Traumaku warisan keluargaku: Kajian trauma kolektif dalam novel Namaku Alam karya Leila S. Chudori

Abstract

This study examines the representation of collective trauma in Leila S. Chudori’s novel Namaku Alam. The topic is significant because the trauma of the 1965 political violence in Indonesia did not only affect direct victims but was also transmitted to the second generation through family memory, social stigma, the body, and identity crisis. This research employs a descriptive qualitative method by using library research, note-taking, and highlighting techniques to identify narrative units, dialogues, and events that represent traumatic experiences in the novel. The data are analyzed through Cathy Caruth’s trauma theory, particularly the concepts of unclaimed experience, belatedness, voice of the other, and narrative as a form of recovery. The findings show that trauma in Namaku Alam is represented through children’s inability to fully understand violence, the delayed return of trauma in recurring dreams, bodily responses, reactive emotions, and identity crisis, as well as the emergence of other voices that transform personal wounds into collective testimony. Alam’s act of writing also demonstrates that narrative functions as a medium for recognizing, organizing, and articulating trauma. Thus, Namaku Alam represents the trauma of 1965 as a collective wound that continues to shape the lives of the second generation.