Captive Fathers, Captive Children: Legacies of the War in the Far East

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Why are the daughters and sons of Far East prisoners of war still captivated by the stories of their fathers What is it that compels so many of the children, after so many years, to search for the details of their fathers' captivity And how, over the decades, have they come to terms with their childhood memories In his book Terry Smyth treads new ground by examining the processes through which the children's memory practices came to be rooted in the POW experiences of their fathers. By following a life course approach, and a psychosocial methodology, the book demonstrates how memory and trauma were 'worked into' the social and cultural lives of individual children, and explores how the relationship between their inner psychic worlds and subsequent memory practices unfolded against a challenging and morally ambivalent geopolitical background. The book invites readers to engage with the author in a journey of exploration and self-reflection, with elements of auto-ethnography adding richness to the text. Enlivened by interview extracts, case study material and ethnographic observations, this work opens up fresh and ambitious perspectives on the personal legacies of war.

Reviews

Terry Smyths book is a deeply personal, yet scholarly, account of trauma, intergenerational memory, and the lasting effects of wartime captivity. The emotions expressed and experienced are raw and often overwhelming, but his message is hopeful: through empathy and imagination, recovery is possible. * Joanna Bourke, Professor, Birkbeck, University of London, UK *
Captive Fathers, Captive Children is an extraordinary book. On the one hand it is a deeply researched and poignant account of the return and home lives of Far East Prisoners of War (FEPOWS), seen through the eyes of their children, of whom Terry is one. On the other, it investigates the historical pursuits of FEPOW children and why they are drawn to reconstruct the traumatic pasts of their fathers. It is at once a memoir, a social history of POWs, an ethnography of commemoration and an exploration of the subjectivity of descendants. * Michael Roper, Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Essex, UK *

Author Bio

Dr. Terry Smyth is a Community Fellow at the University of Essex, UK. He has worked in the health and education sectors and has published extensively on memory and trauma.