He spent his career documenting collective trauma. Grassy Narrows was one of his toughest cases

LISTEN | Full interview with Prof. Chris Vecsey: As It Happens 6:32 Remembering the sociologist who documented collective trauma, including in Grassy Narrows

Kai T. Erikson, Yale sociologist who dedicated his career to documenting the collective trauma faced by communities in the wake of unimaginable disasters, has died at the age of 94.

A pioneer in the study of collective trauma, his work helped reveal the way tragic events erode communal life and impact people for generations to come, including the devastating impacts of mercury poisoning on a First Nation in Canada.

“There was a real humility in him. He certainly knew that he was not the one who was suffering; he was observing the suffering,” Chris Vecsey, one of Erikson’s colleagues, told As It Happens host Nil Kök