Trauma does not belong to individuals. It belongs to the world.
The dominant ontology of trauma tells us that suffering is a private affliction, a pathology nestled within individual bodies, to be diagnosed, treated, and ultimately overcome. The biomedical model, with its psychiatric frameworks and diagnostic categories, has long governed how trauma is understood—isolating it from its broader relational, historical, and ecological entanglements. But what if trauma is not just a psychological wound, but a geography—a terrain of rupture and possibility that spans across bodies, landscapes, and histories?
This is where the work of a trauma geographer begins.
Mapping Woundscapes
To be a trauma geographer is to recognize that trauma is not confined to the mind or body—it is inscribed onto landscapes, etched into the earth, and carried in the echoes of historical violence. It is the poisoned rivers of extractive capitalism, the cracked foundations of displacement, the forced severance of kinship with land. Trauma, in this sense, is more than an event that "happens to" a person—it is a force that shapes entire ecologies.
Western trauma studies tend to map suffering onto the woundscape—a landscape of injury where trauma is recorded as damage, often through individualized symptoms of PTSD or psychiatric distress. Geographer Derek Gregory (2018) describes woundscapes as “the multiple, layered, and often recursive geographies of trauma” that extend beyond the battlefield, shaping both bodies and landscapes. Woundscapes are the sites where dominant trauma frameworks extract meaning, using suffering as evidence to justify institutional intervention. As Eve Tuck (2009) critiques in her work on damage-centered research, this approach positions marginalized communities as sites of pathology—trauma becomes a currency that must be traded for recognition.
But woundscapes are not just spaces of suffering; they are also cartographies of unmet needs. Each rupture in the land, each scar on the body, each severed relational tie—these are coordinates in the geography of harm, pointing to what has been lost and what longs to be restored.
Beyond Woundscapes: Toward Relationscapes
Trauma geographers do not just map woundscapes. They also map relationscapes—tracing the ways suffering is held in networks of care, resistance, and multispecies kinship. A relationscape shifts the focus from what has been broken to how rupture can generate new relational possibilities.
In dominant trauma discourse, healing is framed as a return to a pre-traumatized state, a restoration of some imagined wholeness. But relational ontologies—rooted in Indigenous, decolonial, and ecological thought—reject this notion of “fixing” trauma. Not all wounds close. Not all fractures can be sealed. Some wounds are meant to be carried, held, and honored.
As a trauma geographer, I ask:
How does trauma move through landscapes, bodies, and histories?
What are the gravitational forces pulling us back into dominant frameworks of suffering?
How can we reorient our maps—moving from individual healing toward collective, relational holding?
Rupture as Cartography
Trauma geographers study rupture not just as destruction, but as a force that reveals the architecture of power. When trauma tears through a landscape—whether through colonial extraction, ecological collapse, or interpersonal violence—it exposes the hidden scaffolding of oppression. It shows us where structures are weak, where the seams are fraying, where new paths might emerge.
Catherine Walsh (2022) speaks of cracks and fissures as openings within dominant systems—spaces where new ways of being and knowing can emerge. Bayo Akomolafe (2023) describes portals as moments where linear narratives collapse, forcing us into the unknown, reminding us that “failure is often the door that won’t open until you stop pushing” (para. 3). Trauma geographers pay attention to these spaces, mapping where rupture has made space for something otherwise.
The crack in the sidewalk where a dandelion grows.
The land scars of mining sites, where the earth mourns its stolen minerals.
The refugee camps where people build new kinship structures amid forced displacement.
The grief rituals that refuse the erasure of lost worlds.
To map trauma is not to search for a way "out," but to understand how rupture reshapes the landscapes we move through.
Refusing the Governance of Trauma
To be a trauma geographer is also to resist the governance of trauma—the ways institutions control, regulate, and pathologize suffering. Trauma is not neutral. It has been used as a tool of governance, wielded to police who gets to be recognized as suffering, who is deserving of care, and who is expected to "recover" in ways legible to the state.
The trauma economy—through psychology, wellness industries, and social services—often demands that pain be articulated in ways that serve institutional needs. Yet, trauma is not always something that can be made legible. Some grief resists articulation. Some wounds refuse visibility. Some suffering exists in the undercommons, in the fugitive spaces outside of institutional recognition.
