Wounded: Life after the Shooting

Most gunshot victims do not die. In some estimates, 80 percent live to see another day. Yet social scientists continue to focus on gun homicide. What happens to individuals who get shot and survive? How do they experience life after the shooting? This article examines how gunshot injuries transform...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2012-07, Vol.642 (1), p.244-257
Main Author: LEE, JOOYOUNG
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abdomen
Bullets
Crime
Crime victims
Ethnographic research
Ethnography
Gun violence
Guns
Gunshot wounds
Health
Homicide
Identity
Injuries
Interaction
Murders & murder attempts
Pain
Personal health
Physical trauma
Politics
Psychology
Social Scientists
Victimization
Victims
Victims of crime
Violence
Violent crimes
Weapons
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:Most gunshot victims do not die. In some estimates, 80 percent live to see another day. Yet social scientists continue to focus on gun homicide. What happens to individuals who get shot and survive? How do they experience life after the shooting? This article examines how gunshot injuries transform the lives of victims. In practical ways, gunshot injuries complicate sleeping, eating, working, and other previously taken-for-granted activities. These disruptions also have much larger existential significance to victims. Indeed, daily experiences with a wounded body become subjective reminders that individuals are no longer who they used to be. Ironically, in some interactions, being wounded becomes attractive and advantageous to victims. Together, these themes illustrate the need for more sustained ethnographic work on the foreground of violent crime victimization.
ISSN:0002-7162
1552-3349
DOI:10.1177/0002716212438208