Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

• Organizing hidden campaigns of terror (kidnapping, assaults) in order to
destabilize the country.
Despite this, even though the discursive field in Kosovo was crowded and
saturated with homogeneous narratives of victimization and conspiracy,
the possibility of a heterogeneous reading of events seemed to appear for
those who had experienced direct libidinal investment onto an (ethnic)
other. By engaging directly with the other, the subject experienced reality
in heterogeneous, pluralistic and ambiguous terms, thus bypassing the
hyper-moralized projections of his/her narcissist and collectivist ego. In
the presence of direct intense libidinal relations, responsibilities tended
either to be projected outwards beyond both Serbs and Albanians onto
foreign powers, or to be assigned within both the homogeneous ethnicities:
to the power in Belgrade (more rarely), to some Albanian terrorists, to
Albanians from Albania, to Serbian paramilitary formations, and/or to
Serbian (from Serbia) volunteers.
Conclusion
Psychosocial Notebook, Volume 2, October 2001
In Kosovo, as in the FRY, the experience of ethnic antagonism, war, displacement
and resettlement has engendered a process of subjective transformation
and fostered the emergence of new social needs. In the presence
of these needs, already existing homogenous cultural resources become
strategic and are consistently brought into play. From a comparative analysis
of the stories and accounts of both Albanian and Serbian people from
Kosovo gathered in Albania, Kosovo and the remaining FRY in the last
two years, I consider it extremely important to highlight the social and
political implications of the dynamics of self-victimization and retraditionalization
that are shaping the re-construction of an (ontologically)
secure (space) in Kosovo. This is potentially happening according to the
very same cognitive and libidinal frameworks that produced the present
situation.
With this contribution, I wish to question the possibility of actually constructing
a future of security given the continuity and radicalization of
these (culturally hegemonic) homogeneous values and of practices that
foster ethnic hatred, denying the very potentiality of pluralism and (cultural
and social) heterogeneity. In particular, I am very interested in the
political and social implications of The Archives of Memory project, and
of related clinical and psychotherapeutic work in general. As we are working
at an intersection of anthropology, history and psychology, perhaps we
should keep in mind a vital question: how far should we reinstate people
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