War Violence and Social Repair of Disorganized Attachments in Africa Victor Igreja

הזמנה להרצאת אורח

Tel Aviv University, Unit of Culture Research

War Violence and Social Repair of Disorganized Attachments in Africa

Victor Igreja*

In the wake of civil wars in Africa collective traumatization constitutes one of the most common effects. War violence claims the lives of many people but also disrupts social and trustful relations in communities of people with close affinities. One of the least studied effects of civil wars is the disruption of cultural representations that also severely impacts upon patterns of generational attachment that are crucial for social reproduction. In this seminar, I will present the results of a longitudinal research conducted in the aftermath of the Mozambican civil war (1976-1992). The goal is to illustrate how the disruption of cultural representations and practices of generational attachment continuously lead to the retraumatization of families twenty years after the end of the civil war.

* Ph.D. in medical anthropology (The University of Leiden). Currently affiliated with the School of Social Sciences at the University of Queensland (Australia). Some of the research results of the Mozambican study were published in the Infant Mental Health Journal; Social Science and Medicine; British Journal of Psychiatry; Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.