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Project

Remembering trauma in between disclosure and silencing: A multiple case study with Kurdish refugee families in Belgium

Research on the psychosocial sequelae of collective violence and forced displacement increasingly investigates the potentially harmful impact of these disruptive life experiences on relational dynamics within refugee families. Meanwhile, studies explore how intra-family processes may constitute protective sources in reversing the adverse impact of traumatization and reconstructing life in exile. In this regard, trauma communication has been identified as an important family dynamic influencing refugee children’s psychosocial adjustment. Yet, findings on how disclosure and silencing are associated with psychosocial wellbeing remain inconsistent. Given this lack of consensus in scholarly literature regarding the role of intra-family trauma communication in post-trauma reconstruction in refugees, this doctoral research had a twofold intention in furthering the understanding of this process. First, it aimed to respond to the rather limited theoretical substantiation of trauma communication in refugee families by embedding this dynamic in a broader conceptual articulation of traumatic memory, narration, and silence. Second, the doctoral study engaged in an empirical exploration of these processes through a multiple-case study with Kurdish refugee families.

The first part of the dissertation drafts the conceptual articulation of traumatic memory and trauma narration in two subsequent chapters. Chapter 1 contributes to a furthered understanding of remembering collective violence in post-conflict settings by scrutinizing the dominant conceptualization of traumatic memory in psychiatric nosology. Building on insights from social memory studies and transcultural trauma research, this chapter broadens the symptomatic framing of memory into a conceptualization that emphasizes its relational, political, moral, and cultural nature. In Chapter 2, this developed understanding of traumatic memory is further specified in the specific context of refugee trauma care. Scrutinizing the predominant notion of trauma narration as autobiographical, restorative process, trauma narration is delineated as a co-constructed process that involves an intricate oscillation between silence and disclosure.

Part two reports on findings of the empirical study that aimed to explore how the oscillation between silence and disclosure implied in remembering trauma operates and is ascribed meaning to in refugee families, and how it is related to broader collective dynamics of community and host society. This empirical exploration involved a small-scale, multiple-case study with Kurdish refugee families (n=5) and participant observation within their diasporic community. Chapter 3 presents a thick description of practices and meaning-making regarding trauma communication in family relationships. Findings illuminate the roles of silencing communication patterns in parent-child relationships and document implicit modes of trauma communication that shed light onto the interwoven nature of personal-familial and collective trauma and loss. Chapter 4 delineates a contextualized analysis of refugee families’ memory practices through locating them within macro-dynamics of intra-community relationships, inter-group tensions between minority communities, and dominant representations of the diasporic community in the host society. Findings support an explorative understanding of cultural and political identifications as meaningful resources in families’ post-trauma reconstruction.

The third part of the dissertation discusses deontological and ethical aspects of studying memory, silence, and narration in refugee families, by explicitly addressing the co-construction of these processes in the relationship between family members and researcher. Chapter 5 draws on a relational conceptualization of memory in scholarly work as a starting point to scrutinize the ways in which the mobilization of relational, moral, collective, and sociopolitical dimensions of remembering within the researcher-participant relationship lead to particular ethical reflections that broaden the scope of dominant deontological guidelines within narrative trauma studies.

A final chapter presents an integrative discussion of the doctoral study’s conceptual, empirical, and methodological contributions and discusses areas for future research.

At the core of this PhD research is the intricate yet fascinating interaction between disclosure and silencing which characterizes the process of remembering trauma. A substantial part of the dissertation consists of a critical review of existing scholarship on traumatic memory and intergenerational trauma communication in the domains of refugee studies, memory studies, Holocaust research, and transcultural psychiatry. A first chapter of the literature review develops a deeper understanding of processes of remembering and forgetting histories of violence in post-conflict communities. Starting from the observation that memory operates at the core of PTSD symptomatology, it is more closely explored how this notion of traumatic memory is conceptualized within PTSD-centered research and interventions. By connecting this conceptualization to findings from social memory studies and transcultural trauma research, the analysis develops into a perspective on memory that moves beyond a symptomatic framing toward an understanding of memory that emphasizes its relational, political, moral, and cultural nature. Post-conflict memory is presented as inextricably embedded in communal relations, involving ongoing trade-offs between individual and collective responses to trauma and a complex negotiation of speech and silence. A second chapter of the literature review draws attention to the process of trauma narration in the particular context of refugee trauma care. While refugees’ narration of traumatic life experiences is most often framed as an autobiographical process in which the disclosure of these experiences is assumed to operate as a central mechanism of recovery, the analysis proposed in this chapter instead emphasizes the complex co-constructed nature of refugee stories. Furthermore, the circular movement between the will to testify and the wish to forget traumatic experiences is further explored. Clinical implications of this broadened understanding are discussed. Given that a comprehensive conceptualization of the intricate interplay between silence and disclosure is still lacking and empirical research on this issue in the context of forced displacement is scarce, the empirical part of this doctoral study addresses the following research questions: (1) How do refugees remember their lived experiences of pre-migration trauma in the context of family relationships? (2) How are such memories talked about or silenced between parents and children, and how can we understand the meaning of this disclosure and silencing within family and community relations? A multiple case study with five Kurdish refugee families was designed, involving extensive participant observation in these families and two parts of data collection: (1) research conversations based on a semi-structured interview guide with parents and children together; and (2) interviews using videotape-assisted recall with the parents separately. The narrative data were analyzed within-case and cross-case, using thematic and dialogic narrative analysis. This analysis results in a thick description of the various modes of trauma communication that are employed in these families. At least two chapters of the dissertation will report on the findings of the empirical study.

Date:1 Jan 2013 →  2 Jun 2017
Keywords:Kurdish refugee families
Disciplines:Education curriculum, Education systems, General pedagogical and educational sciences, Specialist studies in education, Other pedagogical and educational sciences
Project type:PhD project