My part of our research project examines the representation
of transnational child trafficking in crime fiction from Britain, Ireland and
Denmark. The significance of
investigating the nuances of these representations, and explore their capacity
for contributing to a better public understanding and awareness of child
trafficking, is becoming increasingly evident. Although recent work has recognised
the particular vulnerability of women and children, the specific
area of child trafficking and its representation has thus far received
relatively little attention from critics and scholars, or the media.
My research investigates the thematic and textual methods
employed in twenty-first century crime fiction to portray transnational
trafficking of children and young people. This involves a consideration of how
texts incorporate existing and new information about transnational trafficking,
how they represent differing kinds of trafficking, and the textual and thematic
means by which they lend visibility and voice to the experiences of children
who are trafficked. I am drawing
on trauma theory, amongst other critical frameworks, to analyse portrayals of violence, violation and
exploitation in crime fiction. Tensions between
representing trauma authentically and crime fiction’s need for suspense and
closure suggest that this space may be problematic and have conflicting aims
and purposes – this is one of the questions I will investigate in my work.
This research suggests that these separate and distinct
areas of crime and exploitation are often interlinked in crime fiction, but
also that these crimes are at times portrayed in a reductionist manner. Edith
Kinney comments on these problems, stating that: ‘Reductionist narratives of
crime and victimisation figure prominently in discourses about
trafficking.’(91). These questions have wider implications for the way in which
child trafficking and child victims are viewed by the wider public. This dimension, in turn, invites theoretical
interventions through the employment of trauma theory, in order to analyse the
fictional experiences and perceptions of child trafficking victims. This analysis
will demonstrate the capacity of crime fiction to affect public understanding of
child trafficking, through its representations of the victims, their contexts
and experiences, and their treatment by criminals and the law.
Works cited
Dodd, Leanne. 2015. “The Crime Novel as Trauma
Fiction.” Minding The Gap: Writing
Across Thresholds And Fault Lines Papers – The Refereed Proceedings Of The
19th Conference Of The Australasian Association Of Writing Programs, 2014,
Wellington NZ, available at
http://www.aawp.org.au/publications/minding-the-gap-writing-across-thresholds-and-fault-lines/ Accessed 27 January 2017.
Kinney , Edith. 2014. Victims,
Villains, and Valiant Rescuers: Unpacking Sociolegal Constructions of Human
Trafficking and Crimmigration in Popular Culture. In The
Illegal Business of Human Trafficking (Ed.) Guia, Maria Joao, Springer.
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