Memory in Motion: Social Epigenetics Intergenerational Trauma

Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents Kolo-Informed Trauma, a transdisciplinary framework for understanding and transforming intergenerational trauma through oral memory circles, embodied ritual, and collective neurobiology. Rooted in the ancient term Kolo—meaning “wheel,” a symbol of rotational continuity older than Sanskrit—the model reclaims the circle as a pan-cultural structure of social epigenetic rotational continuity. The work bridges cultural knowledge systems and contemporary neurobiological research to show how circular communal traditions function as trauma processing and healing mechanisms in both historical and contemporary contexts, particularly in conflict and war zones globally, as well as in natural disaster response contexts.

Methods
Drawing on over two decades of ethnographic and performance-based research in the Balkans, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, and refugee communities across multiple continents, this study uses the Memory in Motion social epigenetics methodology. This approach integrates oral memory epigenetic practices and rituals that are inclusive of participatory observation of cultural rituals, embodied movement analysis, and interdisciplinary literature on polyvagal theory and social epigenetics. The comparative cultural analysis is grounded in onsite fieldwork in settings ranging from conflict and war zones to community responses following natural disasters. Examples include African communal dance and cooking, Slavic Vinča artifacts and circular ritual forms, Indian devotional mandalas and storytelling dances, Sri Lankan ritual movement and oral memory traditions, and Afghan women’s collective rituals in isolation.

Findings
Findings reveal that circular cultural practices operate as neurobiological-social epigenetic containers. Across contexts, such circles activate polyvagal social engagement systems, providing co-regulation, rhythm, and repetition that facilitate shifts from transgenerational survival modes toward integrated embodied healing. These practices encode cultural memory in movement, space, and collective presence, serving both as living archives and as dynamic systems for metabolizing trauma. In war-affected and post-conflict communities, these circular structures persist as acts of cultural continuity and transformation, preserving identity and fostering agency where systemic erasure or displacement threaten survival.

Conclusions
Kolo-Informed Trauma offers a lens through which to understand trauma not only as an individual psychological phenomenon but as a spatial, somatic, and collective process. Circular traditions across diverse geographies are shown to function as mnemonic architectures that preserve, transmit, and transform memory through embodied communal action. This work challenges the dominance of clinical trauma paradigms by foregrounding ancestral and community-based systems that have long served as mechanisms of healing in contexts of sustained violence, displacement, and loss.

By situating the Kolo within global cultural lineages—from African ovens and dances, to Vinča ritual artifacts, to Indian mandalas, to Sri Lankan oral traditions, to Afghan women’s gatherings—this paper demonstrates that memory in motion is both ancient and urgently relevant. In recognizing these circles as neurobiological and cultural technologies, we expand the scope of trauma recovery to include embodied, rhythmic, and communal practices that endure even in the most adverse conditions.