Paper Short Abstract:

Cultural resilience factors are often utilized in community healing events held in response to community trauma. This paper will explore the ways that archival research, paired with creative grief therapy practices and digital communication platforms, can serve as a means for addressing grief and loss.

Paper Abstract:

Strong cultural community ties and active engagement in customary practices are resilience factors for adapting to and overcoming adversity. Today, cultural resilience factors are often utilized as elements in community healing events held in response to substance abuse epidemics, mental health emergencies, displacement due to violence or environmental change, and instances of intergenerational trauma. By delving into community strengths tied to customary practices, grieving and disconnected communities are able to unlock culturally relevant solutions which aid in reconciliation and healing.

Accepting that these close ties to shared community history function as resilience factors, how then do we respond to grief and trauma in the face of cultural disconnect and family system disruption in the wake of multi-generational deaths or destruction of community cultural resources? If the tradition-bearers and history keepers of your folk community have passed away, or the buildings that held the physical touchstones that are key to your cultural practices have been destroyed, how do you leverage these culturally-based resilience factors? How do we move forward in the face of adversity when we lack the necessary accompanying cultural framework?

I believe that the process of archival research can serve a similar function as a means for addressing and relieving grief and loss. This paper will explore the ways researchers, community artists, and activists can combine archival research and creative grief therapies (art, music, writing) to address generational grief, and utilize digital communication platforms to help with generational healing.