Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
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<strong>Psychosocial</strong> <strong>Notebook</strong>, Volume 2, October 2001<br />
usually already partially separated from their living environments (unlike<br />
a more rural individual who might work and live within a closely-knit<br />
family unit) these could be replicated in a new setting. Especially welladapted<br />
were the students who could continue their studies, and the adults<br />
who could find some sort of occupation and whose children were able to<br />
continue their education. These people generally showed greater confidence<br />
in themselves, had hope for the future, and thought more realistically<br />
about the possibility of returning to Kosovo. On the other hand, the<br />
older people coming from rural environments felt completely disoriented<br />
and lost, as their individual identities had been rooted in a collective<br />
psychological and social environment that was entirely bound to the cycles<br />
of agricultural production and to the unity of farmhouse, patriarchal family<br />
and land.<br />
These differences, however, should not diminish the fact that all of the<br />
interviewed people had experienced anxiety, pain and suffering related to<br />
the disruption and loss of social and cultural identities that had been, until<br />
then, intertwined with their geographic, material and cultural settings.<br />
The ensuing fear of losing themselves and of painful loss re-emerged<br />
every time memories of past routine activities collided with the present<br />
situation. The subject’s former routine was often recalled vividly in the<br />
present absence of a clear social function, role and space for the displaced<br />
subject.<br />
If we recall Anthony Giddens’ definition of ontological security as “the<br />
confidence that most human beings have in the continuity of their selfidentity<br />
and in the surrounding social and material environments of<br />
action” (Giddens, 1990: 92), the disrupted daily routines of the Serb IDPs<br />
might be understood in their full social and psychological relevance, and<br />
their consequent anxiety merely reflect this significance. According to<br />
Giddens, “all individuals develop a framework of ontological security of<br />
some sort, based on routines of various forms” (Giddens, 1991: 44). These<br />
routines are vital in controlling the feeling of anxiety, which “concerns<br />
(unconsciously) perceived threats to the integrity of the security system of<br />
the individual” (Giddens, 1991: 45). If we follow Giddens’ argument about<br />
the role of routines in sustaining a feeling of ontological security, we find,<br />
at the root of the Serb IDPs psychological suffering, the destruction of a<br />
common social and cultural framework, which once treated them as privileged<br />
and entitled subjects. The displaced Serbs found themselves in an<br />
environment where homes, physical places and situations were not matching<br />
their imagined social positioning and failed to confirm the subject’s<br />
configuration and organization of his libidinal economy. Bearing in mind<br />
the hegemonic presence of a narcissist and collectivist mode of subjectivation<br />
within the Serbian culture (discussed above), anxiety can therefore<br />
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