Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Introduction
Beyond the Archives of
Memory
Natale Losi*
In the case of Kosovo, a volume on the Archives of Memory1 will by
nature be a cross-reference, at least in my imagination, to historical
events for which “Archives” have already been put together. Today, such
a reminder seems to refer almost exclusively to the experience of the
Holocaust and the Shoa, which in turn, by association with the Shoa
Archives, refers us to the questions of History and the role of historians as
a group of professionals authorized and delegated to document, to give
clarity.
In the experience documented in this volume, history represents the
important component of a more complex interdisciplinary intervention,
one where the principal prospective was, and still is, the psychological
recovery/support of a community. In what way does history and its guarantors
fit into this project? In many ways, and a large part of this volume
exemplifies and bears witness to some of these, since all of the contributions
were written by historians and anthropologists. In this Introduction,
I would like to simply describe the more complex strategic system by
*Ph.D, sociologist and psychotherapist, Head of the Psychosocial and Cultural Integration
Unit, IOM, Liaison Mission in Italy and Regional Coordination Office for the
Mediterranean, Rome.
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