Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Chapter 4 • Nicola Mai
ing a framework within which the explanations given as reasons for pain,
sorrow and suffering can “make sense”. The exposure and revelation of the
real and disguised political and economic rationales underpinning ethnic
politics and policies can offer the possibility of a parallel re-politicization
of ethnicity and trauma discourses and of a de-traumatization and deethnicization
of the political discursive field. This parallel process can
offer new narrative resources for both the wider process of democratization
and the therapeutic context, as it introduces the possibility of psychologically
healing the individual through an understanding of the social
world, which is more responsive to his/her lived experiences of increasing
diversity and complexity.
Notes
1. Before the beginning of the Kosovo crisis, ARCS had been running four youth
centres (since July 1998), which welcomed many young refugees throughout
the duration of the war. Young refugees were included in the project both as
beneficiaries of assistance, and as active participants. They actively participated
in the development and organization of activities and initiatives for the
refugee population and the new arrivals. The activities took place both at the
youth centres and in the main refugee camps set up in the areas of Tirana,
Durres, Berat and Gjirokaster.
2. For a detailed overview of the social and economic consequences of the
process of Serbianization of Kosovo since 1981, please see Clark, 2000: 70-
121 and Vickers, 1998: 218-287.
References
Anzulovic, B.
1999 Heavenly Serbia, Hurst & Co, London.
Clark, H.
2000 Civil Resistance in Kosovo, Pluto Press, London.
Freud, S.
1934 “On narcissism: an introduction”, in L. Woolf and V. Woolf (eds),
Collected Papers, The Hogarth Press, London: 30-60.
1955 “The ‘Uncanny”, in J. Strachey (ed.), The Standard Edition of the
Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 17 (1917-19), The
Hogarth Press, London: 217-253.
1956 “Negation”, in J. Strachey (ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete
Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 14 (1917-19), London, The
Hogarth Press: 235-9.
Fuga, A.
1998 L’Albanie entre la pensée totalitaire et la raison fragmentaire,
L’Harmattan, Paris.
134