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. Understanding the influence of this trauma could then become a starting point for developing new strategies to break the cycle of violence.

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 an understanding of these influences is needed to inform peacebuilding strategy, and that working with societal trauma should be an integral part of peacebuilding activity.

There were two strands to the project: a practical, capacity building strand helping people to manage their own psycho-social and community recovery, and an analytical strand, carrying out and publishing research.

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. The interviews were summarised in an analytical report, and 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.

This practical work has 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 working with their own target groups. This has brought people with different backgrounds into the peacebuilding field, enabling them to contribute to community recovery in their day-to-day work.

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.