[SE]

Indeed, the process of fixing stories of past violent encounters plays a role in shaping the spaces and events that constitute the basis for being a “people.” Those histories that manage to attain a level of dominance and stability create the imaginative boundaries that contain a people; they exert an influence on the self-interpretations and models of inclusion and exclusion of the people who embrace them.

-Michael J. Shapiro

appearing in Violent Cartographies: Mapping Cultures of War