Related Studies - The Better to Break and Bleed with: On Research, Violence and Trauma

Ariana Markowitz is a PhD student based at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit. Her research focuses on how fear and trauma manifest and become defining parts of urban landscapes. Taking cues from this damage, especially in marginalized communities, she looks for alternative ways of repairing frayed social fabric and healing.

In 2018, she spent some time in El Salvador, one of the most violent countries on earth talking at length to people who have experienced trauma about those experiences.  

In this blog piece, she talks about her emotions while working in El Salvador and after she had returned to London including struggles with her own mental health. She also discusses the limitations of the guidance given to researchers who are working in violent contexts and gives some recommendations to those who are thinking of carrying out similar research. 

NB. The piece in the blog linked contains graphic content

---