A Crisis of Care: The Politics, Poetics and Therapeutics of a Rape Crisis Hotline
Open AccessDespite the growth of critical medical anthropology, anthropologists have only just begun to explore the issue of sexual violence and its attendant traumas. To remedy this ethnographic lacunae, this paper explores the politics, poetics and contingencies of care provided to survivors of sexual assault through fieldwork with a rape crisis hotline operating in the United States’ Mid-Atlantic region. I argue that the support provided to survivors in the aftermath of violence on the rape crisis hotline represents a crisis of care, one fomented by the failure within the victim services sector to address or recognize the limitations of a crisis-oriented paradigm of care and the chronic forms of trauma survivors struggle with. The tension between the survivor-centered model employed on the hotline, and the mental health and counseling needs sought by clients, represents a friction of utility, a misalignment between the kinds of care hotline advocates are permitted to provide and the sources of support survivors seek in their pathway to recovery. The anonymous care and internal contradictions of the hotline advocacy role also results in a crisis of care for advocates, who feel unable to provide the care survivors seek, resulting in high rates of vicarious trauma and emotional burnout. Given the polysemic dimensions of care exhibited on the hotline, the service represents a form of negative care, one that accounts for gaps in the continuum of care for survivors yet still fails to empower proactive options for recovery. Considering the epidemic nature of sexual violence, the limited availability and access to therapeutic services, and the symptomalogy of trauma, crisis has become a chronic condition among survivors, a crisis unrecognized by the state and subsequently managed on the hotline. .
- All rights reserved
Notice to Authors
If you are the author of this work and you have any questions about the information on this page, please use the Contact form to get in touch with us.