Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
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Introduction • Natale Losi<br />
which the contributions of these historians and anthropologists also represent<br />
a precious support to the individual, family and community therapeutic<br />
work that the <strong>Psychosocial</strong> and Trauma Response programme<br />
(PTR) proposed in Kosovo.<br />
Constellations of violence<br />
The conversations, the stories that people exchange and construct in situations<br />
of conflict, are clearly important, whether they influence the conflict’s<br />
resolution or, on the contrary, contribute to its perpetuation. When<br />
these stories are woven in an international conflict situation such as that<br />
which overcame Kosovo, even international players, often unwittingly,<br />
figure amongst the individuals active in their construction. This is especially<br />
the case for those sent to work “on the ground” (Pandolfi, 2000).<br />
Aside from these co-producers and co-narrators of conflict situation stories,<br />
the constellation, the set, the essential typology available and necessary<br />
to actually give meaning to the conflict, is made up of three principal<br />
players: the aggressors, the victims and the authorities. In the particular<br />
case of Kosovo, the international players placed in this last role of the trilogy<br />
were in fact perceived, according to different points of view and independently<br />
from their intentions, as saviour/aggressors. Many of them<br />
indeed risked contributing to the domination of a constellation, which<br />
alone was advantageous to the perpetration of the premise for conflict.<br />
In other words, by their intervention, the international actors risked perpetrating<br />
the narrative scheme contained in the trilogy: aggressor/victim/<br />
rescuer, an integral part of the conflict.<br />
The pervasion of this trilogy in conflict situations has become an object of<br />
observation in many different disciplines. Anthropologist R. Thornton suggests<br />
that:<br />
Narratives of violence have a specific social and cultural function. By<br />
narrating events, we link a series of actions – whether by chronology,<br />
conspiracy or psychological predisposition – into a comprehensible<br />
framework. In this way the violent event that has radically disrupted the<br />
flow of normality appears to have been predictable, and the moment of<br />
chaos that has challenged order is tamed (Thornton, 1999).<br />
In other words, when we “clothe” an experience or a situation of chaos<br />
with a story or narrative, we transform it, give it sense. We tame chaos.<br />
This does not happen alone however, as A. Feldman notes, “Narratives not<br />
only explain events; they are integral to how we decide what is an event<br />
and what is not” (Feldman, 1991).<br />
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