Healing Collective Trauma
The aim of ‘Healing collective trauma’ was to raise awareness within peacebuilding circles and the wider public of societal trauma and how it manifests in the different communities affected by the Nagorny Karabakh conflict.
The description of this project has been provided by the implementing partner.
About the Project
The aim of ‘Healing collective trauma’ was to raise awareness within peacebuilding circles and the wider public of societal trauma and how it manifests in the different communities affected by the Nagorny Karabakh conflict.
Societal trauma shows itself in collective narratives, emotions, norms and values that in turn shape attitudes, expectations and behavioural models. These are passed down through generations and contribute to ongoing conflict dynamics. This means that working with societal trauma can help to break the cycle of violence should be an integral part of peacebuilding activity.
There were two strands to the project: practical and analytical.
Between April and June 2021, Indie Peace conducted 50 one-to-one in-depth interviews with people from all sides in the conflict, listening to their stories of how conflict affected their lives.
As part of the practical phase, the project helped people to manage their own psycho-social and community recovery. It has also included training for people in daily contact with wide segments of society, such as social workers, psychologists, teachers, doctors, nurses and journalists, as well as civil society activists. This has brought people with different backgrounds into the peacebuilding field, enabling them to contribute to community recovery in their day-to-day work.
As for the analytical part, the interviews were summarised into a report, some stories were published online. Awareness-raising seminars were held to discuss the research findings and explore ways to work with societal trauma. This research produced several recommendations, and some have been carried out as part of an ongoing process.
From the combination of practical and analytical work, a multi-disciplinary cross-divide network of professionals has emerged. These individuals come from all areas of the post-Soviet region affected by conflict and are willing to work together to explore societal trauma as a large part of peacebuilding.
Working on collective trauma with groups whose basic needs of physical security are not met, or who are constantly under stress caused by the uncertainty and unpredictability of their situation is not easy – but it is necessary. Introducing this trauma lens into conflict analysis has produced new insights into conflict dynamics and a new entry point for dialogue.
Photograph by Vaghinak Ghazaryan
Our society is on the edge – we need something like this to get us out of this depression. I didn’t realise at first, but after five sessions I feel how much we needed it. Now we have so much knowledge and skills – and if we all share with just one or two people then it’s already a lot of work done.Participant in art-therapy training
Find out more
Personal Histories of Collective Trauma after the Second Karabakh War: a series of articles telling the personal stories of Armenians and Azerbaijanis.
This work with trauma can help to give a vision of how to understand others, understand the enemy.Participant in seminar to discuss research
