To Speak or to Die? Slam Therapy and the Restoration of Personhood in Eastern DRC

Abstract

What happens when one experiences violence so immense and so destructive that they lose their sense of self? What happens when, in a society focused on political negotiations and administrative responses, these processes overshadow the lived experiences of those most affected? What happens to those who can no longer speak for themselves, not because they do not want to, but because they no longer know how to? And what happens when words themselves seem insufficient to account for suffering? This paper attempts to answer these questions by examining the role of speech, art, and communal practices in contexts of prolonged violence. Drawing on ethnographic research with the Goma Slam Session in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, I investigate how spoken word poetry is used not only as a form of expression, but as a means of expressing, holding, and navigating trauma. I analyze how this collective of artists and activists uses what is conceptualized as slam therapy to help traumatized individuals regain and rebuild a sense of self. In a setting of deep state failure such as the DRC, where formal infrastructures of care are limited, this thesis argues that artistic practices create alternative spaces where individuals can gradually relearn how to narrate themselves, resocialize, and reaffirm a sense of personhood that violence attempts to destroy.