Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Psychosocial Notebook, Volume 2, October 2001
nation. Others still could not make any sense of the events. In analysing
the life histories of Serb IDPs, it might be interesting to observe how
meaning is culturally constructed, by identifying and analysing the “narrative
resources” used to sustain this meaning.
Throughout the interviews, the two narratives most often used to give
meaning to events were those of victimization and conspiracy. Both of
these discursive sets are consistent with a narcissistic psychological and
social order, characterized by the tendency to reject issues of personal
responsibility outwards.
Narratives of antagonism and victimization:
“Look what they did to us…”
Throughout the project, narratives of self-victimization and malevolent
conspiracy recurred in the interviews collected. While many events and
dynamics were reported or confirmed by the major international organizations/institutions
operating in Kosovo and rump Yugoslavia, it should be
made clear that it is beyond the purpose of the present essay to confirm or
refute the veracity of any of these assertions (a sample of which is
presented below). More relevant here, are the psychological and social
implications of the fact that these explanations are experienced as if they
were both meaningful and true. Our aim here is thus simply to identify and
analyse the psychological and social implications embedded in this construct
of meaning and truth.
The following self-victimizing narratives recurred in the interviewees’
descriptions of the situation in Kosovo before 1998. These were identified
through a qualitative discursive analysis of the interview transcriptions:
• Discrimination in the workplace: the Albanians were granted extra
privileges in the public sector;
• Albanians held a monopoly over the private and informal economy;
• Discrimination in restricted access to public services: Albanian civil
servants had the authority to either grant or bar access or assistance;
• Albanians often enjoyed higher economic status, due to remittances sent
by friends, kin, or other migrants living abroad;
• Albanians refused to learn Serbian while the Serbs had to learn Albanian;
• Albanians never really abandoned the notion of a Greater Albania;
• Albanians had better access to education;
• “Albanians were always richer than us.”
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