Trauma geographers hold space for these forms of refusal. We listen for the stories that are not meant to be extracted. We trace the hidden networks of care that do not seek validation. We refuse to flatten trauma into neat diagnostic categories.
A Field Guide for the Trauma Geographer
If you, too, are drawn to this work—to the study of trauma beyond pathology—consider this your field guide:
🗺 Walk the woundscapes – Pay attention to where trauma is inscribed on bodies, lands, and histories. Notice the sites of rupture and what they reveal.
🌿 Listen to the relationscapes – Shift your gaze from damage to reciprocity. Who is holding the grief? What structures of care exist beyond the dominant system?
🌊 Trace the forces of governance – Ask how trauma is policed, institutionalized, and co-opted. Where is suffering made legible, and where is it erased?
🔥 Refuse extraction – Not all wounds are meant to be studied. Some trauma is meant to be held, honored, and protected. Learn when to listen and when to step back.
✨ Tend to the cracks – Trauma is a rupture, but it is also a portal. Look for the spaces where new relations, futures, and kinships are already taking root.
Trauma is not just a wound. It is a geography.
To be a trauma geographer is to map its landscapes—not to contain or resolve them, but to witness, to tend, and to reimagine what becomes possible in the breaking.
Let’s walk these terrains together.
So: What am I actually saying? (Mom Speak)
-or, “Walking the Bridge Together”
I want to take a moment to clarify something about this section. This isn’t here because I think some people “can’t” understand the rest of this piece. It’s here because understanding is something we build together—a bridge we meet each other on, from both sides.
I wrote this yesterday, and I sent it to my mom. Trauma geographer is not a widely used term, but it resonates deeply with the work I do. It holds something I’ve been tracing—something felt, lived, and moved through. With that comes the work of making it legible, making it relational, making it something we can share.
At the end, I dedicated a section to my mom. Because she takes the time to try, to listen, to walk toward my words—and so I will walk toward her, too. We meet on the bridge, not because either of us needs to be simplified, but because meaning is made in the space between us.
This is not about breaking things down for those who “can’t” understand. It’s about opening things up—for connection, for reciprocity, for the joy of thinking, feeling, and learning together.
What is a Trauma Geographer?
Most people think of trauma as something personal—something that happens inside a person’s mind or body. But what if trauma isn’t just individual? What if it leaves marks on the world itself—on landscapes, communities, and relationships?
A trauma geographer is someone who maps the ways trauma shapes the world—not just in people, but in places, histories, and ecosystems.
For example:
War and colonization don’t just harm people—they also leave scars on the land (abandoned towns, poisoned rivers, sacred sites destroyed).
Climate disasters don’t just cause grief—they change the way people relate to the earth (forced migration, loss of traditional ways of life).
Trauma isn’t just about personal healing—it’s about how communities hold and process pain together (through rituals, storytelling, and collective care).
Western psychology often treats trauma as an individual problem to be diagnosed and fixed. But trauma geographers see it differently:
Woundscapes = places where trauma has left marks (battlefields, displacement camps, polluted lands).
Relationscapes = the ways trauma is held in relationships, traditions, and ecosystems, creating new ways of healing.
A trauma geographer pays attention to these patterns—where trauma happens, how it spreads, and how people and places heal beyond just therapy or medicine.
Why does this matter?
Because healing isn’t just personal—it’s collective, relational, and tied to the land.
Because some wounds don’t “go away”—but they can be honoured and held in different ways.
Because trauma isn’t just something to “fix”—sometimes, it creates openings for new relationships, new ways of living, and new futures.
In short: Trauma geographers help us understand that trauma is bigger than just the self—it’s a force that shapes entire worlds.
Works Cited
Akomolafe, B. (2023, June 5). How I’m learning to trust in my failure. https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/post/how-im-learning-to-trust-in-my-failure
Gregory, D. (2018, September 14). Trauma geographies: Woundscapes and the clinic. Geographical Imaginations. https://geographicalimaginations.com/2018/09/14/trauma-geographies-woundscapes-and-the-clinic/
Tuck, E. (2009). Suspending damage: A letter to communities. Harvard Educational Review, 79(3), 409–428.
Walsh, C. (2022). Rising up, living on: Decolonial practices of relationality. Duke University Press.