Meanings
plural traumascapes
- A landscape, real or figurative, defined by the traumatic events that have occurred there.
In his short story, the Vietnam War becomes an amalgam of all modern wars and genocides and Vietnam itself an extended traumascape.
2007, Magali Compan, Katarzyna Pieprzak, Land and Landscape in Francographic Literature2 more examples
New York's latest traumascape was a site every bit as extraordinary as its counterpart in Stalinist Moscow. Not simply a monstrous and spectacular eyesore, it was a place of immense power, a vortex sucking everything into itself.
2005, Maria M. Tumarkin, Traumascapes: The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by TragedyIn other words, most (in)dependent and intervening variables in current stress models are heavily influenced by the work of culture. The individual level of perceiving and dealing with threats interacts with the collective level of the traumascape.
2018, Dinesh Bhugra, Kamaldeep Bhui, Textbook of Cultural Psychiatry, page 382
Origin
From trauma + -scape, coined by Maria M. Tumarkin.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
traumascape. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/traumascape
“traumascape.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/traumascape. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “traumascape,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/traumascape.
Source: traumascape on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.