mediated through the establishment of ‘places of memory’ within the built-environment. Here, I argue, the preservation of place acts as a repository of national memory by safeguarding the history of 9/11 for future generations. Contextualizing these landscapes of memory within the global war on terrorism, my analytical framework engages the transnational significance of 9/11 memory in a global world. Accordingly, this research situates 9/11 remembrance within interdisciplinary and cross-border conversations that theorize national practices of preservation and commemoration in relation to transnational flows of people, information, and ideas. Here, my research articulates the formation of 9/11 memory as a unique ‘geography of trauma.’ Offering an original contribution to geography, this research theorizes the spatial and temporal movement of traumatic memories across time and space. Aimed at understanding how these historic sites are mediated in relation to other landscapes of violence and cultural trauma--past and present--my research draws on critical geopolitical theorizations of the nation-state, feminist theories of emotion and embodiment, queer deployments of affect, and cultural theories of memory, as tools for navigating post-structural ideas of power, knowledge, discourse, and empire. RUMMAGING THROUGH THE WRECKAGE: GEOGRAPHIES OF TRAUMA, MEMORY, AND LOSS AT THE NATIONAL SEPTEMBER 11th MEMORIAL & MUSEUM AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER by Jacquelyn Micieli-Voutsinas B.A., Fredonia State College, 2004 M.A., University at Buffalo, 2006 C.A.S., Syracuse University, 2007 M.A., Syracuse University, 2008 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Geography. Syracuse University May 2014 Copyright © Jacquelyn Micieli-Voutsinas 2014 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to Dr. Alison Mountz, whose fearlessness and willingness to push intellectual and institutional limits has been foundational to my journey as an academic and scholar. She gave me an institutional home at Syracuse and I am forever grateful for her ongoing support and friendship. Thank you to Dr. Amy Kallander for being a voice of reason, and for so willingly sharing your skills and insight. To Dr. Jennifer Hyndman for always challenging me and showing me, through her example, what it means to be critical scholar. To Dr. Tod Rutherford for your shared love of all things four-legged and geography, and to Dr. Pamela Moss, for being so generous with her time and feedback as the most recent member of my committee. I am deeply appreciative of Dr. Vivian May for both chairing my defense and for being my longest-held mentor and teacher at Syracuse. Your wisdom is unparalleled. Thank you to my friends and colleagues from Syracuse and beyond: Pritika Chowdhry, Kate Coddington, Soumitree Gupta, Mitul Brauah, Parvathy Binoy, Tre Wentling, Karen Macke, Himika Bhattacharya, Adrienne McCormick, Vivian Garcia, Linda Brigance, and so many others. You have surrounded me with a remarkable community of anti-racist, feminist, and queer thinkers. Your creativity, activism, and passion will stay with me. There are several organizations that have graciously contributed to this research: The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation; the 9/11 Tribute Center; The National Pentagon 9/11 Memorial; The National Flight 93 Memorial; and September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. I am grateful for their expertise and for the willingness of their members to entrust me with their stories. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the NS11MM for its support and for the willingness of its staff to take me on as a researcher when they were not equipped to do so. I am particularly grateful to the staff members who generously offered their time, insight, and experience to this research. I would like to thank the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, the Department of Geography, and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, for their support and financial contributions to this research. I also owe my gratitude to the National Center for Scientific Research for enabling my research in lower Manhattan. Last, but never least, I would like to thank my family. My parents and sister, for teaching me so many of life's lessons early on, the most important of which is to both love and forgive. My extended family (old and new), for their continuous love and support, which knows no boundaries. To my love, Susan, whose strength and inner beauty continues to amaze me. You keep my feet grounded and my heart spinning at the same time. I love you. To my amazing daughter, Paisley, who came into this world on 9/12/2011. You embody all that is magical and loving in this life, humanity, and universe. You have been my biggest teacher by far. iv for a more peaceful tomorrow… v Table of Contents Ch 1. Geographies of Trauma: an Introduction ……………………………………….......... 1 The Research Project …………………………………………………………………………………...... 4 Absent Remains ……………………………………………………………………………………… 4 Trauma Embodied ………………………………………………………………………………..... 6 Site Selection ………………………………………………………………………………………..... 8 Research Questions ………………………………………………………………………………… 9 Methods ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 12 Positionality …………………………………………………………………………………………. 14 Trauma’s ‘Spatial Turn’ ……………………………………………………………………………….. 15 Traumatic Delay …………………………………………………………………………………… 17 Insidious Trauma …………………………………………………………………………………. 21 Vicarious Emotion ………………………………………………………………………………... 25 Chapter Outline …………………………………………………………………………………………… 27 Ch 2. From a Place of Wreckage to a Place of Memory: Struggles over Loss, and the Meaning of Death, at “Ground Zero ………………… 31 Geographies of Memory: An Introduction …………………………………………………… 33 Unclaimed Remains: Mediating Death, Narrating Place ………………………………. 35 Manic Places: Archives of Emotion ……………………………………………………………… 41 Anxiety ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 44 Fear ……………………………………………………………………………………………………... 49 Anger …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 51 ‘Grief’ …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 55 Conclusion: Memory, Melancholy, and Mourning ………………………………………... 57 Ch 3. An Absent Presence: Visceral Geographies of the World Trade Center ………………………………………… 60 What the Body Remembers: Trauma and Somatic Memory ………………………… 61 Visceral Memory, a field observation ……………………………………………………….…. 63 Theoretical Context: Conceptualizing Visceral Geographies ……………………….. 66 Re-membering 9/11: Witnessing Trauma …………………………………………………… 69 Reconstructing Lower Manhattan: A Place to Remember ……………………………. 72 “The Void” ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 74 “The Wound” ………………………………………………………………………………………... 77 The Prosthetic ……………………………………………………………………………………… 80 Reflecting Absence ……………………………………………………………………………………… 82 Visceral Geographies of the NS11MM ………………………………………………………….. 85 The Memorial ………………………………………………………………………………………. 85 The Memorial Museum …………………………………………………………………………. 86 (Without) Conclusion: Re-membering Absence, An Absent Presence …………. 88 Ch 4. Contrapuntal Memories? Remembering the Holocaust Post-9/11 ……… 93 The Holocaust’s ‘Transnational Turn’ …………………………………………………………. 99 Remembering the Holocaust post-9/11 .…………………………………………………… 105 Contrapuntal Memories? …………………………………………………………………………... 113 Without Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………… 118 vi Ch 5. Trauma Economies and the Biopolitical Amassing of Grievable Life: Towards an Arpeggio of Cultural Suffering ……………………………………………….. 121 Post-traumatic shock ………………………………………………………………………….. 122 Trauma as Exception ………………………………………………………………………………… 128 State of Exception ………………………………………………………………………………. 128 Homo Sacer ………………………………………………………………………………………... 129 Thanapolitics: the Biopolitical Amassing of Grievable Life ……………………….. 132 Conclusion: Trauma’s Others and the Limits of Subaltern Memory …………... 139 Ch. 6. Querying 9/11: Towards a Counter-Archive of Trauma …………………… 142 Prelude ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 142 Querying 9/11: Remembering Trauma in “Queer Times” …………………………. 144 Queering Traumatic Memory ………………………………………………………………. 144 Trauma in “Queer Times” ……………………………………………………………………. 150 Counter-Archives of 9/11: Towards a Peaceful Tomorrow ……………………..… 154 Towards a More Peaceful Tomorrow …………………………………………………..