FELLESSKAPETS SAMMENBRUDD OG KOLLEKTIV SMERTE

Abstract

Georg Henriksen: The collapse of the

community and collective pain

This article deals with the the collapse of a

community and the pain felt by the individuals

living in it. It understands pain as an experience

which is at the same time collective

and individual, shared and existential. Since

1996 Georg Henriksen has foliowed the

Mushuau Innu, an Indian community in the

northem part of Canada. With informant’s

experience from this community as reference

Henriksen points out how the levels of individual,

community, and over all social, eco-

nomical, and political processes are interwowen.

By being integrated in white society

the Innu have lost their own social and moral

order and at the same time they have stayed

marginalized in relation to the surrounding

society. The result of this intemal collapse

and extemal marginalization is anomie -

suicides, drinking, violence and the feeling

of loneliness. Henriksen points out the responsibility

of the govemment to establish a

political and social field for the Innu to exist

in and the necessity of understanding and

bringing an end to the structural violence inflicted

on the Innu.